Gary Interviews Prysm’s Dana Corey

Dana Corey, vice president of sales & technical operations at Prysm, took the time to talk to Gary about Prysm products and strategy. Prysm launched Synthesis 2.0 and Cascade 65 at InfoComm 2015 and showcased Skype for Business, as well as the company’s mirroring collaboration capabilities. Dana pointed out how Prysm’s lower price point but […]

Gary Interviews Prysm’s Dana Corey

Gary Talks with Melissa Rone About Da-Lite’s New Presence at InfoComm

Melissa Rone, senior marketing manager for Da-Lite, talks about the new Da-Lite customer experience launched this year that creates a single destination for product orders through Milestone.com. Although Parallax, Da-Lite’s ambient-light-rejecting technology, is a big draw to the booth, the company’s Wireline Advantage Screen product attracted just as much attention. Watch this video to hear […]

Gary Talks with Melissa Rone About Da-Lite’s New Presence at InfoComm

Gary Speaks with John Riley of Almo About Their InfoComm 2015 Experience

John Riley, vice president of sales for Almo Pro A/V, talks with Gary about how digital signage is entrenched in the AV market and how Almo can help with both content creation services as well as integration services. In addition, he talks InfoComm 2015, attendance and details about the fall series of E4 AV Tours. […]

Gary Speaks with John Riley of Almo About Their InfoComm 2015 Experience

Flip The Script

We all have pet peeves. I have many. The good news is that gives me lots of fodder to produce regular blogs for rAVe. Today the pet peeve I’m going to zero in on is scripted sales calls. Someone that I’ve known for years has recently moved into a professional sales position. Part of the […]

Flip The Script

InfoComm: What I Learned About IoT at the InfoComm Keynote

By Brad Grimes InfoComm International Great seeing all of you packed into the opening keynote panel, Tuesday afternoon of InfoComm 2015 in Orlando. As you know (and for those of you who weren’t there, you may have heard), the topic was the Internet of Things. Seems a little far afield for an AV industry confab. […]

InfoComm: What I Learned About IoT at the InfoComm Keynote

Barco Secretly Debuts New OSV System

Hans Dekeyser, vice president strategic marketing, gave me a private demo of their new Barco OSV HB (high brightness) system. The OSV is an interactive and immersive video wall (think actual Minority Report) that allows for collaboration on a seamless CURVED wall with unlimited touchpoints (literally, unlimited). The OSV runs Windows in the background — […]

Barco Secretly Debuts New OSV System

Kurt Metzler, U.S. Sales Director, Talks Powersoft’s Future

Kurt Metzler took a minute to talk to Gary about PowerSoft’s capabilities, and his optimism for the future of the company and industry. PowerSoft invented the powered-speaker some 20-years ago and is launching into new market categories. The interview is here:

Kurt Metzler, U.S. Sales Director, Talks Powersoft’s Future

Gary Talks to Frederick Girard, Sales Director at Sennheiser

Sennheiser’s Frederick Girard talks about its exciting new assistive listening product called MobileConnect. MobileConnect allows a mobile phone to be used to receive audio in assistive listening, museum tour and simultaneous interpretation applications. It’s Android, iOS and Windows phone capable and uses a 1U RF transmitter that’s integrated by the dealer. Check out this video […]

Gary Talks to Frederick Girard, Sales Director at Sennheiser

SONY’s Sander Phipps Talks Projectors With Gary

Sander Phipps, senior product manager at SONY, walked Gary through the products showing at InfoComm 2015. 4K, laser phosphor projectors are prominent in the booth this year — check out the individual product videos we shot throughout the booth, linked below. Their short-throw 4K projector VPLGTZ1 can project up to 147″ diagonal image, is 4K, […]

SONY’s Sander Phipps Talks Projectors With Gary

rp Visual Solutions President Randy Pagnan Catches up with Gary Kayye

Randy Pagnan talked about their booth showing LED/LCD displays, rear projections and front projections. rpV is a brand agnostic company, they engineer innovative visual displays and mounting solutions. In this market the next big thing is the direct-view LED displays — rp Visual Solutions has mounted over 10,000 square feet of direct-view LED.   Check […]

rp Visual Solutions President Randy Pagnan Catches up with Gary Kayye

Gary Talks Premier Mounts With Dale Crowe

Dale Crowe, senior account manager at Premier Mounts, talked with me about the company’s capabilities and products. Gary thanks the Premier Mount team for extraordinary customer service and custom capabilities in supporting the rAVe Game 65″ monitors here at InfoComm 2015. Dale mentioned Premier Mounts’ ability to react quickly, create innovative solutions, and the Habitat […]

Gary Talks Premier Mounts With Dale Crowe

Nancy Knowlton Debuts Nureva and Its Product — the Span Ideation System

Nancy Knowlton, president, CEO and co-founder of Nureva talks about Nureva’s exciting new technology — the Span ideation system. This technology moves away from simple collaboration technology and offers a whole new collaboration tool that supports the ideation process from start to finish. This technology takes a traditionally analog/paper-based process and offers a simple yet […]

Nancy Knowlton Debuts Nureva and Its Product — the Span Ideation System

Jeevan Vivegananthan Talks Christie New Technology and BOXER Impact

This year Christie’s booth is more than just a product booth — they also debuted a new technology concept in projection mapping that will hopefully cut down on the hours of work normally required for projection alignment. Check out a technology demonstration by watching our demo video here. Jeevan Vivegananthan, senior director of project management […]

Jeevan Vivegananthan Talks Christie New Technology and BOXER Impact

Gary Checks In with Devon Wright at the Jupiter Booth

Devon Wright, manager of Professional Services at Jupiter, talks about how Jupiter has traditionally been in the command and control room space, but has entered the small Huddle Room space now that they are shipping their CRS-4K collaboration system. Jupiter looks forward to moving into a new market dealing with integrators in the meeting room […]

Gary Checks In with Devon Wright at the Jupiter Booth

Panasonic’s Art Rankin Talks to Gary About the Company’s InfoComm Presence

Centered around an image-mapped Tesla, Panasonic is debuting over 15 new products at InfoComm. And, Art Rankin, their VP of business division strategy — AV, couldn’t be happier as the Tesla is integrated with all sorts of Panasonic product and technology. In addition to image mapping and edge blending and warping, Panasonic is filled with […]

Panasonic’s Art Rankin Talks to Gary About the Company’s InfoComm Presence

Gary Kayye and Matt Ivey of ATOMOS Catch Up and Talk about the New Shogun Studio

Shogun Studio is basically a rack-mount version of the ATOMOS Shogun — in a 3RU rack — with two 4K monitors side by side. It is capable of recording 4K, 10-bit at 4:2:2 and outputting either 4K or 1080p. This will not only be used in the rental/staging market, but I believe there is opportunity […]

Gary Kayye and Matt Ivey of ATOMOS Catch Up and Talk about the New Shogun Studio

SMART Tech’s Neil Gaydon Debuts the New kapp iQ

Gary and Neil Gaydon, president and CEO of SMART Tech, discuss the new kapp iQ SMART Board, which allows simultaneous collaboration across multiple devices. Like the regular SMART kapp, it includes a virtual writing surface, but when you write on the SMART kapp iQ, content is sent to any device held by any participant in […]

SMART Tech’s Neil Gaydon Debuts the New kapp iQ

Eric Cantrell of Medialon Discusses the Overture Cloud-Based Control System

Medialon Director of Sales Eric Cantrell speaks with Gary about how the Overture control system — control of AV gear over IP — differs from a traditional control system. In addition, because the system is network based, it can be controlled from any device and configured so that people who use the system only have […]

Eric Cantrell of Medialon Discusses the Overture Cloud-Based Control System

Gary Catches up with Mike Levi of Digital Projection

Mike Levi, president of Digital Projection, took the time this morning to talk to Gary about how they launched both new entry-level projection products as well as high-end projectors using laser. DPI used to be known as a company that focused on the high-end of the market but now they have an entry-level projector line […]

Gary Catches up with Mike Levi of Digital Projection

rAVe Founder Gary Kayye Gets Scoop About QSC’s Entry Into Meeting Room Market

QSC’s Joe Pham, president and CEO, and TJ Adams, install DSP project manager, took time to talk with Gary about their new CORE product line that moves them from just being a staging audio company to a meeting room systems company. In addition, this video gives insight into what QSC has planned for the future […]

rAVe Founder Gary Kayye Gets Scoop About QSC’s Entry Into Meeting Room Market

Higher Education and Digital Signage

With the hustle and bustle on college campuses, there is no better way to display information than with eye catching high-definition screens. With students who have grown up surrounded by digital technology, digital signage has become an important tool on many college campuses to quickly and easily show information. Digital signage can be used all […]

Higher Education and Digital Signage

The UCC Roadmap in 2015 – An Audio Interview with Michael Frendo of Polycom

Over the last several years we’ve seen the realm of Unified Communications and Collaboration grow exponentially, with new players consistently entering the market and building on technologies in cloud computing, virtualization, mobility/BYOD as well as providing extensive interoperability and integration with Microsoft Lync/Skype for Business. Certain companies, which had existed as long-standing entities in the AV […]

The UCC Roadmap in 2015 – An Audio Interview with Michael Frendo of Polycom

All-Male Panels — On Representation

The is an AV post but also a feminist post; it seems that this is the time of year for me to discuss such things. Last year, if we’ll recall, I wrote about the use of female models to attract attention at trade-shows — so called “booth babes.” What got my attention this year? I […]

All-Male Panels — On Representation

What Did Gary Think of InfoComm 2003?

We came across one of the first, ever, articles written for rAVe back in June 2003 — it was Gary’s review of the InfoComm 2003 Show. It’s an interesting look at how much our industry has changed! Oh, and, back then, InfoComm’s association was called ICIA (thus, the ICIA references) in case you wondered what-the-heck […]

What Did Gary Think of InfoComm 2003?

How To Be Better Than Your Competition

I dislike the term, “common sense.” I dislike it because people use it to mean “I already know this, and I expect that everyone else does to.” Obviously, that’s seldom true. An analogy I often use when talking about training makes reference to baking bread. Knowing how to bake bread is a learned skill. If […]

How To Be Better Than Your Competition

How to Sell AV Systems to Airlines and Insurance Companies

It’s simple, really. I often speak to dealer sales and system sales people who seem to have a hard time with the concept of selling systems to airlines and insurance companies. I’m not exactly sure why, but they seem to have difficulty grasping the concept of variance pricing based on need and use. It’s not […]

How to Sell AV Systems to Airlines and Insurance Companies

AV Control, Automation, and Expectations in a Consumer-Driven World

Control and automation can be the most fun part of AV design — from the blank canvas of a user interface, one can create anything. Preview windows? Live tiles? A photo of the room which reacts as conditions change? Imagination is the limit, but there are many pitfalls. Today we’ll talk about why some users […]

AV Control, Automation, and Expectations in a Consumer-Driven World

Three Things I Want to Learn at InfoComm and Three Things I Already Know

Editor’s note: This column was printed just prior to InfoComm 2015 this year, but we thought you’d still find it interesting. See all of rAVe’s InfoComm 2015 coverage here. OK – InfoComm is just around the corner. Along with ISE, it’s the largest audiovisual tradeshow of the year. Anything related to display systems, room control, […]

Three Things I Want to Learn at InfoComm and Three Things I Already Know

Onward — Towards the Future!

I’ll open with a personal note: This marks the 200th published post on this blog! Over the past years we’ve talked about commercial AV, speculative fiction, and even enjoyed some original writing. I’d like to thank all of you for joining me on this journey, and hope to continue to share my words with you […]

Onward — Towards the Future!

The Signs of Revolution and Disruption

As we move closer to InfoComm 2015, the terms that many of us heard (and used as well) last year are already dominating conversation again. If you’re not considering yourself revolutionary and even disruptive at this point heading into the show, maybe it’s time to start spending longer hours in the meeting room figuring out […]

The Signs of Revolution and Disruption

The Internet of Things, For Openers

Global events, data, analyst predictions and future trends — the Internet of Things has continued to capture our attention as we speed endlessly toward a mass “connected things” world…. Facts, trends and market expertise driving the numbers. The future predicted and re-predicted — depending of course on which market source and/or expert you follow. And […]

The Internet of Things, For Openers

Why UHD and 4K Content are Old News

I have meant to write this post for a while, but it seems that I was writing so much on UHD and 4K I thought I would wait a while. With NAB behind us, and InfoComm15 coming up in a couple weeks, I have seen a lot of focus on UHD and 4K content and players. […]

Why UHD and 4K Content are Old News