Volume 13, Issue 17 — September 3, 2015
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Editorial Editorial Editorial Editorial
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Industry News Unified Collaborative Conferencing Audio Cables, Cases, Furniture, Mounts, Racks, Screens & Accessories Control & Signal Processing
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“Don’t Praise the Machine” (the Future of Integration)
By Hope Roth One of my favorite episodes of the Simpsons involves Bart Simpson and an elephant named Stampy (who turns out to be a bit of a jerk). It also involves a couple of radio DJs are who are in danger of being replaced by a computer, the DJ 3000.
DJ 3000: Looks like those clowns in Congress did it again. What a bunch of clowns.
First DJ: How does it keep up with the news like that?
Second DJ (whispering): Don’t praise the machine!
In my most terrifying of AV nightmares, I wake up to discover that I’ve been replaced with the Programmer 3000. Or some facsimile of one (software program, IT company, etc). I’m guessing I’m not the only person who has this nightmare. AV/IT convergence is such a hot topic these days, there are plenty of people in the industry who would just as soon not talk about it anymore.
In a slightly less pop-cultural nightmare, I’m one of the highly skilled textile weavers who comprised the Luddite movement. The work that they did was difficult to do, and they were well-paid for it. They were in high demand… until they weren’t. The advent of the industrial revolution saw their jobs replaced by textile machines. They smashed a bunch of said machines, but their jobs never come back. Technological progress had rendered them obsolete.
The fictional DJs in my Simpsons episode were right to be scared. The radio DJ has gone the way of the dodo (or the skilled weaver). Most of us would be hard pressed to name a local radio personality. And many stations have gone to an all-automated format entirely.
With the advent of Crestron’s Pyng and other “self-programming” systems, should professional integrators be scared?
Yes (sort of). And no (sort of).
Automated systems might have replaced the majority of America’s inane DJs, but they can’t replace the quality programming on serious talk radio (NPR tried to make an Ira Glass bot, but it just kept saying “After the break!” and snapping people’s legs in half). It can’t even replace the less quality programming on semi-serious talk radio (I’m looking at you, people yelling at each other over my car stereo last night). Calling out the clowns in Washington is so easy, a computer could do it. Providing in-depth analysis and engaging content? The machines might get there someday, but for now I think most of us will stick with Terry Gross (I’m sure there are other great radio personalities out there, but I’m kindof an NPR fan-girl).
And that’s the trick, right? In order to stay relevant, we in the AV industry have to produce something of value. We can’t just sell boxes to our clients, we need to sell ourselves. Don’t just talk about the clowns in Washington. Give details, suggest solutions. Most of the dealers out there are doing top-notch work, and their clients appreciate the enhanced experience and stability of their systems. They know they might get cheaper TVs at Best Buy. But they also know that, at the end of the day, their systems will be better if they get someone who really knows what she’s doing to install it for them, with bonus points for less stress and effort on their part.
In the future, I’m sure that there will be plenty of cookie-cutter systems. And I’m more than happy to let Crestron Pyng (or Jydo, or whoever) take care of them for me. Give me a quadruple divisible town-hall space, or a 27-zone house any day. The big systems, the complicated systems, the super custom systems… this is the stuff that makes me excited about getting my laptop out in the morning. This is the stuff that’s hard to automate. This is the stuff where our industry shines.
AV people are some of the most helpful people that I know. In my own work experience, I’ve seen AV groups merge with IT departments… and watched the AV folks take on more IT responsibilities. Maybe I’m just lucky, but all of the AV people that I know will do whatever it takes to get a system up and running again. If that means re-imaging a PC, or updating a server or two? So be it. Let’s make the end users happy. They don’t care if it’s in their job description.
(Do not re-image PCs that are not under your purview. Do not update servers that you are not in charge of. IT people get really cranky when you touch their stuff without asking. People in general get really cranky when you touch their stuff without asking.)
In an ideal world, smaller systems will be deployed using a configurator… our end users will be happy… they’ll buy more stuff… the industry will grow… and there will be plenty of big jobs so that the rest of us can spend our time focusing on the whiz-bang stuff.
In a less ideal world? We all get automated out of jobs. But I don’t think that’s endemic to just our industry. The world is getting more automated in general. Taxi drivers should probably be less worried about Uber and more concerned about driverless cars. Technology is changing. It’s providing many of us with amazing new opportunities. My sincerest of hopes is that it’s a rising tide that lifts all of our boats. My most cynical of doubts is that some of us will be left behind. Those of us who stay on top of our games, who learn, who adapt? I’m guessing that we’ll have the best shot at working for our new robot overlords.
The radio industry might have automated itself down to the lowest common denominator, but the podcast industry is thriving. Technology might change some job titles, but it doesn’t always change core job responsibilities. Provide something of value, and people will consume it. Talk about the clowns in Washington, and people will probably just roll their eyes.
(Making a podcast profitable is a whole other ballgame, but I sure do like living in a world where I can download the WTF podcast and not worry about FCC violations).
And, if it turns out that we’re all more like those skilled weavers who lost their jobs to textile machines? I don’t have a good answer for that one. I guess I’ll just have to go with my fallback plan of becoming a stand-up paddleboarding yoga instructor. But, I don’t think it will come down to that. As long as there is technology, there will be people who need help with it — which means plenty of jobs in the technology industry for all of us.
This blog was reprinted with permission from Hope Roth and originally appeared here. Leave a Comment
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Measure Your Success
By Scott Tiner rAVe Columnist
In my recent rAVe DS column, I wrote about the value of developing a strategy for digital signage and from that strategy developing metrics to measure whether you have achieved your goals. As we prepare for another academic year to begin, I am thinking about how we measure the success of technologies in our classrooms and presentation spaces. How do we, as technology managers, or the integrators we hire, decide whether the spaces we support are providing the function for which they were designed?
I have developed a set of recommendations that can apply to either tech mangers who support the rooms in-house, or to integrators who support the spaces remotely. First, you need to create a balanced scorecard that clearly states your goals. Second you need to start collecting useful metrics about the spaces you are supporting. Finally, you need to analyze the metrics you created and see if you are achieving your goals on the balanced scorecard.
A balanced scorecard is a concept used by many businesses to make sure they are achieving goals that are not strictly financial. The concept of a balanced scorecard is not used much in the higher ed world, but is very useful because it does not focus solely on financial measures. One of the measures in the balanced scorecard is customers. How do you want your customers to view you? In the case of technology support, this looks like: time to close calls, number of calls per room/per usages, wait time between problem report and arrival of (or communication with) a technician. A second measure of the balanced scorecard is internal business processes (also called operational performance by some). This measure is used to gauge things like total system up-time, peak time available and whether your systems are secure. A third part of the balanced scorecard is learning and growth. This is measured by driving down the number of problem calls you get. If you are learning and growing, you should be eliminating predictable problems as you discover them. It also can be used to measure whether your employees are achieving certifications, taking online refresher courses and staying up to date. Finally, there is a portion of the balanced scorecard that looks at financials. This is something that we, in education, are very weak with. However, when done well it can be very informative and useful. When we talk about class capture for instance, we normally look at the installation and equipment cost. Yet, we don’t often break that down into comparative numbers that tell us how much it costs per use. Or better yet, how much it costs per viewed recording. Those are numbers that are actually useful. If your institution has a push towards encouraging faculty to use Class Capture, then having those numbers (on the costs), and setting a goal of driving them down (because they are used more), is a great metric for your scorecard. For more information on the Balanced Scorecard, check out the Harvard Business Review. There is a great read from the people who invented the concept, Kaplan and Norton. The image included here shows a potential scorecard with the goals discussed in this article.
Now let’s think about metrics. You should only be collecting metrics that are valuable to you, and you can put to direct use. Some examples of useful metrics for most institutions would be:
- Number of hours in a defined time period that the technology is used.
- Number of problem calls that are classified as technical problems
- Number of problem calls that are classified as user/training problems
- Cost of resolving an average trouble call
- Number of hours in a defined period that specific technology (class capture, clicker, collaboration) is used
- Time to close open problems
- Down times of spaces
I am sure that you have some very specific metrics that may be of interest to your institution that I have not listed. I just warn you to be thoughtful of what you collect and how you collect it. For example, in the past we collected the number of lamp hours used in a day. We assumed this would tell us how much the projection system was used. However, we found that projectors were left on when not being used. So, while the data may have been useful for some analysis, it was not an accurate number of how often the technology was being used. If you engage with a skilled programmer, together you should be able to define the specific metric you want to understand, and the programmer should be able to find a way to collect and report that metric.
If integrators were to start thinking about offering services and consulting to institutions to help them think about metrics and scorecards, it could be a lucrative business opportunity. Many of the statistical systems, and reporting would be the same for different institutions, but the integrator would make money on the services. One of the few places that there is a profit margin left in the industry. If you are a technology manager, being able to provide this data to your administration will show that you are constantly looking to improve your services. Also, by simply implementing the scorecard your services will improve. A win, win for everybody. Leave a Comment
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The Backstage Cloud?
By Joel Rollins rAVe Columnist
This weekend, I was involved in a long conversation with a couple of colleagues from the industry. At one point during the discussion, I was asked what my favorite new technology announcement was. And I think that both of my colleagues were surprised that I did not mention some new piece of AV equipment.
My favorite new piece of technology: Amazon Prime Dash Buttons.
For those of you who did not see the announcement, Prime Dash Buttons are Jeff Bezos’ newest method of painlessly separating prime users from their money. They work like this: If there is a product that you use regularly, and you are a Prime member, you can order a stick on button from Amazon that is dedicated to a particular product that you use. You stick this button on the wall or in the cabinet where you store this product, and when you are running low you press the button. A new supply shows up two days later, delivered free via Amazon Prime.
What does this have to do with AV, you might ask? Well, my colleagues asked the same question. My answer: We are looking at the next generation of control systems, both for shows and for permanent installations. Essentially, this is the forerunner of true, decentralized, cloud-based control.
Why do I think so? Let’s look at history.
Twenty five years ago, when I first started designing systems for shows, the answer to control was simple. Homosapiens. With more complex shows, we would simply have more operators. Playback of media occurred from many types of dedicated playback devices. At one time, in my rental fleet, we had to accommodate eight formats of video tape, And at least five or six types of computers, along with myriad audio, still frame, slide and movie playback devices. Materials largely arrived on the day of show, often leaving us scrambling when a different format than the one that we had shipped showed up.
As the industry grew, and shows and installations progressed, we added overarching control systems. We would program the show, or the presentation, so that we could run it from a button panel, keyboard or touch panel. These control surfaces were connected to a large control processor that in turn controlled all of the other devices. In shows, this was often separated by department, with a lighting controller, a video controller and an audio controller. Later on, we added super control systems (my favorite being Dataton’s TRAX system) to control the controllers.
In the installation market, which is (and always has been) much simpler, we would centralize control with a lot of programming and a single button panel or touch panel.
In both markets, for many years, we have touted this as simplification. However, with today’s market, both in shows and in installations, we are now dealing with a class of customer who do not see big touch panels with lots of graphics and multiple menu pages as a “simple” way to control things. As with even the best programmed control system, the use of these panels does require some training, and today more people are using these systems on an ad hoc basis and for shorter periods of time. Many of my customers now point to the ubiquitous Apple TV remote control as their standard for controlling things. The control interface, and the playback, are now becoming a single thing.
Couple this with the current trend to make the meeting materials and presentations cloud-based. Google Docs as well as Microsoft’s and Apple’s cloud systems are changing the way our clients put together their presentations, allowing everyone to combine their materials online, at their leisure. This also ensures that on arrival at the show the materials are current.
Compare this to what happens at shows among the technical crew, where often we are integrating multiple types of control on site, often editing the control programming from the rig used for the last show to the rig for this one.
Now combine those two things and think about the next generation of show control. First, it should be based in a cloud, so that the various disciplines can do their editing online rather than on site. This means that both the programming and the materials need to be divorced from specific hardware playback devices, rather than preprogrammed into some large show or room controller, so that versions and edits become less difficult to deal with. This would be especially useful in touring shows, where parts of the crew travel and parts are obtained locally for each specific venue.
We have already done this with editing, we’ve already done this with presentations and we have already done this with project management, so I do not think it is a far out prediction to say that we will soon do it with control.
And, for me, the Prime Dash Buttons point the way to a decentralized control system where the programming occurs in a cloud and control points can be easily spread out to any user who needs that specific control point at a specific time in the show. But, more than that, it means that our presentation materials and our control interface can be combined, with control points embedded in the show, leading to more complex shows that can be more easily controlled by the end-user, as the client is rapidly changing from someone who doesn’t want to touch the controls to someone who does, but once that control highly simplified and painless to understand.
We are already seeing some of this philosophy take place among the control manufacturers, each of whom now offer some simplified online method of programming their control hardware.
Next, they need to divorce themselves from the idea of control hardware, and move the hardware requirement (or lots of it) to the cloud.
Hey control manufacturers — any takers? Leave a Comment
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Five Things Everyone Should Know How to Do
By Jennifer Davis VP Marketing, Planar
I have had the privilege of doing a number of different functional roles in my career (for companies ranging from Intel to Planar to a software start-up) and throughout all of them, I have have found the following five skills critical:
1. Gather Requirements
Of course, you’d expect those in product management or market research would need to know this skill, but frankly, it is critical across all functions and in all organizations. Being able to understand the needs of the customers (internal or external) and identify success metrics is absolutely critical to every role, even those in executive leadership where resources are allocated and capital is obtained to fund the work. This requires the ability to ask good question, perceive needs and broker ideas from one part of the business to another.
2. Identify Decision Makers
Professional sales people make their living by understanding what, but more critically who, stands between them and a sale. They understand how to work with champions, financial buyers, and other profiles to achieve results and make certain that the customer is getting full value for their purchases. But in my experience it is not just account managers who need to have this skill. Knowing this avoids wasted time and effort convincing people with no purchase power or decision making authority on the merits of your offer. Whether you are advocating for an internal proposal or influencing key suppliers, everyone should know how to determine who the real decision makers are. Often this is achieved through a combination of observations and questions. The best sales people are ones who can tactfully ask who needs to be involved in the decision and process by which decisions of this type are made. Those are good questions for everyone to be ready to ask.
3. Tell the Truth (in love)
I consider the truth a gift and regularly remind my staff that I rely on them for their candor. I sincerely hope they take me up on the offer to listen to their complaints or suggestions with an open mind and a willingness to change, if necessary. Being able to receive the truth is a made a lot easier when the truth teller is gifted in this area. The effective truth teller strikes a balance between frankness and concern for the individual. They speak the truth in love, as the writer of Ephesians penned.
And it is easy to lose that balance. Taylor Swift’s song “All Too Well” poetically describes the person who emphasized truth over love:
Hey, you call me up again just to break me like a promise.
So casually cruel in the name of being honest.
Being able to deliver a tough message in a tender way is a very useful skill for any professional and absolutely critical for managers and mentors.
4. Advocate for Yourself Resourcefully
We often employ our full range of resourcefulness on tasks at worth, without taking stock on how we might marshal the same energy to advocate for ourselves. No one else will do it for you (no, really, it is true). It’s up to you.
5. Identify Opportunities for Personal Growth
And part of advocating is knowing what to advocate for. This is why it is critical that people continue to grow and be on the look-out for professional opportunities. They don’t have to cost money or take a lot of time. They can be as simple as asking the advice of people you admire or reading a blog or book on a topic of interest. Being intellectually curious is one of the things that sets the the high performers and high potentials apart from the crowd.
For more on topics of career development, wayfinding and leadership, go here. Learn more about Planar here.
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Joe Theismann to Keynote AV InfoComm Executive ConferenceInfoComm International has announced that Joe Theismann, entrepreneur and former star quarterback for the Washington Redskins, will keynote the upcoming AV Executive Conference. Theismann has spent the last two decades working for ESPN on its NFL broadcast and the NFL Network. A much sought after motivational speaker, he is also author of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Understanding Football Like a Pro and oversees a restaurant in Washington, DC bearing his name. Recently, he was named the recipient of the 2013 Walter Camp Football Foundation “Distinguished American” Award.
Theismann will share his “Game Plan for Success,” which outlines the strategies that brought him success both on and off the football field. Theismann focuses on how to succeed under pressure — when it’s “4th and 1″ — and how to adapt quickly to unexpected situations — when you’re faced with a “blitz” instead of a “zone.” He urges individuals and organizations to set goals and correct errors each step of the way, an approach that builds momentum, which, once on your side, would be hard for even the best “defense” to stop!
After this inspiring address from Theismann, AVEC transitions into a practical program with takeaways you can implement the moment you return to the office. See the full agenda and speakers now.
Register for AVEC today and save $100 off the registration fee. Additional registrants from your company can be added for $895. Go here to register. Leave a Comment
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Another Record Quarter for the Interactive Displays Market: Futuresource ConsultingThe interactive whiteboard market has grown at a tremendous pace over the last decade. Initially major uptake was in the UK, Mexico and the USA, but they have now become common place across the globe. As the technology has evolved over the last few years, we are now seeing interactive flat panels gain traction in the market, especially in countries like Netherlands, South Korea and the UK, which has encouraged additional vendors into the market.
The global *interactive displays market has grown 7 percent Year on Year, making it the largest quarter 2 ever with 300,000 displays sold globally. There is a strong transition to higher priced interactive flat panels, which accounted for an astounding 57 percent of the market, and has contributed to value growing fast with a forecast CAGR of 16 percent up to 2019.
However, when you delve into the numbers in more detail the picture isn’t as healthy, especially for western based providers. The Chinese market makes up more than 50 percent of global demand and is serviced almost entirely by local providers. The major FATIH tender in Turkey (a total of 350,000 displays) also has a big impact on market volumes with 60,000 units shipped in Qrt 2.
If you exclude these two countries from the analysis, market volumes were down 17 percent Year on Year as many markets increasingly focus on investments in one-to-one learning solutions, such as PCs, software and digital content, highlighting the challenge for many of the leading providers to significantly penetrate these growth countries. This issue has been emphasized this quarter by the purchase of Promethean for £84 million by Net Dragon.
Interactive Flat Panels becoming the standard display
“As the surge of IFPDs from IWBs continues, half of the 67 countries which we track, IFPDs now make up 20 percent of sales, 17 countries had well over 50 percent and in the UK, one of the most advanced countries, this grows to 80 percent,” says to Colin Messenger, Senior Market Analyst at Futuresource.
Corporate Market Opportunity forecast to double from 2014 to 2016
Interest in interactivity within corporate meeting rooms is building and the introduction of Microsoft Surface Hub in January 2016 is expected to create a significant boost by driving awareness of the benefits of meeting room interactivity, and at the same time providing a simple to use intuitive platform for collaboration. Futuresource has increased corporate forecasts from 2016 in the USA, UK and major western European countries. Futuresource estimates that current penetration is negligible at 1.6 percent (with market volumes in 2014 reaching just over 100,000 units), compared to the 20 percent penetration in classrooms.
Regional activity, key highlights
Asia continued to post strong volume sales in 2015 Q2, while China continued its ascent, with almost half of all world sales.
In the US, sales once again decreased. However, going forward the market value is forecast to increase strongly with a 31 percent ‘CAGR’ (2014 to 2019) driven by the increased IFPD sales into corporate business.
Q2 sales in EMEA increased 75 percent Year on Year, with major input from the second phase of the FATIH project in Turkey. 2015 is forecast to continue strongly with 44 percent volume increase before volumes drop in 2016 with the end of FATIH.
This 100+ page report examines the current state of the Interactive Display market across 67 countries, exploring market segmentation, drivers and barriers as well as detailed five year forecasts. You can read more here. Leave a Comment
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Nureva Ships Span Ideation System in North America Nureva just started shipping its Span ideation system in North America. The system combines one or two panoramic projectors with a digital canvas to create an expansive team workspace that draws upon familiar, simple and flexible tools already widely used in paper-based ideation, including notes, images, sketches and flip charts. The WM210i measures 10′ wide (3.1 m) by 4′ high (1.2 m), with 130″ (3.3 m) on the diagonal. The WM220i model includes two panoramic projectors installed side-by-side to create a team workspace measuring 20′ wide (6.1 m) by 4′ high (1.2 m), with 245″ (6.2 m) on the diagonal.
The digital canvas retains all of the flexibility that paper-based systems offer (e.g., large workspaces with persistent information) while overcoming many of the challenges (e.g., the awkwardness of physically moving large numbers of sticky notes, sticky notes that fall off the wall, inclusion of remote participants in the process, the need for transcription, and storage and retention of the work). The Span ideation system allows multiple teams to use a collaboration space that previously may have been dedicated to a single team for months.
The canvas offers 40′ (12.2 m) of digital space (10′ visible on the WM210i and 20′ visible on the WM220i) that can be panned horizontally. Users contribute content in the form of notes, sketches, flip charts and images from their personal devices and organize content by moving and grouping.Multiple types of digital artifacts can be created on a personal device or at the canvas:
- Note – This digital 3″ x 5″ (7.6 x 12.7 cm) note allows users to enter up to four lines of text
- Sketch – This digital 9″ x 12″ (22.9 x 30.5 cm) page for sketching and wire-framing comes with three different ink colors and an eraser
- Flip chart – This large digital 30″ x 42″ (76.2 x 106.7 cm) flip chart for capturing notes, decisions and action items comes with three different ink colors, a highlighter and an eraser. One flip chart can contain multiple pages.
- Image – Users can post images to the canvas, then manipulate them
The software is accessible on Chrome browsers and as apps on iOS and Android tablets.
The HD panoramic projector creates an ultra-wide display in a 16:6 aspect ratio at a spec of 3000 lumens and a contrast ratio of 1800:1 Touch and pen interactivity are provided by a touch module, supporting simultaneous multi-user and multi-touch activities.On the WM220i model, the image-alignment module melds the two projected images through an onscreen alignment process performed at the time of installation to create one seamless 20′-wide (12.2 m) image.
The software has an annual subscription of US$239 for a single-user license. The hardware has an MSRP of US$9,999 and US$21,999 for the WM210i and WM220i, respectively.
Complete tech specs are here.
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Audinate Announces Enhanced Capabilities for Dante UltimoAudinate today announced a firmware update to the Dante Ultimo audio networking chipsets.
The new Ultimo 2.2 firmware adds several enhancements for OEMs building low channel-count audio products with Dante Ultimo. Dedicated four-channel input (4×0) or output (0x4) configurations at 96kHz are supported on the Ultimo 4×4 chipset, and minimum device latency has been reduced from 2ms to 1ms for both 2×2 and 4×4 versions.
The new firmware also delivers improvements to the Dante Device Protocol (DDP) that allow for visual product identification on a network and greater control capabilities via GPIO.
Ultimo is part of Audinate’s portfolio of high performance Dante devices and is a family of complete, fully featured, ready-to-use, single-chip Dante solutions for low channel-count networked audio products. The Ultimo family incorporates all the differentiated Dante features such as automatic device discovery, plug-and-play networking, custom device names and channel labels and network-based firmware updates. Ultimo is a perfect choice for networking low channel-count products, including powered speakers, microphones, AV wall plates, speakerphones, amplifiers, paging stations, personal monitoring systems, recording interfaces, intercoms and analog/digital break-in/break out interfaces.
The Ultimo Release 2.2 firmware is available immediately for OEMS. Ultimo is available in 2×2 channel (ULT-01-002) and 4×4 channel (ULT-01-004) configurations. Here are the details. Leave a Comment
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Anchor Audio Ships Bigfoot Portable Audio SystemAnchor Audio is now shipping its Bigfoot Line Array portable speaker system that was announced at InfoComm. The portable, battery-operated speaker system outputs 130 dB and 400 watts AC/DC of sound through its five 8” neodymium woofers and one high-efficiency tweeter, all powered by three rechargeable batteries and one neodymium compression driver. It comes in a durable UV resistant enclosure and two rugged, heavy-duty 8” wheels.
It offers up to four built-in UHF wireless receivers. Standard inputs and outputs include: two universal microphone inputs, one 1/4” balanced line input, one 3.5 mm AUX balanced line input and USB charging for portable devices. It also features standard built-in Bluetooth connectivity on all models and an optional built-in CD/MP3 combo player. The Bigfoot includes bass and treble controls for fine-tuning as well as a battery level indicator.
The Bigfoot Line Array is available à la carte as well as in packages with either two or four wireless receivers and microphones. The cost of a base unit starts at $3,350 and the top of the line package, the Bigfoot Quad, includes the system with standard built-in Bluetooth, a built-in CD/MP3 combo player, four wireless receivers and the customer’s choice of four wireless microphones.
Here are all the details. Leave a Comment
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BALD Launches Manual Kickstand for Large DisplaysHave you ever had a customer ask for a large touchscreen that’s tiltable but could still be transportable for trade shows, rentals and lift-assisted work surfaces (like what architects have)?
Well, a small company called BALD Technologies has what they are calling a simple to use and transportable two-piece product that included a near edge to edge, permanently mounted frame married to a multi-port, brushed aluminum base secured by dual, quick release pins.
Features:
- Power is not required to use/manipulate
- Pre-determined ports allow for 90°, 75°, 60° and 45° tilt
- Ultra wide, low profile, brushed aluminum footprint delivers an engineering showpiece
- 20” deep base allows the use on standard depth desks/work surfaces
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Joseph Electronics Releases DFT-16 for High-Density HD Signal Transport Over FiberJoseph Electronics (JE) today announced the DFT-16, the newest member of its Digital Fiber Transport (DFT) Series of signal-transport solutions. Designed for low cost and minimal rack space, the DFT-16 can be customized to accommodate a variety of production environments, especially electronic newsgathering vehicles, small stadiums, and anywhere else that requires point-to-point HD transport.
The DFT-16 can handle up to 16 channels of 3G/HD-SDI, ASI or MADI in just one RU and over just one single-mode fiber. The direction of the signal paths are user-configurable in pairs of two in order to meet any send/receive requirements, and redundant power supplies are standard for ensuring a complete backup of critical paths. In addition, full-fiber redundancy with automatic fail-safe switchover is available as an option for all DFT Series frames.
All the tech specs are here. Leave a Comment
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Symetrix Adds Trio of New Control Options for SymNet DSPsFollowing the launch of SymNet Composer 4.1, Symetrix has added to its control and command offering for SymNet open architecture Dante-scalable DSPs with the addition of three new control options.
The first of these options, the ARC-3 wall panel remote, was introduced to the systems integrator community at ISE 2015. Arriving in a single SKU with both surface- and flush-mount capabilities, ARC-3 incorporates a brand new capacitive touch interface with LED feedback, as well as a multi-lingual graphics-capable OLED display that is expected to resonate strongly with Symetrix’ global customer base.
The second new option is the ARC-WEB browser-based dialler, which allows owners of iPhones, iPads, Android phone s, tablets and network-enabled computers to control audio via embedded web servers running on SymNet Edge and SymNet Radius DSPs.
Following on from its earlier update of Crestron modules to support the 2- and 3-Series, Symetrix adds multiple new control options for use with room automation systems available from AMX by Harman. Now available, the modules are designed to deliver accommodation of all pre-existing AMX systems as well as those currently shipping.
Symetrix is online here. Leave a Comment
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For all you REGULAR readers of rAVe ProAV 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 percent opinionated. We not only report the news and new product stories of the ProAV 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).
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To send us feedback, don’t reply to this newsletter. Instead, write directly to founder Gary at gary@ravepubs.com or Editor-in-Chief Sara Abrons at sara@ravepubs.com
Everything we publish is opt-in — we spam NO ONE! rAVe ProAV Edition is our flagship publication with what we believe is a reach of virtually everyone in the ProAV market. rAVe HomeAV Edition is co-published with CEDIA, covering the HomeAV market. We added rAVe Rental [and Staging] in November 2007, rAVe ED [Education] in May 2008 and then rAVe DS [Digital Signage] in January 2009. We added rAVe GHGav [Green, Healthcare & Government AV] in August 2010 and rAVe HOW [House of Worship] in July 2012. You can subscribe to any of those publication or see ALL our archives by going to: https://www.ravepubs.com
To read more about rAVe’s team and what we do, go to https://www.ravepubs.com Back to Top |
Copyright 2015 – rAVe [Publications] – All rights reserved – 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 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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