Netgear M4250 Series AV Line Switches – Switching Engineered for AV over IP

As an AV professional, you want to be able use the best equipment possible. That’s why the Netgear M4250 Series AV Line of Switches has features designed specifically for those in the ProAV industry, rather than the IT industry.

This instantly sets them apart from most other switches.

The first thing that stands out about these devices are their design and build quality – this is not your average line switch!

For one — the ports are placed on the back, unlike IT switches where the ports are on the front of the chassis, based on what data centers demand.

The Netgear M4250 series, has status LEDs on the front and ports at the back, in alignment with most ProAV products. That said, you can always reverse mount the device if you prefer front-facing ports.

In this blog, we’ll take a deep dive into all the unique features of the Netgear M4250 Series AV Line Switches, so read on!

What is the Netgear M4250 Series AV Line Switches?

Netgear understood that AV networking combined with multicasting is no easy task. Complex IT technologies were making transitioning to audio video over IP even harder for AV engineers, installers and managers.

Enter the Netgear M4250 Series line…

A completely new series of switches, the Netgear M4250 line is designed and developed for the fast-growing AV over IP market. This line truly combines Netgear’s many years of experience in the networking industry with best practices from AV pros and engineers in the audio/video market.

Key Features of the Netgear M4250 Series AV Line Switches

What are some of the key features of the Netgear M4250 interface that make it stand out for AV Pros?

Above, we mentioned the well-thought-out location of the ports on the back of the switch, but that’s just the start.

The Netgear M4250 series boasts many other key features including:

Power over Ethernet — PoE+ (30 Watts) and Ultra90 PoE++ (90 Watts), excellent for power-hungry AV apps
Widespread 1Gbps Codecs — Standard AV codecs mainly use 1Gbps or 10Gbps per stream, the Netgear M4250 targets widespread 1Gbps codecs
Netgear IGMP Plus — Pre-configuration with IGMP Plus enables plug and play functionality with leading encoders/decoders, helping effortlessly plug in and turn on the M4250, significantly reducing installation times for AV engineers
User-friendly Interface — Netgear’s newly designed UI greatly enhances ease of use for AV professionals
User-Selectable Profiles — The M4250 has front panel color-based AV profiles which can be applied to different ports for the most popular AV platforms including Dante, AES67, Q-SYS, AVB and more, ensuring proper settings for specific AV applications
Auto-adjust Fan Controls — Fans are automatically turned off when the software detects suitable PoE loads or optimal temperatures for fan-less performance, making the M4250 excellent to use for recording studios and conference rooms

Intuitive GUI for AV Installations

Netgear’s line of M4250 switches introduces an AV GUI (graphical user interface) that simplifies profile configurations, significantly reducing setup hours — AV engineers simply need to select a codec, and choose the ports using that codec. That’s it!

Color-based AV profiles can be applied to the different ports
Dante, Q-SYS, AES67 and AVB audio profiles (AVB license sold separately)
NVX, AMX, Q-SYS, NDI, Kramer KDS, Aurora Multimedia, ZeeVee, Atlona, Dante, etc. video profile
Audio / video / control mixed profiles

Instant configuration of NDI^®

NDI enables broadcast-quality audio/video to be relayed across an IP network, eliminating complex infrastructure requirements, network equipment and expensive point-to-point connections. Hundreds of manufacturers have adopted NDI, and broadcast and recording studios, corporate AV, houses of worship, and more can all benefit from the novel NDI 5 codec.

See how it works below: