Genesis Technologies is a company with a mission: to inform and to help its partners, the AV integrators, and their clientele, to get the best out of the latest high-speed AVover-IP technology. It provides superior-quality AV systems to the high-end residential and luxury leisure marine markets, including some of the world’s biggest superyachts. These are mainly used for entertainment, but also for on-board PA systems.
Also, as a company that is passionate about great technology, Genesis only wants the best for its own internal network. These requirements led it to choose the NETGEAR M4300 Series of SDVoE-compliant AV-over-IP switches, which Genesis’ CTO Boas Hochstrasser has described as: “The way to go”, based on performance, cost and ease of deployment and use.
Established at the end of the 20th Century and headquartered in Lyss, Switzerland, Genesis has always been a ‘technology pioneer’ in the AV distribution market. It consistently looks ahead and optimizing what is already available to meet the specific requirements of its clients’ projects. Besides providing hardware and software, Genesis collaborates closely with its community of specialist installers and integrators, offering consultancy services, training and support for each phase of their projects. In its home country, Genesis works with residential AV installers. Plus, throughout Europe, it has gained a strong track record for delivering superior quality AV systems both to the residential and marine markets.
THE CHALLENGE
Genesis focuses on bringing the best possible technology to its customers and on making it easy for them to understand the benefits. One example is a video-wall in its Swiss HQ, that shows training course attendees and other visitors the difference between 1 GbE and 10 GbE AV-over-IP, based on the SDVoE protocol, using AV devices from the well-known hardware vendor ZeeVee.
The company has also built its own high-quality in-house backbone network, which is fundamental for supporting a variety of AV protocols and end-point equipment from different AV manufacturers, as well as for all usual office data traffic. Everything flows on one single physical network infrastructure.
Having reliable, fast and high-performance switches is therefore fundamental to Genesis Technologies, particularly to support the growing use of SDVoE-compliant AV-overIP technology. Although yet a young market, AV-over-Ip is expected to grow fast with customers of all kinds making the transition. Boas Hochstrasser, CTO of Genesis Technologies, says, “We switched to NETGEAR because it has introduced a SDVoE 10GbE switch for a reasonable price.”
SOLUTION:
“Thanks to the increase in bandwidth with the M4300 switches, we were finally able to truly demonstrate the ZeeVee 10 GbE SDVoE solutions that we distribute. We have been able to show the difference between compressed 4K streaming over 1GbE and uncompressed 4K video streaming over 10GbE using the SDVoE protocol.”
Divided over two racks, the three M4300 series switches run in stacked mode and provide a 10GbE connection to SDVoE encoders and decoders from ZeeVee, as well as to other equipment, including computers, access points, phones and Dante devices. “You can combine up to eight units in a stack and for its price, the M4300 scales well,” says Boas.
Installation started in January 2019 and was completed in four days (it would have been less, but several days were lost due to inaccurate information from one of the AV hardware vendors). The Genesis Technologies team installed the three M4300 switches themselves and once NETGEAR’s approach to stacking was understood, the process of switching on the fly became straightforward, without any visible downtime. “After configuring the VLAN using the NETGEAR switches, we plugged in the SDVoE equipment and it all just worked. The rest of the company was not aware of any noticeable breaks during the transition. Whenever we have had any queries, they have escalated to NETGEAR tier-three support, which has been very good.”
RESULTS:
Boas Hochstrasser describes some of the business benefits of moving to the M4300 switches; “Being able to stack switches together, with one interface to configure the complete system, is a huge time saver and makes administration a lot easier.”
“The web interface also makes it simple to set up the switches: there is no need for years of expensive training. The system simply runs, which is the best. You plug in the switches, set them up and forget about them.” Genesis Technologies has saved time and money since they switched to NETGEAR. “With other switches, firmware updates and troubleshooting took hours. With NETGEAR, after an update, everything works as before. The pricing is also very good for 10GbE switches and you get a lot of throughput for the money.”
FUTURE:
Based on its own experience, Genesis Technologies is now emphasizing the advantages of the M4300 switches to their partnering AV integrator. “We can upgrade customers to 10 GbE for a reasonable cost and bring the full quality of SDVoE to them at an affordable price.” Boas concludes, “To have unlimited, uncompressed 4K transmission, you need 10 GbE and the M4300 series is the way to go.”
A graduate of DeVry Institute of Technology, Doug has been in the Technology industry since 1976 and actively oversees Fearing’s daily operations. Along with his wife, Lois, and three others, Doug started Fearing’s in a 600 square-foot facility in Portage, Wisconsin. In the 25 years since, the company has grown to over 30 employees with offices in Madison and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Doug likes to say he’s a “TV Technician with a dream� going back to his history with the family’s original business-Fearing’s TV and Appliance.
Doug values time with family, watersports, hiking, snowshoeing and skiing. In addition to being a devoted member of his church, Doug serves as Board President for Kinship Mentoring of Columbia County, Board member of Schools for Haiti and Scripture Chair of the Gideons-Portage camp.
A graduate of MATC, Lois oversees Fearing’s daily book keeping along with various HR responsibilities.
Along with Doug, Lois is deeply connected to community outreach, serving as a Board member and Fundraising Committee Chairperson for Kinship Mentoring of Columbia County. She also serves on the Schools for Haiti Fundraising committee. In addition, Lois’ ongoing passion and commitment to provide care for the elderly comes from her 10-year history of working in a Reedsburg, Wisconsin Nursing home.
Lois enjoys singing, hiking, sunny days on the pontoon, and spending time with her 4 grandchildren.
Ehren drives Fearing’s technology by continually seeking out trends to enhance capabilities while supporting Sales, Engineering and Installation teams. Throughout his years with Fearing’s, Ehren’s talent and vision have joined forces to create a wide variety of projects and strategic solutions that exceed expectation.
Ehren loves music, family time, movies, nature, sustainability efforts and electric vehicles.
With 10 years with Fearing’s and over twice that long in the industry, Ben continues to lead, coordinate, and develop the Commercial AV team.
By consistently delivering an outstanding experience and outcome, Ben contributes to the Fearing’s legacy of long-lasting partnerships that truly make a difference. Whatever the Commercial AV need may be, Ben and team deliver at the highest level.
Ben is an avid fisherman and photographer. He enjoys coaching his sons and other youth.
Chris has been with Fearing’s for 20 years and in the industry for over 2 decades. As a Certified leader in Sales Acceleration and trained in EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating Systems), Chris successfully utilizes his skills to lead the Fearing’s Salesforce. Chris and team are motivated and driven to develop new client partnerships while continuing to reinforce loyal long-term relationships with ongoing Service excellence.
Married for 19 years with 3 children, Chris enjoys skiing, hiking, fishing, boating, hunting, camping and golf. He’s also been actively involved as a Youth Football and Softball coach for his family and others.
