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Volume 5, Issue 7 — July 21, 2011
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The Danger of Drinking Your Own Kool-Aid
By Joel Rollins, CTS One of the illustrative stories I tell my staff most often involves a man who is falling from the observation deck of the Empire State Building. As he passes the 15th floor, he shouts to a friend in a window "Everything's fine so far!"
I usually make two points with this story, as I'm sure my staff would tell you at length and with some rolling of their collective eyes. But the two points are these: one, that the words he spoke might be true, but don't affect the outcome at all, and two, that it's not the fall that kills you. It's the sudden stop at the end.
But it has always seemed to me that it spoke volumes about the way things happen in our little industry, too — that there has been an awesome procession of people and companies who failed to recognize the inevitability of their own fall — and of the stain on the pavement they would become because of it. In fact, at the time, many of them seemed to confuse their falling with flying, and the things they were shouting were mostly assurances that they were far too important to ever be affected by the gravity of the marketplace.
Often, we refer to the development of this kind of institutional arrogance as "drinking their own Kool-Aid.” The classic example of this, often quoted in business school, is the old IBM corporation, whose dominance of the business machines market was so great that it lead it to promise full lifetime employment to its minions. In fact, when I entered the AV business, the saying "nobody ever got fired for buying IBM" was still the norm. And yet, IBM’s attempt to deny the coming of the personal computer market threatened to kill it — and then its attempt to control it nearly did.
In the video industry, the classic example of this kind of blind institutional arrogance was the old Sony BetaMax story. That’s a classic, taught in every Marketing 101 class, and especially to my friends at Sony. It’s a story of how a company, newly dominant in the market of home video, thought it could dictate to the marketplace.
But the AV industry has an even better example, one of a single company that totally dominated our industry for many, many years — in fact, sponsored its growth, and many would say exerted an unbelievable amount of control over the way our industry took shape and grew. A company whose dominance of the industry eclipsed even Sony’s at its high point. One whose word was LAW, and who caused its own almost complete exit from the industry through having drunk so much of its own Kool-Aid that it saw EVERYTHING in… yellow.
I speak, of course, of the company that my first boss, and most of his contemporaries, called “The Great Yellow Father” — the Eastman Kodak Company of Rochester, NY.
In its heyday, EK OWNED the AV industry — it produced the film that visuals were based on, the cameras we shot with, the processing that created finished product, the projectors we displayed it with, and the storage of finished materials. It told the world what the standards were, and even created downstream companies who were dedicated to making the parts that didn’t interest EK enough to make, and THOSE companies were ones we thought of as “large” in our business, like AVL.
Now, a bunch of you are out there saying that Kodak was brought down by digital technologies that replaced film. But you’d be wrong. It brought down by its own yellow Kool-Aid, at a time when the company really did own the market, and it did itself in.
How many of you knew that Kodak co-developed the first digital camera (that the “big execs” in Rochester dismissed as a toy, suitable for sale only by the long-haired kids that this foolish little EK division had partnered with, a tiny little company called Apple Computer, who marketed the product as the Apple QuickTake). But the guys in the upper halls in Rochester honestly thought, and based their decisions on, the “fact” that digital technology could never replace film. They had all kinds of analysis that proved it was impossible, so they gave little attention to those kinds of products, a fact that was much bemoaned by the people who were my friends in those tiny Eastman Kodak divisions.
One could go on and on, and talk about the fact that Kodak marketed the first LCD projection devices, thanks to its purchase (and subsequent neglect) of a little company called Sayett Technologies, which pioneered the LCD.
In fact, one could go on and on about this company (which, truth be told, I loved then, and still do — I’m a photographer, and one can’t take away from its huge contributions), but I don’t want to belabor the point.
What I DO want to point out is this — that despite the fact that our industry has had more than its share of these kinds of self-propelled falls, I STILL hear people whose companies are currently on top talking as if its their natural RIGHT to be there — and even producing self-aggrandizing reports about why they are completely irreplaceable.
And YOU hear from them too, every time a rep points out a competitor’s product as a joke. These kinds of companies are still taking out big booths at the show, talking about their irreplaceable position in the industry… in fact, shouting about it. But they have to, because although they don’t realize it, when a company talks like that, the sidewalk is coming up FAST.
Who are these companies? We all have our bets on the table, since we do business every day. And we’ll talk about them, in the next issue, and just before they hit the pavement. Write to me at the rAVe blog, and let me know who is on their way up to the observation deck right now…
rAVe Rental [and Staging] contributor Joel R. Rollins, CTS-R, is General Manager of Everett Hall Associates, Inc. and is well known throughout the professional AV industry for his contributions to industry training and his extensive background in AV rental, staging and installation. Joel can be reached at joelrollins@mac.com
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Da-Lite Launches New Perforated HD Screen Da-Lite has expanded its line of HD Progressive screen surfaces to include HD Progressive 1.1 Perf material, an acoustically transparent front projection fabric that allows speakers to be placed directly behind the screen. With virtually no sound loss and HD image quality, this fabric provides the same optical characteristics as the HD Progressive 1.1 screen surface with specially designed perforations to allow the speakers to transmit through the screen – thus allowing them to be placed behind the screen and out of site of a live audience.
The new HD Progressive 1.1 Perf material is available on tensioned electric and fixed frame screens. The material is a washable surface with a gain of 1.1 and a viewing half angle of 85 degrees. More info on the screen can be found here: http://www.dalite.com/whats_hot/index.php?wID=208 Leave a Comment
Share Article Back to Top Stewart's 5D for 3D Screening Stewart Filmscreen debuted the Silver 5D (for 3D and 2D projection), a fabric that offers passive 3D polarization while improving uniformity, reducing hot spotting and offers a significantly wider viewing cone than the company’s previous 3D screens. Available in seamless sizes up to 40' x 90', this new hybrid 5D fabric is available in fixed frame, retractable and variable masking models and can be MicroPerforated for acoustical transparency.
Want to see all the specs? Go here: http://www.stewartfilmscreen.com/residential/materials/3d/silver5D_residential.html Leave a Comment
Share Article Back to Top Peavey Debuts NWare for iPad Peavey announced its new NWare Mobile app – a customizable user interface for controlling MediaMatrix NION digital audio systems from an iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch device. NWare Mobile allows designers and integrators to construct, program and deploy wireless control interfaces within MediaMatrix without the expense of traditional third-party control systems. With drag-and-drop simplicity, the NWare Mobile app puts the entire palette of NION control devices — knobs, sliders, meters, displays, signals and alerts — right at their fingertips.
NWare Mobile is available now on the Apple App store for $199.99. Details can be seen here: http://mm.peavey.com/news/news.cfm?content=558 Leave a Comment
Share Article Back to Top Panasonic Debuts New Low-Cost Plasma Panasonic just announced the PH30 Series, the newest addition to its family of HD Professional Plasma Displays. The displays are available in two models, the 42-inch TH-42PH30 and the 50-inch TH-50PH30.
The PH30 Series is aimed at applications that need wide-angle viewing and high contrast ratio (the company claims it to be at 2,000,000:1). Built in the company’s Amagasaki Plant in Japan, which Panasonic says was designed to be environmentally responsible, the PH30 Series’ energy efficiency has increased by approximately 35 percent compared to its predecessor, the PH20 Series. This reduction in power consumption places the PH30 Series in line with comparable LCD professional displays without sacrificing picture quality. Like all Panasonic professional plasma displays, the PH30 Series is both lead and mercury-free.
Additionally, the PH30 Series plasmas offer a 100,000-hour service life compared to the 60,000-hour average of competitive LCD professional displays. The new display also features a front glass panel that they claim is approximately 10 times as strong as that of an LCD.
The TH-42PH30 and TH-50PH30 are available now at $880 and $1200, respectively and can be found here: http://www.panasonic.com/business/plasma/plasmas.asp Leave a Comment
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Click here for more information NEC Upgrades DS Product Line NEC Display has added three new models to its commercial-grade V Series large-screen display product line: the 46-inch V462 will replace the V461, while the 46-inch V462-AVT and 65-inch V651-AVT with integrated tuners are new to the product line.
Designed for commercial applications, the V Series includes full 1080p high-definition resolution, built-in low-profile 10-watt speakers, brightness of 450 cd/m², a contrast ratio of 3000:1, DisplayPort, HDMI and DVI inputs and a built-in expansion slot that allows for seamless integration of NEC accessories, third-party components and Open Pluggable Specification (OPS) products. In addition, the company’s added a DVI loop-through option that allows customers to pass a digital signal from one device to the next, thereby eliminating the need for additional hardware, such as a DVI daisy chain module.
The V462, V462-AVT and V651-AVT also include NEC’s TileMatrixT technology for building video walls up to 100 displays, a real-time scheduler to power on/off the display at a specific time, and remote diagnostics to monitor and control the display from an off-site location.
The V462, V462-AVT and V651-AVT will be available in July 2011 at a minimum advertised price of $1,149, $1,249 and $5,399, respectively and details can be found here: http://www.necdisplay.com/category/large-screen-displays Leave a Comment
Share Article Back to Top Christie Intros 4K Projector Dubbed the D4K35, Christie’s newest 4K projector is basically a digital cinema projector for staging applications. The 25,000 ANSI lumen 3-chip DLP is native 4096×2160 resolution, has a 2000:1 contrast ratio, is capable of projecting 2D and 3D images, scales all inputs to 4K resolution and includes auto-alignment lamp technology that simplifies lamp replacement when required. It’s literally like having a digital cinema projector for rental applications. It was one of the best projectors we saw at InfoComm 2011 this year.
Inputs include HDMI, DVI, SDI and just about anything else you can think of – all processed with a 12-bit color imaging system. Details can be found here: http://www.christiedigital.com/en-us/business/products/projectors/3-chip-dlp/Pages/christie-d4k35-3-chip-dlp-4k-projector.aspx Leave a Comment
Share Article Back to Top Crest Audio Adds to Amp Line Crest Audio recently announced the Pro-LITE 3.0 and Pro-LITE 3.0 DSP power amplifiers, featuring a lightweight design with high power and stable performance into 2-ohm loads.
Crest Audio Pro-LITE Series amps are built on a class D design with a switch-mode power supply that Crest says reduces weight while increasing reliability, thermal efficiency and output power. The Pro-LITE 3.0 and Pro-LITE 3.0 DSP boast 870 watts per channel at 4 ohms stereo (up to 3,150 watts bridged @ 4 ohms) and weigh 13.3 lbs.
The Crest Audio Pro-LITE 3.0 DSP features an onboard digital signal processor that hosts a suite of delays (0-120ms per channel), adjustable crossovers, adjustable limiters, parametric EQ, HF driver EQ, four user preset storage locations, and stereo/mono operation with lockable security settings. The front-panel LCD screen allows users to quickly identify and assign presets, while the USB port allows users to load presets and enables external setup and adjustment.
The Pro-LITE DSP section also integrates Waves MaxxBass Bass Extension technology, which uses psycho-acoustics to create precise harmonics that give the perceived effect of boosting low frequencies in the mix. The level of MaxxBass effect can be adjusted from 0 percent to 100 percent.
These products aren’t on Crest’s website yet, but when they are, they will be here: http://www.crestaudio.com/products/ Leave a Comment
Share Article Back to Top The Top Five Rental/Staging Products from InfoComm 2011 Here are the top rental and staging products from last month’s show! Just click on the titles to watch the videos rAVe NOW shot live on the show floor… Leave a Comment
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For all you REGULAR readers of rAVe Rental [and Staging] out there, hopefully you enjoyed another opinion-packed issue!
For those of you NEW to rAVe, you just read how we are — we are 100% opinionated. We not only report the news and new product stories of the rental and staging industry, but we stuff the articles full of our opinions — in this case, it’s industry-veteran Joel Rollins' opinions. That may include (but is not limited to) whether or not the product is even worth looking at, challenging the manufacturers on their specifications, calling a marketing-spec bluff and suggesting ways integrators market their products better. But, one thing is for sure, we are NOT a trade publication that gets paid for running editorial or product stories. Traditional trade publications get paid to run product stories — that’s why you see what you see in most of the pubs out there. We are different: we run what we want to run and NO ONE is going to pay us to write anything good (or bad).
Don’t like us, then go away — unsubscribe! Just use the link below.
To send me feedback, don't reply to this newsletter — instead, write directly to me at gary@ravepubs.com or for editorial ideas: Editor-in-Chief Sara Abrons at sara@ravepubs.com
rAVe [Publications] has been around since 2003, when we launched our original newsletter, rAVe ProAV Edition. rAVe HomeAV Edition, co-published with CEDIA, launched in February, 2004. rAVe Rental [and Staging] launched in November 2007. rAVe Ed [Education] launched in May 2008. rAVe DS [Digital Signage] was launched in January of 2009.
To read more about my background, our team, 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 Rental [and Staging] contains the opinions of the author only and does not necessarily reflect the opinions of other persons or companies or its sponsors. |
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