Advantages and disadvantages of Audio visual communication

Audiovisual (AV) means possessing both a sound and a visual component, such as slide-tape
presentations, films, television programs, church services and live theater productions.

Business presentations are also often audiovisual. In a typical presentation, the presenter
provides the audio by speaking, and supplements it with a series of images projected onto a
screen, either from a slide projector, or from a computer connected to a projector using
presentation software.Audiovisual service providers frequently offer web streaming, video
conferencing and live broadcast services.Computer-based audiovisual equipment is often
used in education, with many schools and universities installing projection equipment and
using interactive whiteboard technology.Another audiovisual expression is the visual
presentation of sound

The main advantage of audio-visual communication is the ability for one to convey what they
are communicating in an effective way. There are two main types of audio-visual
communication, live communication at an event and communication through published
content. The use of audio-visual aids can help one communicate in both instances:

Sound: the most important part of communication is for the listeners at a live event to hear
what is being said, if they can’t hear what the speaker is saying clearly it makes the
communication rather useless.

Visual Aids: the use of presentations on a screen can aid with communication greatly and can
provide another platform for one to share their thoughts and ideas with an audience. It is
much more interesting for the audience if they can view and comprehend what is being said
through means other than speech. Visual aids, such as graphs, diagrams and photographs,
also help display information concisely and help the audience retain the information after the
event.

Video Content: videos are a really great way to communicate something to an audience, they
are able to clearly inform the viewer in a concise and fun way, much like visual aids. Being
able to deploy videos of recorded events as well as videos in general definitely helps with
user engagement or distributing content to a much wider viewership in the case of
advertising.

Recording and Broadcasting: AV systems can usually support the recording and live
broadcasting of events. This can be very useful for engaging with a wider audience by
providing the content to people who are not able to be at an event in person.

Lighting: through lighting one can make an event much more fit for purpose, whether it be
stage lighting for productions or lighting in a filmed video. Lighting can help the viewers
focus on what you want them to and makes an event much more interesting as opposed to
having no lighting variation.

Signage: the use of signage around an event can be a great way to communicate to the
attendees, providing the latest updates (through a live Twitter feed for example), photos and
information (such as social media links or the schedule for the day) to them live. From
experience Planet eSign is a really great solution for this.

And there are many more examples of audio-visual communication, such as posters, video-
conferencing and telecommunication that you can research the benefits of in your own time.

However, the underlying disadvantage of audio-visual is by far the costs and expertise
associated with developing an infrastructure necessary to provide these aids. It goes without
saying that if you want a high quality AV system you will have to pay a fairly large amount
of money. The pricing for this can get as high as six-figures depending on the size of the
system you are trying to implement. Maintenance and management are also other costly
factors, in many cases the solutions implemented do not run themselves and require someone
to be present on-site in order to run the system - especially if it is a hall. The cost of
maintaining a system can be very high for audio-visual communication systems, especially if
using projectors, which tend to break or require maintenance (e.g. replacing bulbs) very
often. Also remember that you need space to install an audio-visual system and in some cases
the system may require special requirements such as cable routing, installation of ceiling
lighting, mounting of wall speakers or a dedicated audio-visual desk to name a few.

One of the other disadvantages with audio-visual communication is the high standards
associated with it. If an AV system is not working properly because it is a cheap solution that
has cut corners, it is nearly as useless as having no system in the first place. You only have to
look as far as the classroom to see this in reality; if a projector in the classroom is
experiencing issues or the sound from the computer is not working, the teacher will most
likely just not use the whole system altogether. When implementing an AV solution it is
important to ensure that it works and it works well, the last thing people want is to have a
system that requires an expert to use and manage on a day-to-day basis. Even with audio-
visual communication through published content, people expect the content be of very high
quality, for example video content is expected to be in 1080p and have clear sound without
any background noises. People do not want to see a live broadcast that is having buffering
issues or a video recording where the filming is unstable and the person filming takes time to
move the camera.

In conclusion, audio-visual communication is great at getting across information with clarity,

however, it generally comes at a high cost to execute properly and effectively.