g/av • Posted by u/crestron_carl • 1 days ago

Crestron CP4 vs DM-NVX for a 12-room campus — total cost vs flexibility?

Pricing out an AV upgrade for a university, 12 conference rooms, existing Cat6A infrastructure. Currently they have HDMI over HDBaseT in each room (3rd party, failing).

Option A: Crestron DM-NVX encoders/decoders (NVX-360 / NVX-D80) over the existing IP network — about $68k in hardware.
Option B: Traditional DM matrix switcher (DM-MD32X32) with DM 8G cabling in a central rack — about $54k but requires some new cabling runs.

The IP route is more flexible for future expansion. The matrix is simpler to maintain. This is a single IT department managing the whole campus.

What would you do?

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u/fiber_fred • 1 days ago

One consideration: make sure your existing Cat6A switches are managed with IGMP snooping and can handle the multicast load from 12 simultaneous NVX streams. An unmanaged or poorly configured switch fabric will cause issues. If the network wasn't designed for multicast video, you may need some switch upgrades.

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u/av_wizard • 1 days ago

DM-NVX all day in 2026. The matrix approach is looking more and more like legacy — support is there but Crestron's investment is clearly in the NVX IP ecosystem. More importantly, expansion at this university is almost guaranteed and adding a NVX endpoint is a shipping box and a config, not a field crew and cabling.

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u/dante_dave • 1 days ago

Agree with the above. Also: DM-NVX over existing Cat6A means your IT department can manage it within their existing network monitoring tools. A DM matrix is a black box that only AV folks can troubleshoot. For a single IT department managing a campus, network-based infrastructure is better for their long-term support model.