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The Next Big Thing in 2012

Biscotti_ProductShot_withTV-0112At the end of 2010, while all the industry pundits were predicting a wave of 3D would sweep over the HomeAV market in 2011, I predicted the big trend in HomeAV would NOT be 3D, but would in fact be gaming room AV environments. And, as the year 2011 came to a close last month, you not only saw companies like Runco, Sony and Epson launch systems specifically targeted at gaming for the home, but they can also attribute the rise in 3D sales last year to – you guessed it – 3D gaming, not 3D movie watching in the home. In fact, most reports say that 3D usage for TV and movies in the home is well less than 1 percent of the entire market. 3D gaming was and remains hot.

Call it luck or attribute it to inside information; either way, my prediction for last year’s market came to fruition. If you jumped on that trend early, congratulations. Home theaters are, well, so 2005.

So, what do I think will be the big, hot trend in HomeAV for 2012? Well, again, not 3D. So, what do I think it will it be? Living room videoconferencing.

That’s right. While all the HomeAV industry pundits are out there predicting the big trend for 2012 will be connected TVs (that already happened in 2010), Wireless HD (again, been there, done that – that’s sooo 2010) and the demise of the LCD TV (that’s just wrong — watch Apple sell the hell out of them in 2012 using Sharp’s own TVs). Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Let’s get original. Those three predictions and the few others I’ve read from industry writers aren’t even predictions — they’ve already happened. Reality check!

Nope, the trend for 2012 will be living room videoconferencing — and you can bet on it.

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