rAVe HomeAV Edition Volume 3, Issue 23 – December 13, 2006

Premier Mounts
Epson America
DVIGear
CEDIA

CES European Buyer’s Lounge

rAVe Europe (and its sister publication Multimedia I.T.) be the exclusive host of the 2007 European Buyer's Lounge @ CES. A function organized by CES, the Buyer’s Lounge is open on Tuesday, January 9^th in the Hilton Ballroom E from 5.00 ?? 7.00pm. The editors of rAVe Europe will be on hand to greet European buyers and to facilitate business networking.

For more info, email rAVeEurope@gmail.com

Could front projectors finally be catching on in the HomeAV market? Absolutely. And it’s one of those rare cases when, as demand rises, manufacturers are actually providing exactly the right supply. In this case, that means affordable 1080p front projectors such as the one from Epson we cover in today’s news. And Epson isn’t alone, as you’ll see in the rest of the news.

Also this issue, Denise Harrison takes a look at how installers can take advantage of a simple little gadget called Slingbox.

Enjoy the issue!

Review: Slingbox as an Installer Product

By Denise Harrison
rAVe Editor-in-Chief

The large HomeAV systems may be hard sells at times, but if you tell a customer you can take his iPod and play his iTunes in all rooms of the house, now you’re talking his language. Gadgets themselves may not give you much of a margin, but bringing gadgets to customers does have its advantages:

1. Taking cool gadgets to show your customers can be great lead-ins to other sales.
2. Gadgets are an excuse to keep in touch.
3. A great gadget that works with the home theater is something your customer will show off to friends, which could lead to referrals.

The place-shifting solutions on the market might just be the sort of gadgets that actually provide a solution to some of your customers’ HomeAV challenges. These are squarely aimed at the do-it-yourself consumer market. But that doesn’t mean your customer has ever heard of Orb or Slingbox, or that they know Sony has something called LocationFree TV. You can tell your customers they can watch their own TV from anywhere ?? in the home, around town or on the other side of the planet.

The Slingbox by Sling Media was an early entry in the place-shifting market. Sling is a box that sits on the TV, connects to cable/TiVo/etc. and lets the consumer watch anything attached to the Slingbox on their PC, Mac or mobile device.

The place-shifting makes it a rather cool gadget, but in some cases, it’s also a rather solid solution to a HomeAV installation. Some examples:

— The customer likes to sit on the back patio each night to watch the sunset. They don’t really want to spring for an expensive all-weather LCD TV. They leave the network news playing in the living room and listen, then crane their necks to watch if anything looks important. With Slingbox, a wireless laptop can pick up the TV signal and let the customer watch the same program wherever there is a power plug.

— The customer has no cable or satellite connection in the kitchen. The household doesn’t watch TV in the kitchen enough to warrant the expense of running a cable and installing an under-counter LCD TV. Again, the Slingbox is a great solution ?? tote the laptop from the patio into the kitchen when it’s time to cook, or just keep one of the new Ultramobile PCs propped up in the corner.

— Any room that would require a lot of work to install a TV benefits from place-shifting. Bathrooms, exercise areas, finished basements and mother-in-law quarters.

— A family contends they’re the biggest fans of Amazing Race ever. But one of the family members is traveling west during the finale. Using SlingPlayer on the laptop or on a mobile device lets them watch it together no matter what time zone they’re in.

Pros:

The Slingbox, in theory, is an incredibly easy install, more so for professional installers than most consumers. It’s also quite affordable for what it does: $300 or so will get the top-of-the-line model with the required powerline adapters. The Slingbox lets consumers watch their TV and any content attached, such as programs stored on TiVo, anywhere there’s an internet connection.

The video is certainly watchable on both 15-inch LCD laptop and Windows Mobile cell phone. The interface is intuitive, with a graphic remote designed to look somewhat like your home remote, and act just like it. Using the remote, the user can adjust the volume, change the channel, access live TV or stored programs, and using these functions doesn’t cause as huge a feed delay as you might guess.

There is a lot of buzz these days about companies designing special video programming for mobile device subscribers. Cell phone providers will be charging extra fees for TV, or TV-like services. But Slingbox and devices like it are just inherently better — it’s hard to beat accessing your own TV, including your DVR contents, on your cell phone, without monthly fees.

Cons:

It might not work right out of the box. The trick is finding out why it’s not working. Sling has excellent telephone support, so they can probably diagnose the problem fairly quickly. And if it doesn’t work right away, you might be best off calling them. Some customers, for example, are going to have issues with their broadband providers, such as not enough ports open, or a closed rather than open configuration, or a problem with port forwarding.

You can only watch what’s playing on the TV. This has been one of the biggest drawbacks of these sorts of systems. The remote laptop or mobile device can only view what is actually being shown on the screen at home, so either the home viewer is stuck watching what the remote viewer wants to watch, or the remote viewer is stuck watching what the home viewer has on. (There is a way around this, with a splitter ?? the Slingbox will also let you select among video inputs if you install the higher end box.)

Only one Slingplayer can access the Sling at one time. There isn’t really any getting away from this drawback. But if your customer really thinks they’ll watch Slingbox feeds in several rooms or remote locations at once, you can always attach additional Slingboxes to the different TVs in the home.

In Summary:

Assuming the customer’s ISP is set up as most, the Slingbox is an incredibly easy install in the home theater area, on the laptop and on the mobile device. If you have any customers reluctant to let you run cables in parts of the house, place-shifting devices can bring the video feed in wirelessly and for a much lower price.

The video isn’t perfect, so it’s not likely anything you’d want to use for a main viewing room. But for the ability to watch TV while shaving, exercising, cooking, watching CNN while waiting for a doctor appointment, or while keeping an eye on the kids in the back yard, this is just great.

The Slingbox and other such devices also let you have a bit of creativity as an installer ?? you can turn the Slingbox into a viewer for outside security cameras and baby monitors.

Got Questions? ?? CEDIA’s Got Answers!

Questions are always present in your day-to-day activities, whether these questions are personal or professional there’s no escaping them. However, CEDIA’s goal is to alleviate all of your professional questions. In CEDIA’s effort a new position has been added to its staff, the member concierge. This new role has been created to answer all of your pressing association questions.

The goal of CEDIA’s member concierge is to focus and work exclusively with CEDIA Members to make sure their every need is being met. They will be making a proactive approach to assure that CEDIA Members are aware of their membership status, certification requirements, CEU status, CEDIA events, and any other association information that will aid in the success of their business.

In addition, the member concierge has been trained in all CEDIA departments. This will ensure questions can be answered quickly and if more information is needed they can direct members accordingly. Let your CEDIA membership pay for itself over and over. CEDIA member concierge gives you one more reason for making CEDIA membership the smartest investment.

To contact a CEDIA member concierge today call (800) 669-5329, or visit CEDIA’s membership website at www.cedia.org/membership.

Mark your calendars today ??.

Here’s a list of upcoming 2007 dates you won’t want to miss!

New CEA-NSCA-CEDIA Alliance Prepares Launch, Hires Manager

The new Electronic System Professional Alliance (ESPA) announced recently by CEA, NSCA and CEDIA is preparing for its 4Q 2007 launch with branding and by hiring a managing director. ESPA announced new logos for use by ESPA-certified professionals, who can use them on their vehicles, literature, bid documents, websites, etc. The certification product logo includes the word “Certified-EST,” which is the official designation of technicians who have successfully passed the ESPA certification exam.

 

ESPA also announced that Deb Rolfes is the new managing director of the organization. Rolfes is responsible for strategic planning, business development including licensing sales, finance and marketing. She also serves as a spokesperson for ESPA and its vision of building a unified industry with a qualified workforce.

 

Rolfes was most recently in business development for CEA member Decisionmark. She earned her degree in business administration with a specialization in marketing from Iowa State University, and volunteers with American Red Cross and American Cancer Society. She and her husband Mark live in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

 

For more on ESPA, go to the press release.

Protron Changes Brand Name to SPECTRONIQ

The brand name formerly known as Protron Digital is changing the brand name to SPECTRONIQ, effective at the beginning of the year. The change doesn’t affect models currently in inventory with the Protron name.

 

Protron Digital was founded in 2005 and the company says the name change is partly due to their desire to differentiate the company from a company with a similar name, and that would have to be Proton ?? http://www.proton-usa.com/

 

For more information on PROTRON/SPECTRONIQ, go to http://www.spectroniq.com/

 

 

 

Epson Introduces Flagship 1080p Home Cinema Projector ?? First to Use HDMI 1.3

Epson America introduced a sub-$5,000 1080p home cinema projector using 3LCD chips, the new HDMI 1.3 spec, and a number of image enhancing technologies.

 

With this new native 1080p, 3-panel LCD projector from Epson, Sony’s VPL-VW100 is DEAD and the VPL-VW50 better watch out. I have been testing Epson’s new Pro Cinema 1080 projector against my own theater’s VPL-VW50 for two weeks now and, I have to be honest, had I seen this projector three months ago, I doubt I would have installed the VPL-VW50. Simply put, they are identical in image quality, but the Epson’s quieter, easier to use, looks a hell of a lot nicer and works at 1080p with both analog and digital signals ?? the Sony VPL-VW50 only works at 1080p through the digital-only HDMI-input.

 

And, with Sony having some of the worst customer service in the AV world now, Epson may well trump them with this new box! I am impressed!

 

The PowerLite Pro Cinema 1080 is specified at 1920 x 1080 resolution, up to 12,000:1 (another new record!), and uses the VastLane SiI9133 HDMI receiver chip. Epson says this is the first HDMI 1.3 home theater projector on the market supporting Deep Color capability.

 

The PowerLite Pro Cinema 1080 has Epson's C2Fine 1080p 3LCD chips, capable of displaying 12-bit Deep Color images and delivering the high contrast ratio. It also uses OptiCinema optics, E-TORL lamp, 1080Perfect Video Processor, AccuCinema lens and Absolute Black technology

 

The Epson PowerLite Pro Cinema 1080 is ISF-certified, ensuring it achieves the required video fidelity and calibration.

 

This projector ships in January to CEDIA dealers for MSRP of $4,999.

 

For more information, go to http://www.epson.com/cmc_upload/pdf/PowerLiteProCinema1080ReleaseFINAL.pdf

Mitsubishi Announces Holiday Discount on HD1000U

Mitsubishi is offering all consumers the employee discount on the HD1000U HD front projector during the holiday season. The DLP projector, specified at 1500 ANSI lumens, 720p resolution and 2500:1 contrast ratio, now has MRSP of $995. It comes with HDMI.

For more information, go to http://www.mitsubishi-hometheater.com/hd1000u.asp

Runco Ships THX-Certified 1080p Projectors

The first TXH-certified projectors from RUNCO are now shipping. These include the Video Xtreme, with the VX-22d, VX-44d and VX-55d 3-chip 1080p DLP projectors and the new THX Certified VX-2000d and VX-6000d single-chip 1080p DLP projectors.

 

Achieving the certification, says Runco, means testing the units according to the standards in the THX Certified Display program created to ensure that HD and standard definition content are presented with the correct color, luminance levels and video processing capabilities. Runco is the launch licensee for the THX video program and the companies have been working closely together on the finalization of these products.

 

The VX 1080p models use Runco’s CineWide and CineWide with AutoScope technology for reproducing 2.35:1 CinemaScope movies without black bars. They also use Runco’s DHD controller, which now has HDMI.

 

For more information, go to http://www.runco.com/projectors.html

Another High-Contrast Projector: JVC Introduces 1080p With 15,000:1 Contrast Ratio

 

JVC introduced a home theater front projector, the DLA-RS1, using HD D-ILA technology and specified at 15,000:1 contrast ratio. The DLA-RS1 is also specified at 1920 x 1080 resolution, and 800 lumens, and it uses the next generation D-ILA LCoS technology in a 3-panel design.

 

Aimed squarely at the Sony VPL-VW50 and the new 1080p from EPSON, the DLA-RS1 has adjustable 80% vertical and 34% horizontal shift lens, 2x manual zoom lens, and can project from 60” to 200” inches. It has dual HDMI inputs, component, composite and s-Video ports but also RS-232 for control. But, at almost $1,200 more than the Epson and the Sony, the traction will either need to come from a loyal dealer base or from discounting the product price, quickly, or they may not sell many. I am betting on the latter ?? they’ll have to discount if they don’t sell a healthy quantity as the Epson and the Sony are worth NOT spending another $1,200.

 

MSRP is $6,295 and it will be available Q1 2007.

 

For more information, go to http://pro.jvc.com/prof/attributes/features.jsp?model_id=MDL101681

 

Runco Debuts Six Plasmas for the Holidays

 

Runco has six new plasma TVs ready to ship in time for the holidays. The models are the SP-42, SP-42DHD, SP-50, SP-50DHD, SP-60, and SP-60DHD.

 

The new PlasmaWall models SP-42DHD, SP-50DHD and SP-60DHD use Runco’s DHD Digital High Definition Video Controller/Processor with Vivix II processing external modular controller, designed to improve both HD and NTSC signals. The CinemaWall models SP-42, SP-50 and SP-60 also use the latest generation of Runco’s plasma technology and advanced integrated Vivix II processing. Runco’s new plasmas have ISF (Imaging Science Foundation) certification for day and night settings, and come with RGB, DVI with HDCP, Composite S-video, HD, DVI Video, RS-232, as well as five audio inputs. They are about four inches thick.

 

For more information, go to http://www.runco.com/plasma.html

Electrograph Adds ISFccc Controls and Custom Designed Frames to New RevolutionHD Displays

Electrograph announced installer features for the company’s new RevolutionHD display offerings. The new RevolutionHD custom frames allow the installer to choose among a number of colors and styles.

 

The company also announced the LCDs and plasmas will be available with with Imaging Science Foundation Certification Calibration Controls (ISFccc). These allow the installer to adjust the panels for bright and dark rooms as well as, after calibration, allow the homeowner to choose a menu option for the best picture quality.

 

For more information, go to http://www.revolutionhd.com/

 

Panasonic Goes Lead-Free With Plasmas

Panasonic says they are the first company in the U.S. to sell lead-free plasma display panels. In addition to the elimination of lead in the panel, Panasonic says the company has made significant advances in color enhancement.

 

In conventional manufacturing processes for PDPs, lead oxide glass is used in the dielectric layer, electrodes, glass sealant and other structural elements. Lead oxide glass was valued for its ability to stabilize production yields and quality. Panasonic says the company found a way to stabilize without using lead oxide resulting in the elimination of roughly 70 grams (0.15 pounds) of lead used in a 37-inch plasma panel.

For more information, go to the Panasonic webpage.

 

 

Peerless Introduces New Colors for Flat TV Stands

Peerless added high gloss piano black, black, and silver to color selections for the company’s 32-50-inch flat panel TV stands. The FST and SGL stands have a triangular design to fit into a corner or against a wall and they provide various shelf space for components, with each shelf holding up to 50 pounds. The stand has internal cable management, but for the TV only. It would be nice to see the cable management extended for hiding the shelf component cables also.

 

For more information, go to http://www.peerlessmounts.com/dyn/Products/BrowseProduct.aspx/productID/164312

 

MediaREADY Announces New Media Center

 

MediaREADY, a very early player in the media center market, announced the company’s next generation product ?? the MediaREADY MC. The MC combines personal video recording, electronic program guide, Internet browsing and download support, email, CD/DVD playback, digital pictures, and digital music. The new model has a television-optimized interface for managing collections, and enhanced internet media management.

 

The MediaREADY MC base model will carry an MSRP of $899 and will ship to retailers beginning in Q1 of 2007.

 

For more information, go to http://www.mediareadyinc.com/press_120606.php

Ruckus Wireless to Show Smart Wi-Fi 802.11n Multimedia System at CES

Ruckus Wireless announced the company will demonstrate the first Smart Wi-Fi system based on 802.11n at CES. The Ruckus Wireless demonstration will show how users can wirelessly transport many HDTV streams, digital voice, music and data throughout the home.

 

Ruckus says that the 802.11n speeds greater than 70 Mbps usually stumble when trying to go long distances. Ruckus says their "Smart-N" technology rejects noise and delivers consistent throughput regardless of location and device placement. It combines the Ruckus BeamFlex smart antenna technology and SmartCast traffic engineering software with commercial 802.11n silicon to automatically adapt to environmental challenges, obstacles, and noise.

 

At CES, Using a prototype Ruckus Smart-N system, three HD video streams will be transmitted simultaneously over 802.11n to three Ruckus Smart-N receivers, each attached to an HD set top box.

 

For more information, go to http://www.ruckuswireless.com/

 

Need Blu-ray Now? Buy a VAIO

 

Sony found a way around Blu-ray player shipment delays: the company put the player in VAIO notebook computers. So anyone looking to buy a Blu-ray player has an excuse to buy a new laptop, and Sony has a clever way of selling more laptops. Meanwhile, Sony announced shipments of the first stand-alone player on December 1 and Pioneer announced December ship dates as well.

 

For more information, go to http://www.blu-ray.com/ and the Sony website.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well, that's it for this edition of rAVe! Thank you for spending time with me as we muse the industry's happenings. To continue getting my newsletter, or to sign up a friend, click the link below. To send me feedback, don't reply to this newsletter – instead, write to me at gkayye@kayye.com or for editorial: Denise Harrison at dharrison@kayye.com

A little about me: Gary Kayye, CTS, founder of Kayye Consulting. Gary Kayye, an audiovisual veteran and columnist, began the widely-read KNews, a premier industry newsletter, in the late 1990s, and created the model for and was co-founder of AV Avenue – which later became InfoComm IQ. Kayye Consulting is a company that is committed to furthering the interests and success of dealers, manufacturers, and other companies within the professional audiovisual industry.

Gary Kayye's rAVe was launched in February 2003. The rAVe Home Edition co-sponsored by CEDIA launched in February, 2004.

To read more about my background, our staff, and what we do, go to http://www.kayye.com

 

Copyright 2006 – Kayye Consulting – All rights reserved. For reprint policies, contact Kayye Consulting, 400 Meadowmont Village Circle, Suite 425 – Chapel Hill, NC 27517 – 919/969-7501. Email: 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.