Volume 10, Issue 24 — December 30, 2013
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Making More Money As an Integrator
By Mark Coxon rAVe Blogger
I remember a few years back, before I started in social media and blogging, I was very active in some AV industry chats and forums. One of those forums used to ask questions of established industry veterans about industry practices and standards. As you may imagine, there were sometimes few responses, as it seems that some in our industry see helping others as potentially threatening to their own business. However, there were a handful of integrators always willing to share their experiences to help newer companies avoid some of the pitfalls they encountered along the way.
One question that inevitably came up, was as an AV integrator, what should I charge? Of course the follow up to that was “do you mean for equipment or for labor?” Many times they wanted to know both. I know at many of the firms I have worked at, there were standard labor rates depending on the type of work. Basic cabling may be $60-$75 per hour, whereas interconnecting components may bring $100-$125 and hour, and programming between $150 and $200. Then in high end niche AV work, I saw day rates of $2,000 per day for programmers and PMs at times. So the question is, are these rates in line with what firms should be charging for work? The answer is that it depends. In fact, I think a main issue with many smaller integrators is that sometimes they don’t know if they are making money on a job at all. Everything is bid to show a profit, but at the end of the year, the business made hardly any money. How is that?
Forget the phrase “Fixed Costs Go To Zero.”
If you took microeconomics at any point in time, you may remember the phrase “Fixed Costs Go To Zero.” If you are a smaller integrator, forget you ever heard that. The theory is true, if your business has a fixed cost to operate, as you sell more and more services, the those costs are averaged across the number of jobs you do — meaning if you did a high volume of work, those fixed costs are virtually $0 per job. However, at low volume, fixed costs are REAL and not $0 at all.
Fixed costs make a difference.
Lets say you have a small integration business. As the owner you do all the sales and you PM all of your own jobs, and for that you pay yourself $75,000 per year, a modest salary for a business owner. You have an admin who makes a small wage of $12 an hour as well. You have a small office/warehouse that costs you about $830 month, one truck for installation work, and then normal insurance, licenses, utilities, etc.
As a small company, you do jobs that average around $6,500 and can be completed with two techs in about a day. That’s $5,000 in hardware, $1,200 in labor (16 hours of install at $75 an hour), and $300 for a couple hours of PM to get the crew started in the AM, and do the client handover at the end of the day.
You average 12 of these jobs a month and you do a little under $1,000,000 in revenue per year. By all accounts, you should be doing pretty well. I mean you’re taking about 22 percent margin on the hardware, and charging $75 an hour for techs that cost you about $32.50 ($25 and hour plus benefits/fringe). That should be netting you 32 percent blended margin on these projects and generating over $300,000 for the business right? Not quite, as your fixed costs come back into play. About $160,000 per year, or half of that “profit” you estimated when bidding the job. That brings your margins down to about 15 percent, and we haven’t let the tax man take his piece yet. How much do you think is left?
Now, take into account that many times this same owner matches online hardware pricing and takes 10 points on hardware, or doesn’t charge the client for his 2 hours of PM time at $150 an hour like he should. You do both of those things and your bid will still say you’re making 18 percent “profit” but in reality, with your fixed costs in play, your business just lost $18,000 for the year! (At least you don’t owe any taxes though, huh?)
So what is an integrator to do?
Sell products at higher margins. This is the least viable, and the old school of thought, but in the era of Amazon, good luck with trying to make a ton more on hardware.
Reduce costs. You could move out of the office and work from your home and truck, or ditch the administrative assistant (poor soul), and try to handle all phone calls, ordering, AR and AP on your own. This is a knee jerk reaction many integrators fall into, but it makes maintaining the business hard and growing it near impossible. Viable but may not work the way you hope.
Move upstream. Doubling the job size to $10,000 in hardware would nearly triple your profit dollars and bring your margins up about 5 points as well. This may mean new sales strategies or manufacturer relationships as well. It’s not an easy task but a viable option.
Charge more by justifying the premium with a reputation for quality and service that justifies the cost. This is a very viable option for negotiated work as opposed to RFP/RFQ bid responses, as in those situations quality of service can be low on the totem pole, if it is considered at all. For a small integrator doing referral and repeat business, this is a viable option.
Do more of the same small jobs. If you add a sales person and a truck, you add a little to your fixed costs in salary, lease payments and insurances, but doing 24 jobs instead of 12 every month would triple your profit dollars and add 8.5 points to your margins. (Remember you only pay techs when they are on site, so they are not a fixed cost). This takes some work and is viable, given you are willing to invest in the initial additional fixed costs to get there.
Sell monthly support services. Security companies charge clients $35 plus every month for monitoring services that cost them $5-10 per month. It doesn’t matter whether you make that $25 through security monitoring, AV system maintenance, remote system monitoring, etc. If you apply that $25 per month to your 144 clients for a whole year, that’s a quick $3,600 per month in recurring monthly revenue. That adds $43k to your year end profit, but also offsets those monthly fixed costs on a month where things may be slow so you can still keep the lights on and make payroll (both important things). This is what most smart and profitable integrators are doing today in the face of lower product margins.
Be more efficient. Use better wire crimping tools, better TV and projector mounts, more reliable HDMI cables, etc that keep your technicians moving forward and not coming back to troubleshoot work. Every hour they spend mitigating problems due to using sub standard, “value engineered” products costs you profit dollars that you can’t recoup in the end. It is fairly easy though to bid the better products up front and maintain product margins at the sales phase.
Stop giving things away!!!! Matching Best Buy or Amazon and giving away your time to PM jobs at no charge is just bad business. Stop doing it. It is fine every once in a while, if you have a reason to believe it will pay dividends, but most times the guy beating you up on price and demanding you be there at 8 p.m. at night at no charge is never going to hire you again. He doesn’t value your services because he expects them for free and he will expect the same if you do make the mistake of working with him again. This can stop some immediate bleeding and give you more peace of mind as you start to fire clients before they hire you in the future. Sell what’s in your head… sounds familiar… hmmm. (Click here to see why.)
At the end of the day, integrators need to look at what it costs every day to keep the doors open, and select a business strategy that addresses the fixed costs up front. They should be looking at the profit in every potential job and be asking, “Does that cover all of my costs for the amount of days that this job will take to complete and still allow the business to make money?” Leave a Comment
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Gaming the AV Industry: Lift Off!
By Matt Cooper Lead Designer
I’m sticking to my promise, and this will be my first article featuring specific ways to add value to your game-centric home theater setup. It may actually be too specific, in that you’ll have to do some custom woodwork until and unless an AV furniture company starts selling similar products. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
When it comes to console placement, there have been two main ways to go about it: rackmount or placing it in an ungainly pile near an HDMI wall input. For 99 percent of AV equipment, rack-mounting is the cleanest and most professional way to deal with source equipment. Game consoles are a unique exception — they frequently require manual interaction. Inserting game discs, manual resets and the plugging and un-plugging of peripherals. If the rack is located in a different room or hidden away in some way, the constant up and down is not ideal. The other issue with remote location difficulty comes from the game motion sensors. Currently, there are no extension solutions for next generation console cameras, and you will be limited to the length of that cable to the front of the room; The Wii U is the exception to this.
One more reason to keep the equipment accessible is that many game enthusiasts LIKE the equipment. It’s analogous — although on a different financial plane — to people who buy stereo loudspeakers, high-end turntables and tube amplifiers that are standalone sources of pride.
On the other end of the game integration spectrum, I’ve seen several setups that involve an HDMI and audio port wall plate located near the stage or a wall on a bookshelf. This is closer to ideal, but a pile of cords and controllers really lacks professionalism and looks like an afterthought. It also does not leave much room for custom integration in a way that adds value that you can bill on an invoice.
My solution — a custom rising stage platform. It’s a idea very similar to the motorized flat-panel mounts that you can integrate into credenzas and the foot of beds. The placement will enable sensor cables to easily reach below the screen. I did some searching, and there are not many motorized AV mounts meant to deal with flat equipment, which makes sense. You wouldn’t want your amplifier to rise out of furniture because there’s no point when you can just use control and IR. So, I looked to a different market and discovered sewing machine electric and pneumatic rising mounts. They let people integrate the machines into desks and free up the space when not in use. These mounts are about 12 inches high, so if you are customizing a stage at the front of the room, you’re going to have to take that height into account.
I would recommend making the platform wide enough to accommodate a console and charging stands for controllers. Run power underneath the stage, and make a run to the rack with HDMI and optical audio; maybe flat-mount some AV and USB outlets in the bottom plate. The really tricky bit is going to take some woodworking skill. You’ll need two pieces of wood stained or painted to match the stage surface and four posts (your choice of materials). If you can’t match the stage surface, I would make it an obvious contrasting color. The stage itself will then need a very careful hole cut out with a jigsaw. How much labor does this come out to? I would conservatively estimate three hours of shop-time and four hours in the theater. How much you could invoice for depends on the clients, but I feel you could make a healthy profit.
The resulting product is flexible and turns the console into a theater showpiece. Scaling this up to four side-by-side lifts wouldn’t increase your time costs by much and improve what you could bill the customer for. The other upside for the customer is they can switch out the console as new hardware is released in the coming years. Currently there are no comparable products in the rack and AV furniture spaces — but I think this would be a great product to offer commercially, frankly. I feel the best way to sell this option would be to add one to your demo rooms, as it would be really visual and tactile offering.
So what say you, reader? Am I way off base, or is this a value-add that you could pitch to game-obsessed customers? Leave a Comment
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AV People: John Pidgeon of Draper, Inc.
By Molly Stillman rAVe Director of Marketing & New Business Development
To say that the AV industry is in the blood of John Pidgeon, president of Draper, Inc. is an understatement. He got into the industry simply by being born.
Draper is a family business through and through. It was established 111 years ago by Pidgeon’s great grandfather, Luther Draper. It’s been managed, in turn, by his son-in-law, Elmer Pidgeon, then Luther Pidgeon (John’s father). John is the fourth generation to run the business — and the fifth generation, John’s cousin Chris Broome, is also represented at Draper.
“I started working [at Draper] full time on July 6th, 1968. On that same day, my cousin Mike, also began working here,” said John. “Since that time I have been largely involved in sales and marketing while Mike has been responsible for engineering and production. Mike is currently the VP of manufacturing and his son Chris is responsible for Draper’s architectural sales.”
But John’s work for Draper began much earlier than that, really — and on a much smaller scale. “I was 12 years old and I began to come to work on Saturday mornings with my father. And while he worked in the office, I would mow the yard outside. It took about four hours and I got paid about $3. That was my first job here at Draper,” said John.
There was never any pressure or coercion from his father or grandfather or any other family members for John to come work for Draper. It was just a decision he made on his own when he was in college. When it came time to make the decision, it was a no brainer for John and he hasn’t regretted it for a single day since then.
“We have been fortunate that as a family business, we have always gotten along and respected each other’s opinions,” explained John. “We have not had any of the difficulties that some family businesses have.
“I like the fact that we have an excellent staff — the majority of whom live within a 15 minute drive or less of Draper. We are all a close knit family (literally) and by and large we get along and enjoy working with each other.” John has always instilled the importance of having a comfortable, friendly place to people to come to work every day.
John’s love for Draper and his commitment to AV is so evident in everything that he does. “The thing I like most about working in AV is the opportunity to work with an awful lot of nice people. I have always felt that from day one,” he said. “And I also enjoy the fact that this industry changes constantly. I have never gotten bored… At Draper, we’ve adapted successfully to the changes in technology over the years. It’s been important to me and to this company that we continue to provide good quality products and good service.”
John’s passion for AV, his love of the company, and the drive to provide excellent customer service has become infectious among his colleagues. He exhibits much of what Draper is about. He’s friendly, unassuming, and doesn’t have a lot of ego. “We try to be reasonable, fair, and honest. And I want to treat my employees and my customers the way I would like to be treated,” said John.
Outside of his work at Draper, John is a family man through and through. He and his wife Jane have been married 30 years and they have two daughters, Anna and Ellen. “[Jane and I] grew up on opposite ends of the same block and we’ve known each other since we were five and six years old,” recalled John. “We were high school sweethearts and then we went our separate ways after we graduated from college. About 15 years later, we became reacquainted and the rest is history.” Together, John and Jane spend much of their time enjoying life, golfing and traveling.
John also is extremely dedicated to his local community of Spiceland and Henry County in Indiana. He’s the president of the Board of Trustees of Henry County Hospital and has been for the past 20 years. He was selected by the Henry County commissioners for that position. “Being involved in the healthcare industry has been fascinating,” said John. “As you can imagine, it’s extremely complex. It changes extremely rapidly. That has been quite an education for me.”
In addition to his work on the hospital board, he has also been a member for the past 25 years of the Henry County Community Foundation — a charitable foundation that exists for the betterment of Henry County, Ind. The foundation helps to fund a lot of organizations that exist to try to make Henry County a better place- – and to have played a small part in that has been gratifying for John.
John knows and understands the importance of making a positive lasting impact on both your community and your company. “One thing that I am always saying to any new salesperson at Draper — and this is by no means unique to AV industry — it’s true in any industry and any job, is always do what you say you will do,” said John. “We have all known sales people who are quick to pat you on the back and tell you they’ll take care of it and forget it as they walk out the door. I try to stress to our sales people — if you tell a customer you’re doing to do something — make sure you do it. It’s simple advice.”
Sometimes the simplest advice is the best advice. Leave a Comment
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Media Servers Never Worked Out, And That’s Good
By Lee Distad rAVe Columnist
There are those who say that the greatest curse is remembering.
Occasionally, I’ll go back into the archive on my hard drives of AV articles I’ve written in years past and browse. And I cringe when I read stories and editorials I wrote where, with the perspective of time, I can see that I was painfully and often hilariously wrong.
Here’s a perfect example: The headline of a story I wrote in 2008 reads “Why Home Servers Are the Future of Networked Entertainment.”
Well, as it happens, they weren’t and aren’t.
Oh, but I made many convincing arguments. I pointed out how that year at CEDIA Expo there were 23 exhibitors in the media server category vs. 12 in 2007.
I also pointed out that falling prices in memory would impact the growth of affordable brands. I hypothesized and used a clever metaphor, which is that while media servers were once in the Rolls-Royce price range, they were now trickling down to the Mercedes or Lexus price range, and wondered how much further it would be until we saw Toyota pricing, where most residential AV clients could have one.
And yet, here we are in 2013, five years later, and by all appearances media servers as a category remain a barely populated backwater on the AV highway.
Why is that, do you suppose?
There are a bunch of reasons, but let’s start with two: streaming and home networks.
Back in 2008, none of us really had a grasp of how much the bandwidth to people’s homes would explode over the next five years.
I know, because every time I wrote a story that suggested that streaming would become a big deal I received a deluge of hatemail and angry comments from know-it-all busybodies tripping all over themselves to refute me.
“Never happen!”, they chirped, “Yadda, yadda, too much bandwidth, yadda, yadda, Last Mile, yadda yadda.”
Fast forward, and we’re awash in bandwidth, not just on via copper cable networks, but over also through mobile wireless networks too. Here in Canada, vertically integrated carrier Bell hypes subscriber access to Bell Cable HD network programing via their smartphones as a selling feature. The capabilities of people’s home networks have rendered a dedicated media server redundant.
Who needs what basically amounts to an overpriced PC with HDMI outputs when the integration capabilities to put AV equipment like surround recievers and home computing together have become so simple? Your AVR can talk to your PC or Mac, and vice versa, both can connect to your AppleTV and you can control all of it with your iPad.
All that bandwidth and the growing sophistication of people’s residential AV/IT systems have given rise to the dominance of Netflix, AppleTV, Hulu and all the others, and sounded the death knell of dedicated servers.
Ironically, one of the points I made in that old article that underlined how media servers would take over was one of convenience: how accessing your movies and TV shows with a few button-presses is so much less tedious than having to deal with physical media. After all, opening a box and putting a disc into a player is a hassle (although, a First World Problem if I’ve ever seen one).
Really though, is there anything easier than surfing for content via a streaming service?
I know that streaming still has its critics. My friend Igor Kivritsky, owner of Vancouver’s HiFi Centre, and who’s always good for an acerbic quote has gone on at length that streaming isn’t good enough for serious videophiles, which is why his store still backs Kaleidescape. But for everyone else, “OK” HD and sound quality appears to be good enough, which is why streaming has achieved dominance. Leave a Comment
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Netflix to Lead 4K Content Streaming Push, Will Start With House of CardsAccording to a recent interview at Stuff with Netflix Chief Product Officer Neil Hunt, Netflix will stream the second season of its popular TV show House of Cards in 4K to select Smart TVs (brands to be announced at CES) next spring. The TV show’s second season has already been shot in 4K and is being edited now for a Feb. 14, 2014 debut.
Hunt tells Stuff: “We’re one of the few folk working all the way through from soup to nuts – we’ve got the original content production on one end, and we’re working closely with the CE manufacturers on the other end, and we’ve got the whole delivery pipeline in between. So I think we can be instrumental in beginning the shift of production towards 4K.”
At the moment, this would be one of the few ways to watch native 4K content in your home. Even though multiple 4K TVs are available on the market, most rely on upscaling existing content, such as a Blu-ray Disc, to 4K resolution. Sony, who conveniently also has a movie studio, has a 4K media player that streams its own movies and other limited 4K content.
Netflix plans to stream the 4K content by using a new compression standard, H.265 aka HEVC, which supposedly much more efficient than H.264. Hunt tells Stuff: ”We’re pushing forward with new encoding technology – we’ll be using H.265, which is colloquially known as HEVC, instead of AVC H.264. We think with that we’re going to be delivering in the 10-16Mbps range – about 15Mbps is probably what we should think of.”
This is significant in that now a second content provider and heavyweight is working to provide 4K content via streaming solutions, even though that will require more work to become totally feasible, rather than moving toward 4K physical media such as 4K Blu-ray discs. We’ve known physical media was on its way out for awhile, but if 4K content ends up only being primarily available via streaming, then that will really be its death knell. Leave a Comment
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Control4 CEO Will West ResignsControl4′s long-time Chairman (10 years) and co-founder, Will West, resigned last Monday — two days before Christmas.
Will, who was the company’s chairman of the board of directors and its chief strategy officer, made a ton of money with Control4. No other company in our industry has been so perfectly groomed for an IPO — and it was always planned that way (Control4 went public in August of this year). Will and Eric Anderson, his co-founder, set up and built Control4 to be the consumer version of what AMX was in the ProAV market — in fact, they both came from AMX. They left to start PHAST Corporation (which was later purchased by AMX and is what caused AMX to change its name to Panja — remember that?).
Eric and Will went on to found STSN, now known as iBAHN, (the hotel industry’s first high-speed internet provider for hotel room guests) and after selling that company, they founded Control4.
Control4, founded in 2003, is known for delivering affordable automation and control of lighting, music, video, HVAC, security and energy management systems to homes and small businesses. Control4 products are sold through both custom integrators and retail outlets.
West is succeeded by company president and CEO Martin Plaehn, who will step into the role as chairman.
Control4 is here. Leave a Comment
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Cisco’s Dirk Schlesinger to Deliver Opening Keynote at ISE 2014Integrated Systems Events announced this week that Dr. Dirk Schlesinger, the global lead for manufacturing industries of Cisco Consulting Services, will present the opening keynote address of ISE 2014. Schlesinger’s address, “Kick-Starting the Market for Building Automation,” will give attendees an exclusive insight into how a new cross-industry initiative set up by Cisco, ABB, Bosch and LG will transform the world of smart building technology by offering a common standard for data exchange across multiple appliances and disciplines.
“In October 2013, Cisco, ABB, Bosch and LG signed a memorandum of understanding to explore the development of a common, open and discrimination-free platform to unite diverse services such as lighting control, energy management, security, healthcare and, not least, audiovisual entertainment and communication,” Schlesinger said. “In my opening keynote address at ISE 2014, I will explain how this platform will enable new business models, giving equipment manufacturers, software developers, service providers, systems integrators and other businesses in the ecosystem the tools they need to kick-start the market for home and building automation.”
Existing protocols will be used wherever possible. Once the operating company for the platform has been incorporated, the aim is that compatible appliances will communicate with each other over radio networks such as Wi-Fi and Zigbee, and over other wired connections such as KNX. “Customer premise equipment” within a building would then manage all the individual appliances and create a secure Internet link to cloud-based services, with any unit being able to perform this function, regardless of manufacturer, provided it runs on software that satisfies the relevant standard. The initiative is planning a mid-2015 launch across Europe, with the platform being made available to developers in 2014.
The keynote will take place at 6 p.m. on Mon., Feb. 3, 2014 in the forum of the Amsterdam RAI. ISE’s Opening Reception will follow. Both are free for all registered attendees of ISE. For more information or to register for ISE 2014, click here. Leave a Comment
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DisplaySearch: Growing TV Sizes Boost Overall Display Market The average size of LCD TVs is on the rise, a trend that continues to be a driving force in global TFT LCD flat-panel-display (FPD) demand. According to the NPD DisplaySearch Quarterly Worldwide FPD Shipment and Forecast Report, growth in TFT LCD area demand will increase 9 percent, from 141 million m² in 2013 to 154 million m² in 2014. Key to area demand growth is TV, and TFT LCD panel demand for TV is expected to grow from 228 million units in 2013 to 241 million in 2014, with demand for panels larger than 50” growing even faster, from 27 million units in 2013 to 32 million in 2014.
“The increasing size of LCD TVs plays a key role in boosting overall panel area demand, especially when notebook PCs and LCD monitors are facing declines,” said David Hsieh, vice president of the greater China market for NPD DisplaySearch. “Aggressive promotions aimed at larger sizes, along with the effect of 4K TV, are helping to encourage consumer demand for larger TVs. Due to this increased demand, panel supply could tighten in 2014.”
Table 1: TFT LCD and AMOLED Area Demand Growth
Source: NPD DisplaySearchQuarterly Worldwide FPD Shipment and Forecast Report
Growing Display Demand Also Forecast for Large Monitors, Mobile Phones, and Tablet PCs
Although the overall desktop monitor market is shrinking, demand for large-sized panels is also affecting this segment. Demand for LCD monitor panels that are 23” and larger is expected to grow from 45 million in 2013 to 52 million in 2014. In addition, tablet-PC panel demand area is forecast to increase from nearly 6 million m² in 2013 to nearly 8 million m² in 2014. “Apple may introduce a larger iPad, which could result in an increase in the average tablet-PC panel size,” Hsieh said.
With smartphones taking a growing share of the mobile phone market, NPD DisplaySearch forecasts that 5″ and larger mobile-phone panels will increase from 282 million units in 2013 to 448 million in 2014. Mobile-phone display demand area is expected to surpass 10 million m² for the first time in 2014, up from just over 8 million m² this year.
Covering more than 140 FPD producers across more than 10 countries, the Quarterly Worldwide FPD Shipment and Forecast Report analyzes historical display shipments and forecast projections. For more information about the report, email DisplaySearch here. Leave a Comment
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LG to Introduce Sonos-Esque Wireless Audio SystemAt CES next month, LG will introduce a new wireless audio system (the NP8740) that runs on mesh network technology, which uses dual band Wi-Fi (2.5/5GHz). The speakers can be set up in any combination of rooms, connecting an entire house or a single room. The network makes it possible for users to play a song to every zone (Party Mode) or a different song to each zone (Personal Mode), similar to the Sonos Play 1.
LG says the NP8740 will be able to connect to other audio systems and can be controlled with a smart phone app, with the interface allowing audio to be streamed from online sources.
The speakers offer a dual-tweeter arrangement and 24 bit/192kHz audio quality.
The system isn’t on LG’s website yet since it hasn’t been officially introduced, but LG’s main site is here. Leave a Comment
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Samsung Improves Gesture-Based Control of TVs at CES Ahead of CES, Samsung has announced that it has added “finger gesture” technology to its Smart TV line up, which will allow users to change the TV channel, adjust the volume, as well as find and select what they want to watch using just their fingers. By motioning counterclockwise, they can also go back to a previous screen or stop a video.
Samsung also announced that its previously existing voice control, available in 11 countries, will be expanded to 12 additional markets. The company also says it has improved voice control by focusing on users’ most used functions. For example, now users can change the channel by simply saying the channel number. They can also open apps or websites using shortcuts. Samsung says it has also improved the search function.
More information on Samsung’s existing Smart TV lineup is here.
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Samsung, LG to Both Introduce Curved 105″ UHD TVs at CESAt CES next month, both Samsung and LG will introduce 105″, curved displays featuring UHD resolution. The displays will offer a 21:9 CinemaScope resolution that’s 5120X2160 pixels — that’s 11 million pixels.
Samsung’s new display offers what the company calls a “new proprietary picture quality algorithm” for delivering optimized color and depth. It also has Samsung’s “Quadmatic Picture Engine,” which scales content to UHD picture quality. Samsung hasn’t released a model number, or a price, but the display will be shown at CES in Las Vegas Jan. 7 – 10. More information on Samsung’s 4K and OLED TVs are here.
LG released a curved 77″ OLED screen earlier this year, but has gone back to LCD technology for its new 105″ curved display, the 105UC9. The company says in its release that it has resolved a number of technical issues in using LCD technology for curved displays in order to maintain “structural integrity” and improve uniformity in color and brightness. LG refined its Thin Film Transistor (TFT) pixel circuit technology, which the company says prevents color leakage and ensures a “superior viewing experience” from any angle. LG has also not released a price on its huge new display, but will show it at CES as well. More information on LG’s super-sized TV is here.
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Projecta Intros Elpro Concept Screen with Leaf-Shaped CasingEuropean screen manufacturer Projecta will introduce at ISE 2014 a new leaf-shaped case of the Elpro Concept, which replaces the square Elpro box design and offer a stylish solution for design-sensitive installations. This is an elegant solution for when the case of the projection screen cannot be installed into the ceiling.
The Elpro Concept is an electric projection screen for wall or ceiling installation, which is available in a tab-tensioned and a non-tensioned version up to a width of 340 centimeters. The Tensioned Elpro Concept has a tab-tensioning system for a perfectly flat screen surface with the new Smooth Roll Technology: A patent pending roller technology to keep your screen perfectly flat.
The new Elpro Concept features:
- New leaf shaped case design
- A clean installation without any visible screws
- Five-year limited warranty on the projection screen and motor
- Smooth roll technology for a perfectly flat viewing area
- Motor installed in rubber dampers for a silent operation
- Slim-Tab for an improved and more inconspicuous horizontal tensioning
- Extensive customization options and available in any RAL color to match the room
For complete product specifications, formats and sizes, click here. Leave a Comment
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CEDIA Launches New WebsiteCEDIA has launched a new website and online learning portal that will serve as the go-to resource for home technology professionals, with exclusive content for CEDIA members. The new cedia.net delivers robust content and tools aimed to help home technology professionals in every aspect of their business.
To read the complete press release online, click here. Leave a Comment
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Crestron Opens Experience Center in TexasCrestron has opened a new experience center in Flower Mound, Tex., which it celebrated earlier this month with a grand opening.
To read the complete press release online, click here. Leave a Comment
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For all you REGULAR readers of rAVe HomeAV Edition out there, hopefully you enjoyed another opinion-packed issue!
For those of you NEW to rAVe, you just read how we are — we are 100% opinionated. We not only report the news and new product stories of the high-end HomeAV industry, but we stuff the articles full of our opinions. That may include (but is not limited to) whether or not the product is even worth looking at, challenging the manufacturers on their specifications, calling a marketing-spec bluff and suggesting ways integrators market their products better. But, one thing is for sure, we are NOT a trade publication that gets paid for running editorial or product stories. Traditional trade publications get paid to run product stories — that’s why you see what you see in most of the pubs out there. We are different: we run what we want to run and NO ONE is going to pay us to write anything good (or bad).
Don’t like us, then go away — unsubscribe! Just use the link below.
To send me feedback, don’t reply to this newsletter – instead, write directly to me at gary@ravepubs.com or for editorial ideas: Editor-in-Chief Sara Abrons at sara@ravepubs.com
A little about me: I graduated from Journalism School at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (where I am adjunct faculty). I’ve been in the AV-industry since 1987 where I started with Extron and eventually moved to AMX. So, I guess I am an industry veteran (although I don’t think I am that old). I have been an opinionated columnist for a number of industry publications and in the late 1990s I started the widely read KNews eNewsletter (the first in the AV market) and also created the model for and was co-founder of AV Avenue – which is now known as InfoComm IQ. rAVe Publications has been around since 2003, when we launched our original newsletter, rAVe ProAV Edition.
rAVe HomeAV Edition, co-published with CEDIA, launched in February, 2004.
To read more about my background, our team, and what we do, go to https://www.ravepubs.com Back to Top |
Copyright 2013 – rAVe [Publications] – All rights reserved. For reprint policies, contact rAVe [Publications], 210 Old Barn Ln. – Chapel Hill, NC 27517 – 919/969-7501. Email: sara@ravepubs.com
rAVe HomeAV Edition contains the opinions of the author only and does not necessarily reflect the opinions of other persons or companies or its sponsors. |
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