LG Business Solutions and Canadian software company Userful will introduce an end-to-end AV-over-IP solution. The collaboration will combine Userful’s Visual Networking Platform and LG webOS Signage platform to optimize display networks for control rooms, digital signage, and video walls.
“Together, LG and Userful have created a digital display network management platform that can both simplify and empower LG installations to enable security, content delivery speed, and flexibility in content delivery and display deployment,” said Gianni Restaino, LG Business Solutions USA’s vice president of engineering.
As a result of the Userful-LG collab, digitally-integrated enterprises in key markets around the world can now deploy IT-managed services from virtually any source to webOS displays with advanced streaming capabilities, flexibility in deployment, and NIST-caliber security.
“With the acceleration of new services and digital transformation, there is a clear need for a centralized platform to manage visual services in combination with data, IoT, and AI,” Restaino added. “Userful’s software-defined platform uniquely integrates all of these, and delivers them through private/public cloud servers to webOS signage displays optimized for the network, enabling AV services across an entire organization.”
The companies jointly recognized the growth potential of AV-over-IP in 2019 and began developing a custom, lightweight software solution that runs on top of LG’s webOS Signage platform for flat-panel and direct-view LED displays, focusing on simplicity, reliability, flexibility, and security. The potential market growth is enormous, with applications ranging from mission-critical displays and enterprise-wide digital signage networks to corporate lobby video walls and large conference room displays.
“The industry underestimates the difficulty of optimizing traditional AV products for an IT environment, especially with network distribution challenges and demanding enterprise applications,” said Userful CEO John Marshall. “The AV industry has historically worked with NAB codecs and AV standards, focusing on the highest-quality AV over cabled HDMI technology – the addition of multi-protocol-driven networks is an entirely new challenge. That LG was able to integrate such IT protocols into its core firmware, at the very heart of its media pipeline, is beyond impressive. Simply put, this solution simplifies the job of IT and can reduce installation and maintenance complexity.”
