Wow, last week's column was awesome (there's that word again). Not only did I apparently spark a lot of discussion in the industry but I got over 80 e-mails asking me when, how, where, why and who. OK, 80 may not seem like a lot, but any writers in the ProAV market will tell you that's actually a high number.

So, I thought I would take this opportunity to clear some things up.

1. No, this is NOT a bad thing: IT (Information Technology) and AV have been courting each other for years. It all started with Crestron and Panja when they both introduced the concept with control systems almost three years ago. It's been validated by projector manufacturers and, soon, interfacing, switching and distribution gear manufacturers (pay attention to INFOCOMM) and then you'll see Cisco, Lucent and the rest at least acknowledging this market.

2. No, it will not happen over night: It took the LCD projector almost five years to begin to break the display barrier. Extron, Proxima/InFocus, Altinex and Inline have all had RGB to Cat5 systems for over a year and they still measure barely a blip on the radar screen in volume. InFocus' ProjectionLink, probably the most popular system, costs less than half the price of almost everyone's traditional switching systems and, still, it's not necessarily a "trend". So, networking AV gear will be one, of many, ways to build integrated systems. The traditional RGB-analog methods for routing signals will be around for a long time to come.

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