The Case for Open AV Standards

Executive Summary

The professional AV industry suffers from fragmented, proprietary standards bodies that gate technical knowledge behind membership fees and closed processes. This whitepaper examines the economic incentives that led to this fragmentation, analyzes the costs imposed on integrators and manufacturers, and proposes an open alternative model.

The Current Landscape

Most AV standards today are published by organizations that require paid membership for access. A single manufacturer or integrator may need memberships in half a dozen organizations just to read the specifications needed to design a compliant system.

This creates a multi-layered cost structure:

1. Direct membership fees — often thousands of dollars annually
2. Compliance testing costs — mandatory for certification
3. Training requirements — typically tied to paid courses
4. Update cycles — new revisions require renewed training and testing

The Open Alternative

Open standards follow the model established by the IETF and W3C. Specifications are:

• Freely available — no paywalls, no membership requirements
• Transparently developed — public issue tracking and discussion
• Implementer-driven — written by practitioners for practitioners
• Attribution-preserving — licensed under Creative Commons or similar

Economic Analysis

A mid-size AV integrator serving commercial clients might spend $15,000-$25,000 annually on standards access and testing alone. For a global manufacturer, this figure can exceed $100,000.

These costs are ultimately passed to end clients, inflating project budgets by 2-5% on the standard-compliant component selection alone. Opening the standards removes not just the access fee but the friction of onboarding new team members who need reference material.

Conclusion

Open AV standards lower the barrier to entry for new practitioners, reduce costs across the supply chain, and accelerate innovation by making technical knowledge freely shareable. SANE exists to demonstrate that this model works in practice.