 |
Volume 2, Issue 7 — July 26, 2011 |

Click here for more information
|
|


Some Serious Next-Gen GreenAV… Literally
By Scott Walker, CTS-D, LEED AP
I’m going to take a break from the STEP chronicles for the moment and share with you a personal story, a story that gives me great hope for the future of sustainable technology. First though, some background.
In my house, I’m not that big of a deal. I don’t mean that my wife and kids don’t love me; they do. I mean that my day job is not much of a topic for discussion at home. My family obviously knows what I do for a living, and they understand that I’ve been a volunteer with InfoComm for many years, but I — probably like many of you — don’t really talk about my work at home. I mean, where do you even start, right? However, all of that changed earlier this month.
You see, my oldest son, Mitch, is starting college in the fall at Georgia Tech, and earlier this month he began his fledgling career in the AV industry as a part-time student worker in Georgia Tech’s AV design group. On the eve of Mitch’s first day of work he was a little anxious about diving headlong into dear ole’ dad’s industry and began to ask me (really for the first time in his 18 years) about my job and how the AV industry works.
My first thought was to take him to the InfoComm website to show him the wealth of resources there and look into getting him a student membership to InfoComm. When we landed on the InfoComm homepage, I couldn’t help but notice the STEP logo so I thought I should tell him (briefly) about my work on STEP in case he came across my name while poking around infocomm.org. So I gave him a quick elevator pitch on STEP, and we proceeded to the more immediately applicable sections of the site that deal with membership and education.
I told Mitch that he should take the introductory online courses “Quick Start to the AV Industry” and “Essentials of AV Technology” as soon as possible. However, being something of a math-minded kid, Mitch’s eye quickly went to the course called “AV Math,” and he asked me, “Dad, what’s ‘AV Math’?”
Intrigued by his interest, I began to cover some basic AV physics, explain to him how logarithms apply to sound and light, and introduce him to concepts like “inverse-square law” and “contrast ratio.” I decided to give his AV education a Zen arrow of enlightenment and, using a trick I learned from the late Kim Milliken, held up a blank sheet of paper and asked him what color the paper was. He looked at me quizzically and said, “Umm, white?” Without addressing his answer I asked, “And if this piece of paper were a projection screen, what color would it be?” He took a longer pause this time sensing the fix was in, but again said, “Uhh, I guess…white.” I said, “Would you believe black?” and went on to explain that a projector cannot project “blackness.” It can’t suck light off the screen; it can only put more light on it. Thus, the white of a projection screen is as black as our image can be. I rotated the little mini screen I was holding in my hand in and out of the late afternoon sun of my front porch to show that black level—and thus projected image contrast — is hugely dependent on how low we could get the ambient light level on a screen, and that conversely, the higher the ambient light level on a screen, the greater the energy required (generally speaking) to overcome this situation and achieve an acceptable contrast ratio. Being a pretty bright kid, Mitch got the concept instantly without me having to go fetch a flashlight to demonstrate my little front-porch experiment any further. I was comforted by that.
What really impressed me — floored me actually — was what came out of his mouth next. He said, “Don’t you guys have sensors that can read light levels?” “Yes,” I said. “So why wouldn’t you just put ambient light sensors near the screen and adjust the window shades and room lights until you get a low-enough light level at the screen so that you don’t have to overpower it with a super-bright projector?”
I almost cried.
In less than 20 minutes he got what took me nearly 20 years of AV experience to understand: Write some dog-gone code, Dad, and integrate the building with the AV system so you don’t waste a bunch of energy on the lighting system AND the projector, you dumb old fart. Duh!
Little did he know I wrote an article on that very topic three years ago; in fact, he’s never read any of my articles. It just occurred to him intuitively that this is what one would do. I told him he’d be disappointed to know that probably 99.999 percent of AV systems on planet Earth did not have this level of sophistication, to which he said, “Oh, I’m gonna so own this industry.”
Now, my point is not to brag on my kid. Mitch is pretty smart, but he’s not Isaac Newton. My point is that this next generation entering the work force over the next few years have been playing with computers since they could read, they intuit code, and they’ve been thinking about our planet’s dwindling resources since middle school. Let’s not have them enter our industry laughing at us because we couldn’t wrap our heads around a few simple algorithms that can make our systems both smart and sustainable.
Charles Darwin, wherever you are, I’m a believer.
Scott Walker, CTS-D, LEED® AP, is president and CEO of Waveguide Consulting, a national AV, IT and acoustical consulting firm. Scott is a past president of InfoComm International, and he currently chairs InfoComm’s AV Sustainability Task Force, which is responsible for developing the Sustainable Technology Environments Program (STEPSM) rating system. Scott can be reached at swalker@waveguide.com
Leave a Comment
Share Article
Back to Top

|
|

Click here for more information


Greening the Show
By Midori Connolly
Last month when I briefly covered some of the highlights at the InfoComm show, I was excited to see some of the more impressive green leaders. But, I also hinted that this month I would share something that caught Little Ms. Green AV completely unprepared.
I’ve always known that the show itself doesn’t demonstrate a deep understanding or modeling of green practices, from either a meetings and tradeshow perspective or the event staging. So, when a question arose as to my opinion on the green practices at the show while I was making a presentation on sustainability standards for green events, imagine how flustered I became. I had to pause for a good moment or two and really think about my answer carefully, which I have even continued to do for the last month. What I have concluded was that in no way could the lack of green practices be pinned on the show organizers.
See, this question helped to serve as a perfect example of what I was trying to explain in my presentation — the importance of standards that support sustainable goals. We can use refillable water bottles and hold meetings in buildings with recycling, but until we can rely on a strong system of policies and procedures that very clearly delineates what it means to be green, it is almost impossible to effectively become a green organization (or meeting or piece of equipment or installer or whatever it is you’re trying to make green). Many have been floundering about trying to figure it out, probably adding extra steps to an already burdened workload, ultimately losing company support, resources or even the energy to “be green.” Standards are essentially a set of policies and procedures that the process of collective intelligence has neatly packaged for the appropriate purpose. And what could make being green easier than that?
For this reason, there is no way InfoComm could be held responsible for having water bottles in every meeting room and lunches wrapped in heaps of plastic. Until now there hasn’t been a set of standards it could turn to in order to show the venue what it needed to produce a sustainable event. It couldn’t be responsible for the possibility that production labor for the show may have been less than 25 percent local – because never before have these types of guidelines been formalized.

My final thought on the subject hit me as I sat in the audience listening to the fascinating developments of all the new sustainability standards. While there will be new standards released that will define sustainable AV for a show like InfoComm, who will help? The magnitude of this event will require additional resources, primarily human. I realized, “Why not me? Why haven’t I ever stepped up to help out as a member? I’m one of the few members with expertise on how to green this type of event!” So, I’m going to do my best to round up a volunteer green team — stay tuned to see how this wild ride pans out! Oh, and if you’re interested in joining the ride, please let me know that too.
Midori Connolly is CEO and Chief AVGirl of Pulse Staging & Events, Inc. in Escondido, California. She wrote the first-ever set of Sustainable Staging guidelines after discovering none existed. She is the vice-chair of the AV committee for the U.S. EPA’s Green Meetings Standards and regularly speaks and writes about corporate social responsibility and green practices in live events and meeting planning. Reach her at midori@pulsestaging.com
Leave a Comment
Share Article
Back to Top

Unified Communications VTC: A Boon for GreenAV?
By Robin Raulf-Sager
Editor’s Note:
The Unified Communications (UC) standard is delivering on its promise of integration of videoconferencing, instant messaging and IP telephony and could mean a boom for GreenAV.
Why?
Well, if all the VTC standards actually work together and we are all on one system of connectivity, that means that theoretically one day you should be able to simply turn it on, connect and it works. And, we’ve got a chance to actually take business away from air travel, finally.
We asked a UC expert Robin Raulf-Sager to explain what UC means for AV and here’s what she came up with. It illustrates why this is so important, perfectly.
Disclaimer: Robin Raulf-Sager is the director of communications for RADVISION, a company that provides Unified Communications products and is briefly mentioned in the article.
The Intersection of UC and AV
Unified Communications (UC) has been broadly
defined as the integration of real-time communication services such as
instant messaging (chat),
presence information, telephony (including
IP telephony),
video conferencing, data sharing, etc.
While some may think of UC as desktop collaboration using video, content-sharing systems, IM, and whatnot, the reality is that UC extends across the enterprise encompassing personal (or desktop) applications as well as group systems and applications. For AV integrators, this means that video conferencing and other collaborative installations will and already are being impacted by the proliferation of UC.
What people may not realize, however, is that UC extends to virtually every form of business communications – and in many cases, consumer applications as well – think Skype, Google, etc., and how they will eventually tie into enterprise-grade communications. For example, Microsoft’s pending purchase of Skype could potentially merge the worlds of Skype’s 150+ million users with Microsoft and other standards-based unified communications platforms. Additionally, many small businesses rely on cloud-based solutions like Skype and Google for their business communications, and the need to tie these into other business applications like video conferencing and content-sharing is a growing concern. As a result, AV integrators need to consider how their offerings roll up into existing and potential UC deployments.
The UC industry is predicted to grow to $14.5 billion by 2015 (source: Forrester, “Market Overview: Sizing Unified Communications,” February 2009). Knowing this, integrators can’t afford to overlook this market opportunity. In fact, the second sentence of the Wikipedia article on UC plainly states that this is a critical market for those in the AV industry:
“In its broadest sense UC can encompass all forms of communications that are exchanged via the medium of the TCP/IP network to include other forms of communications such as Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) and Digital Signage Communications as they become an integrated part of the network communications deployment and may be directed as one to one communications or broadcast communications from one to many.”
Merging the two worlds
Traditionally, AV teams and IT teams have been siloed. As the worlds of AV and UC collide, AV integrators need to be more IT savvy than ever before. Where conference rooms were once a standalone entity and digital signage was an application unto its own, UC platforms like Microsoft Lync and IBM Lotus Sametime integrate group and personal systems into one connected communications platform. Similarly, while AV once reported up into facilities or similar departments, these functions now fall under the microscope of the CIO. CIOs are now the decision-makers and the audience that integrators need to target.
Creating truly unified communications requires a background in multiple systems and applications. AV integrators should be turning to the leading UC vendors like Microsoft, Avaya, Alcatel-Lucent, IBM and Cisco for formal training on their UC platforms. They need pull together a complete and well thought-out solution for their customers – one that integrates the worlds of personal/desktop and group/public collaboration.
Protecting existing investments
As an AV integrator, you should also consider how to protect your customers’ existing investments. The good news is that there are solutions available today that merge the worlds of traditional AV, e.g. H.323 video conferencing systems and newer UC-based communications.
One such example is the RADVISION SCOPIA Gateway for Microsoft Lync. The gateway approach provides seamless connectivity between the H.323 and and other standards-based worlds. It allows any H.323 endpoint to register to a Microsoft Lync server and act just like a native Lync client. Presence will display in the Lync contact list including offline, available or in a call, and calls can be made to the device in full HD using the familiar click-to-call user interface.
There are also video solutions available that integrate natively with today’s UC platforms. Polycom and LifeSize offer such solutions for Microsoft Lync. Native integration enables businesses to efficiently and cost-effectively add new video devices to their UC environments.
Often, customers will choose to deploy native interoperable endpoints as they expand their networks but will still require interoperability with their existing endpoints. Deploying a gateway gives them this flexibility. It also gives them the flexibility of having multipoint calls that include any endpoints on Lync’s built-in A/V MCU. Without a gateway the only way to do this would require all the Lync clients and endpoints to connect to an MCU. Regardless, AV integrators need to be aware of the options and provide a solution that best meets the needs of their individual customers.
The future of Interoperability
Video conferencing is, of course, just one example of challenges integrators may face as they merge AV and UC. The good news is that the technology required to merge these two worlds is available today, and the market continues to present new opportunities.
That said, interoperability continues to be a pain point for both vendors and customers alike. Just over a year ago, several UC vendors came together to form the Unified Communication Interoperability Forum (UCI Forum). According to its website, the UCI Forum is a non-profit ecosystem of communications technology vendors with a shared goal to bring the promise of truly unified communications to life – which is no small task.
The Forum’s focus in its first year is very relevant to AV, as many of its key initiatives focus on video interop. Dave Michels, principal at Verge1 Consulting, recently summarized the UCI Forum’s first-year accomplishments in his article:
“UCI Forum: One Year and Counting.”

By the looks of it, true interoperability of UC systems could be a long time coming, but the good news is that video interoperability is at the top of the list.
Increase revenue streams
Blending the worlds of AV and UC presents a unique opportunity for integrators – enabling them to offer a portfolio of AV solutions that adds value to each customer’s UC deployment. By understanding your customers’ overall communications network and their communications strategy, you can bring enhanced AV solutions to the table, thereby increasing your own revenue opportunities. Simply put, if you don’t understand or aren’t aware of how your customers are using UC, you might be missing out on potential sales.
Through the eyes of the end user
Truly unified communications offer a seamless experience to the end user. Communications and collaboration systems with a UC network as the backbone are intelligent. Consider the impact of a truly unified communications environment…
An individual can schedule an immersive telepresence session in his/her Microsoft Outlook calendar. When UC is truly integrated, invitees arrive at the meeting room and can see on the digital sign outside what meeting is taking place as well as the duration. Their presence indicators automatically turn “red” because they are in a meeting. The telepresence iPad controller initiates the call and displays the associated presentation. Attendees did nothing more than show up to the right conference room at the right time.
Perhaps someone else enters the meeting ad-hoc – theoretically, his/her mobile device detects the location and changes the presence indicator to red as well. The possibilities and built-in intelligence can be endless.
In summary, by understanding unified communications, you are not only increasing your revenue opportunities, you’re also enhancing the overall experience of business people around the globe.
Top UC Tips for AV Integrators
1. Learn about the UC space and how AV fits within it.
2. Partner with UC vendors to maximize your knowledge and reach in this market.
3. Understand how/whether your customers are using UC, and factor this into your solution offering.
4. Propose solutions that leverage their existing assets and protect future investments.
5. Develop applications that deliver value-add for installed systems.
Robin Raulf-Sager serves as director of communications for RADVISION Americas and also oversees marketing efforts for the UCI Forum. She has led global high-tech corporate communications programs for more than 10 years and is passionate about unified communications and collaboration. Robin can be reached at robinr@radvision.com
Leave a Comment
Share Article
Back to Top

OWI Launches Green Amplified Speaker
OWI’s new Green Amplified Speaker line is Energy Star-compliant and UL listed and verified. These three-input (one mic and two line inputs), 25-watt ceiling speakers include RS232 control, an automatic emergency priority override mode, treble and bass controls right on the speaker and, since each speaker has its own on-board amplifier, each speaker can drive up to three additional speakers. Finally, the “green” feature of the speaker is that it’s designed to literally go to sleep when it’s not in use, using less than one watt of power when not in use.
OWI has not added this to its website, yet, as it doesn’t deliver until Q4 of this year, but rAVe NOW shot a video of it at InfoComm that
you can see here.
Leave a Comment
Share Article
Back to Top

Lutron Shows Wireless Sensor-based Lighting Control and Rack Power
Dubbed the Energi TriPack system, Lutron has found a way to simplify lighting control and rack power using occupancy sensors to turn a small room lighting system into one that meets new Energy Star standards for energy management. If the system senses people in the room, using a small module wirelessly connected to a Lutron occupancy sensor, the rack of AV equipment is switched on and lights are powered on. Likewise, if the room is empty for a period of time (user selectable), then the occupancy sensor sends a signal to power off the rack as well as lights. This allows non-Energy Star AV gear to be made compliant with power consumption rules for power-off and standby modes.
The Energi TriPak is basically a mini-control system for single spaces such as classrooms, small offices and conference rooms. It includes wireless occupancy/vacancy and daylight sensors, wireless personal controls, and load controllers, plus it’s a simple installation for new construction or retrofit applications.
Here’s Lutron’s page for this new line:
http://www.lutron.com/Products/SingleRoomControls/Energi_TriPak/Pages/Overview.aspx
In addition,
here’s a rAVe NOW video we shot at InfoComm.
Leave a Comment
Share Article
Back to Top

Canon’s Four Easy Ways YOUR OFFICE Can Become Green
After seeing this INFOGRAPHIC from Canon, we thought it was important to get out to the AV community as it’s four simple ways to make your office Green. We at rAVe are doing three of the four already and once we use up the (literally) 200 extra incandescent light bulbs our office manager accidentally ordered two years ago, we’ll do all four!
Click on the image to see the full-size infographic.
Leave a Comment
Share Article
Back to Top

InfoComm Publishes Criteria for GreenAV Award
The InfoComm Green AV Awards call attention to the people who have taken a lead in adopting green measures, whether in the manufacturing of products, the design, programming, or integration of AV systems, the staging of events, or the implementation of sustainable initiatives in the workplace.
InfoComm will honor two member professionals or member companies who have distinguished themselves in their Green AV efforts, making an extraordinary contribution to the AV industry with these pursuits.
The 2010 winner was Christie Digital.
If you want to submit a member for the award, email Marc Bialek via
mbialek@infocomm.org or go here to download the form:
http://www.infocomm.org/cps/rde/xchg/infocomm/hs.xsl/7161.htm
Leave a Comment
Share Article
Back to Top

MediaMatrix Ships Mic and Line Audio Wall-Plate using PoE
Power over Ethernet (PoE) is starting to become available more often in AV products since the standard offers low-power and network-based options for audio and video. The new MediaMatrix nWall 2.0 offers PoE in its new surface-mount three-input, audio interface panel that converts audio from analog to a digital stream that can be routed via CobraNet right at the panel.
The nWall 2.0 offers analog-to-digital audio conversion and transport for MediaMatrix by converting two balanced XLR inputs and two 1/8” inputs into a digital audio stream at the panel. The nWall 2.0 greatly reduces buzz, hum, ground loops and other cable issues, eliminates the need for isolation and impedance matching interfaces and replaces long analog cable runs with a single CAT5e UTP cable.
If you want to learn more, go here:
http://mm.peavey.com/products/product.cfm?item_id=112
Leave a Comment
Share Article
Back to Top

Canon Intros New Green WXGA Projector
Canon’s new $899 LV-8320 is the greenest WXGA projector on the market in that it uses less than a half a watt of power in standby (a pending UL compliant standard) and uses only 226 watts of power to generate 3000 lumens. The 1200×800 (16:10) native resolution 3LCD projector claims 85 percent uniformity, has a 1.6x zoom lens and compatibility with HDMI, VGA and component video. It uses a 5000-hour UHP lamp.
Full specs are here:
http://www.usa.canon.com/cusa/professional/products/projectorsiNetPage/lv_8320#Specifications
Leave a Comment
Share Article
Back to Top

Da-Lite Offers Pico Screen
LED-powered pico projectors seem to be sweeping across the power-presenter/salesperson market, offering a green presentation solution ideal for small groups. But what about a screen? Da-Lite hit InfoComm with a solution — its Pico Screen. Designed with pico projectors in mind, this is a lightweight, portable projection system with a 30” diagonal size using Video Spectra 1.5 gain screen material.
Here’s the details:
http://www.dalite.com/products/product.php?cID=19&pID=494
Leave a Comment
Share Article
Back to Top

Well, that’s it for this edition of rAVe GreenAV Edition! Thank you for spending time with us as we muse the industry’s happenings. To continue getting my newsletter, or to sign up a friend, click the link below. To send feedback, don’t reply to this newsletter – instead, write to Publisher Gary Kayye at gary@ravepubs.com or Editor-in-Chief Sara Abrons at sara@ravepubs.com
A little about Gary Kayye, CTS, founder of rAVe and 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.
rAVe Pro Edition launched in February 2003. rAVe Home Edition, co-sponsored by CEDIA, launched in February 2004.
rAVe Rental [and Staging] launched in November 2007.
rAVe Ed [Education] began publication in May 2008.
rAVe DS [Digital Signage] launched in January 2009. This publication, rAVe GreenAV, was launched in August 2010.
Subscribe to our newsletters!
https://www.ravepubs.com
To read more about my background, our staff, and what we do, go to
https://www.ravepubs.com
Back to Top

Copyright 2011 – 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 GreenAV contains the opinions of the author only and does not necessarily reflect the opinions of other persons or companies or its sponsors.