November 30, 2005 | Volume 2, Issue 22 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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News
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Introduction Editorial With the Sub-$500 Projector: It’s Officially a Commodity — But, Is it Really a Divorce Decree in Disguise? By Gary Kayye, CTS CEDIA News CEDIA Management Conference 2006 Now is Your Time to Profit from Experience Feature Article Special Announcement
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Introduction Welcome to another issue of rAVe Home Edition! Control. If you ask the average home theater do-it-yourselfer what he or she is lacking, it’s definitely control. You can’t teach someone how to use four remotes and you can’t tell a babysitter how to fix whatever they did wrong over the phone while you’re at a candlelit dinner or a movie. So, if you’re looking for a way to get some quick business, control is it. Did you see the NBC show in 3D last week? Editor-in-Chief Denise Harrison did and below is her take on the experience. And in the news, among other items, there is a company offering to preload your video iPod with whatever shows and movies you want. SMART. Enjoy the issue! — Gary Kayye, CTS
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Editorial Did you know that over the Thanksgiving holiday there were projectors at places like Best Buy, Circuit City and Staples selling for less than $500? Of course they were only “loss-leaders’ to draw consumers into the stores, but it does mark something substantial. Projectors are truly mainstream and are quickly finding their way to becoming a commodity.
We all see this sort of commoditization of the market we worked hard to build and have known it was coming. And, have, hopefully, prepared for it by defocusing on projectors and focusing on control. Control? Yes, control. Many of us have spent thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours building a local reputation through carrying high-end display lines – heck, we even hang them in our storefront windows. But, why not a Crestron or AMX touch panel? Why hang a Pioneer plasma when you can hang the single most important piece of gear in a system front and center? And, best of all, you can’t buy these things at Best Buy. Look, I’m not bashing the display manufacturers – they have every right to try and sell as many boxes as they can. And, I, for one, believe that the quicker they do, the better. These things are NOT easy to use. Not easy to connect and not easy to control. Best Buy offering to hang a plasma in a home for $100 is one thing, but connect a TiVo, a CD player and a DVD player to it and you’ve got a household hangover of confusion. The buyer and family technology evangelist will certainly know how to use it, and for his hard-earned sell job on the rest of the family (primarily the spouse), he’s anointed to train every babysitter who walks through the front door as well as field all the ANGRY calls from fellow family members who can’t figure out why the TV is “on” and they can hear the sound but there’s no picture! Eventually, they’ll come running (to you, the integrator) for that little, profitable, cool, elegant touch panel! And, by then, instead of selling them AV Gear you’ll be selling them an electronic marriage counselor.
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CEDIA Management Conference 2006 Now is Your Time to Profit from Experience The 2006 CEDIA Management Conference will be held February 20-23 in San Francisco, CA. Management Conference has become one of the premier events for business owners, presidents, and decision makers in the custom residential electronic systems industry. If you haven’t been to Management Conference before, now is the time! The conference will feature two keynote speakers, including Harvey Mackay who will teach you how to out sell, out manage, out motivate, and out negotiate your competition. Also, you will witness Jeffrey Fox’s no-nonsense, crystal clear message taught around the world, how to become a Rainmaker. There will also be Cross Industry presentations from top companies in their fields such as Ritz Carlton Hotel Company and Dale Carnegie Institute, as well as Small Group Forums on the following business issues: • Industry SWOT • Customer Relations • Success with Manufacturers • Marketing/Advertising • Production Home Market • Sales Processes • Project Management • Service Department • Skilled Employees • Crisis Management To find out more about Management Conference visit www.cedia.org, click on ‘CEDIA University’ and then ‘Management Conference'.
CEDIA Electronic Lifestyles® Forum – New For 2006! The Future of How We Live CEDIA is unveiling a brand new event in 2006. The Electronic Lifestyles® Forum will take place directly after CEDIA Management Conference February 23-25, in San Francisco, CA. This event will bring together professionals from the custom installation industry and the residential homebuilding/design market including architects, home builders, and interior designers. This event will feature keynotes including Nicholas Negroponte, round table and panel discussions featuring ASID incoming president Robert Wright and CEDIA Past President Ray Lepper. These discussions will bring new ideas in order for all industry partners to work more efficiently together. For more information on the Electronic Lifestyles® Forum please visit http://www.cedia.org and click on 'Electronic Lifestyles® Forum'.
The PSB CustomSound designs settle the long standing conflict between sound and design. Click above for more information
News Have a news tip? Send them to rAVe Editor-in-Chief Denise Harrison — dharrison@kayye.com
Industry News
1. TiVo Appeases Advertisers
TiVo announced the company will provide TiVo subscribers with advertising search capabilities by Spring, 2006. Another good move by TiVo. This not only smoothes some ruffled feathers of advertisers, who fear the fast forward functionality of TiVo eliminates their messages, but this is good for subscribers, too. Imagine a consumer who is in the market for a new car. The TiVo subscriber can set a search function for new cars and view the ads when they want to. Important for advertisers here is that the adverting breaks are often when consumers leave the room. This way, the ads are targeted to those who want them and the viewer will actually devote time to the ads. It doesn’t totally eliminate the damage of fast forwarding (which consumers have long done with VCRs anyway), but this service is as win-win as it can get in today’s TV environment. Media and advertising agencies, such as Interpublic Media, OMD, Starcom Mediavest Group, The Richards Group, and Comcast Spotlight, the advertising sales division of Comcast Cable, worked with TiVo to provide to develop this service as well as the search categories, such as automotive, travel, telecommunications, and consumer packaged goods. TiVo users will search ads using keywords. An editor’s note to TiVo: What the heck are they going to do? Without DirecTV and still without a true software licensing strategy (leaving them selling hardware to get users), I am worried they might not survive. OK, maybe they’ll get bought out by some giant electronics manufacturer or, hopefully, realize that they NEED to license the user-interface software to companies as selling hardware isn’t going to cut it, I am afraid. Please do SOMETHING as the cable companies’ DVRs usability sucks and the new DirecTV DVR is horrid, confusing and just plain U-G-L-Y. But, the truth is that consumers take path of least resistance – if the cable company gives it away, I’ll take it. The concept of adding, yet another, device for recording TV shows is not appealing to most people – ANOTHER REMOTE, ugh! Please survive as I love you! For more information, go to http://www.tivo.com/cms_static/press_67.html
2. No Slowdown in DVD Wars
The DVD format war has been likened, as you well know, to the Betamax-VHS war of some time ago and this one looks like it may go on for a while. There are major players on both sides of the field. For more information, go to http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/11-18-2005/0004219732&EDATE= Integrator Solutions 3. Coaxsys Launches TVnet/C Pro Cable and IP on Cat5
Coaxsys says no new software or switch settings are required and it’s HDTV, VoIP and data ready. For more information, go to http://www.coaxsys.com/products/tvnet_c_pro.php 4. Peerless Introduces $99 Articulating Wall Arm Mount
Peerless has a new flat panel articulating wall arm for 10- to 22-inch flat panels for both home and commercial use. The $99 LCS-KLA LCD weighs two pounds and has a two-link arm that can extend from the wall up to 15.25 inches, then fold flat to two inches. It also has an adjustable three-hinge pivot system with tension control, a one-touch tilting mechanism that ranges +/- 35 degrees and up to 180 degrees of swivel. The LCS-KLA mount includes a VESA 75/100 mounting plate and comes pre-assembled out of the box with all the hardware required for installation. It has a scratch-resistant fused epoxy finish and comes in silver. For more information, go to http://www.peerlessmounts.com/press_releases/LCS-KLA.doc
5. Samsung Electronics Develops Flexible LCD Panel As Philips and HP continue development of flexible panels, Samsung announced they, too, are working on a flexible display. Samsung developed a seven-inch, 640 x 640 TFT LCD that has enough resolution to display TV content.
This is different from the Philips and HP developments, which are basically electronic paper display panels that can be rolled up, recharged for new content, etc. But all these announcements show how the heavy, breakable LCD displays we're accustomed to now could be replaced. The news release isn't yet up on the Samsung website at press time, but here is a link to the press room for when it is: http://www.samsung.com/PressCenter/PressRelease/index.asp
6. Zoran, Thomson Announce Digital-to-Analog Technology
Many fear the digital transition could leave the vast amount of lower income households behind. So this sort of development is great news. For more information, go to http://www.zoran.com/press_room/2005/11_28_05_Thomson_A74.html
7. TVMyPod Introduces Pre-loaded Video iPods
This is a seriously cool holiday present for those who want to give video iPods AND a favorite show or movie. I hope it makes it. Customers purchase the iPod and the DVDs of their choice; TVMyPod then converts the DVDs to iPod format and loads them onto the iPod at no extra charge. The customer receives the loaded iPod in its original packaging, along with each of the DVDs he or she purchased. TVMyPod plans to offer the service of loading existing iPods with DVD collections; the company may also offer a subscription service to allow customers to have their iPods periodically re-loaded with new DVDs. I think they would have to offer the subscription service as eventually you would watch all the shows on there and be bored with it – playing archived TV shows isn’t like listening to archived music over and over (eventually you get bored of the reruns). Although, personally, I doubt I will ever get tired of watching the November 20, 2005 episode of HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm again and again or with the “St. John’s Wort” episode of Everybody Loved Raymond. For more information, go to http://www.tvmypod.com
8. Toshiba Announces gigabeat Flash Digital Audio Players
They will play WMA, MP3, WAV and offer JPEG photo support. Flash models also come with an FM Tuner and built-in voice recorder. gigabeat Flash players also include three different styles of clock designs that are activated when the player is not being used, and both models feature up to 14 hours of battery life. Toshiba is working with Microsoft to provide Windows Media PlaysForSure compatibility. Via a USB port, gigabeat Flash players are able to download music and photos via Windows Media Player 10. For more information, go to http://www.tacp.toshiba.com/news/newsarticle.asp?newsid=106 9. Video Without Boundaries Introduces Sub-$200 Portable Video Player
This compares to Apple, with 30GB and 60GB for $299 or $399 and the ARCHOS AV420 Pocket Video Recorder, 20GB for $399.95. So you get a LOT more storage for the money with the Apple and ARCHOS portables. But do you need all that? If not, then the CoPilot’s six or so hours of video will do. As other portables, it connects to a DVD Player, VCRs, cable and satellite set-top boxes for recording. For more on Video Without Boundaries products, go to https://www.vwbinc.com/secureorder.html
10. LG, Microsoft Challenging TiVo/Humax With Digital Media Recorder With Microsoft Program Guide
The LG box itself is $599.95, pretty good for the size. The Humax 80GB box is down to $249 with a 12-month TiVo contract. TiVo charges $12.95 a month; Microsoft charges $9.99. The LG also has two USB ports so you can expand the storage. The LRM-519 lets users send the video to a PC (like TiVoToGo and Sling Media do). This is probably a very good product and TiVo had to get real competition at some point. It’s okay – in Marketing 101 you learn that a second competitor always serves to expand the market. For more information, go to http://us.lge.com/index.do
Now, Global Caché, an IP company, and 2PartsFusion, a digital media servers company, are combining forces to market their product compatibility. Apparently, they have third-party software vendors in common, who will create and provide the functionality on these systems, which will sit on the 2PartsFusion hardware for automating the home. The servers also allow recording of TV, music and playing video games, etc., like other servers. For more information, go to http://www.globalcache.com/news/pr-2partsfusion.html
The in-wall controller’s 10/100Base-T Ethernet port works with IP-based components, of course, and it has a 200MHz, 32-bit Xscale processor for speed. It is programmed using the company’s TheaterTouch Designer software, with drag-and-drop programming. Speaking of which, the company also announced TheaterTouch Designer 4.0 version, which the company says lets an installer program control systems for any size entertainment system using any RTI remote. The new TheaterTouch Designer software supports the latest RTI universal controllers and remote processors. It includes a complete library of custom buttons and templates for the K4 handheld touchpanel, and can interface with multiple control processors, including the new RP-1. In addition, the program can create macro command strings with an unlimited number of steps for any RTI remote, and attach .WAV audio files to controllers with playback capability such as the T3 and K4. The new software is available now and installers can get a copy by logging on to http://www.rticorp.com/dealers and following the downloading instructions. For more on RTI, go to http://www.rticorp.com/
3D-TV For those of you who might have missed it, NBC showed a special 3D episode of the hit show “Medium” last week. You may have missed it because, despite such a huge undertaking, I didn’t see a lot of promotion for the event. You may have missed it because distribution of the 3D glasses was unconventional: you could only find them in that week’s issue of TV Guide. You also may have missed it because TV Guide had JUST moved to its new full size format and no doubt, supermarkets and drug stores are still trying to find space to place it. So, it’s not easy to find now that it’s the same size as a gazillion other magazines. I almost missed it. That issue of TV Guide never made it to my town, so I had to travel to adjacent towns to find it. The 3D was used in only certain scenes, perhaps six of them, and the viewer was instructed to watch for a certain logo to know when a 3D scene was coming up. NBC had a clever intro featuring Rod Serling of the 1960s show, “The Twilight Zone.” Rod did a classic introduction, with NBC dubbing in, and dubbing very well, a sentence or two to explain the 3D and when to look for the logo.
There was a kitchen scene, for example, that looked like a normal 2D scene, but as the scene progressed, the island in the kitchen, and the open drawer, gradually became obviously 3D. Why they didn’t pop immediately, rather than gradually, I’m not sure. Intentional or not, I’d have liked to see it be 3D from start to finish. Now that the criticism is on record, certain actions were clearly in 3D, and they were great. A murderer throws a cleaver at someone, and that cleaver looked like it was coming right at you. It was so real that even though they showed it several times and I knew what was coming, I ducked every single time. Before this, I thought I surely didn’t need to see TV violence in 3D, but I have to admit to a guilty pleasure. It was a novel experience, and it added an element of surprise to the show. Despite the flaws, I’d call this experiment a success. And I definitely expect to see more 3D on TV soon. We know that 3D cinema is well on its way (Chicken Little, Star Wars), so it follows that 3D films re-airing on TV, and original 3D TV episodes will soon be regular fare as well. Thrillers, Sci-Fi and action films are clearly the best, and scariest, genres that will take advantage of 3D’s shock factor. Some say they’d love their Monday night football in 3D, too. Although there are other, newer ways to produce 3D, one of the typical ways is anaglyph, which is apparently the way the “Medium” episode was produced. You place two cameras 2.5 inches apart, the same distance between our eyes. The two cameras film the two different colors, and the final product is a film that looks blurry until you put on the glasses, which filter the two colors and produce the 3D. With new developments, digital cameras could do the deed with one camera. Polarized, however, normally requires two projection sources that weave horizontal and vertical pictures together on the screen and you wear polarized glasses. But IBM recently demonstrated a polarized technology to be built into DLP TVs and projectors, so it doesn’t require the two projectors. The content, of course, must be created in 3D, but even Lucas expects some episodes of Star Wars in 3D to be ready within two to three years. I’m looking forward to holographic TV most of all. Or my own personal holographic movie projected over my dinner table while I’m out to eat. But for now, 3D TV is no doubt going to be a lot of fun in the coming years. On the “Medium” website, you can take a look at the gruesome scene. See the “featured video” section. The HDTV Business Conference will be held on January 4, 2006, the day before CES 2006 begins, at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas. This one-day executive-level event will cover the hottest topics in the HDTV industry. Topics to include: HD content, ipTV, mobile video, MSO competitiveness, digital rights management, HD DVD vs. Blu-ray, MD-TV, LCD-TV, PDP-TV, retailing and merchandizing, new channels of distribution and who is making money? Confirmed or likely speakers are from Qualcomm, Comcast, Microsoft, Intel, Toshiba, ESPN, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Samsung, Texas Instruments, Tweeter, Syntax-Brillian and SG Cowen. Who should attend?
• Technologists and executives participating in related industries • Newcomers to the world of HDTV Why attend? • Hear from top industry executives about the strategic issues facing the Digital TV industry • Understand the key positions of industry leaders and where they are taking their companies • Build knowledge in all aspects of the HDTV industry • Gain insight to make strategic business decisions • Network Reception with the industry’s movers and shakers • Enhance your CES experience For program, conference registration, and sponsorship opportunities, please visit www.hdtv-bc.com. Or call Insight Media at (203) 831-8464.
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Thanks for reading, and tell your friends by clicking on the “forward” button at the top of the newsletter or sending them to Copyright 2005 – Kayye Consulting – All rights reserved. For reprint policies, contact us at Kayye Consulting, Inc. Editorial: dharrison@kayye.com Gary Kayye's rAVe contains the opinions of the author only and does not necessarily reflect the opinions of other persons or companies or its sponsors. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
