Volume 8, Issue 22 — November 18, 2010

Click here to read rAVe ProAV Edition online
Click here to subscribe now!

Click above for more information

Welcome to another issue of rAVe ProAV Edition!

Today we have some business articles for you — including one from NSCA Executive Director Chuck Wilson on your attitude toward a customer at both the beginning AND end of a job, plus a look at insurance from rAVe columnist Lee Distad.

I'm also speaking at several events coming up — the Almo Pro A/V E4 AV Tour in NYC on December 15th, plus the NSCA Business & Leadership Conference in San Diego in February. The details of both are below if you're interested.

Finally, to all our U.S. readers, happy Thanksgiving!

Enjoy the issue!

–Gary Kayye, CTS

Back to Top

Click above for more information

Complete the Project Just as It Started… In a Happy Place

By Chuck Wilson
Executive Director, NSCA

One of the many great things about my job is that I get to travel around the world talking to interesting people about interesting topics.

Last month in San Francisco, NSCA hosted a consultant and integrator roundtable discussion and one of the panelists said something that struck me as both very true and quite simple. We were reflecting on why so many jobs go badly and this 40-year veteran of the industry said it was, “because we don’t work hard enough to get to the same ‘happy place’ that we were in when the job started.”

What he refers to is the excitement and enthusiasm we experience on the day we sign the contract for what appears to be a smooth and profitable project. The entire design and construction team gather with great hopes for an on-time project sure to meet the customer’s expectations. Then the job starts and, sure enough, small things pop up, schedules start to go bad and, for whatever reason, relationships spiral downward often ending in litigation. We’ve all had too many jobs like these when no one is happy at the end.

The point he made was that contractors and systems integrators often forget to be diligent in finishing the project in the same happy place where we started. He described a few very simple things including these suggestions:

• Document everything.
• Communicate with everyone.
• At the close out stages, thank the entire design and construction team for the opportunity to be part of the project.
• Be known as a friendly, easy-to-work-with company, instead of always using anger as a method of illustrating your point.
• Think about repeat business with this same design team. What are you doing now to be invited back on their next job?
• Always finish the job with letters thanking everyone for the opportunity to be a part of that project.

These recommendations will speak well for your company and its reputation as you continue to bid and earn new jobs.

Make it your goal to finish each job with the same courtesy and pleasant behavior that you demonstrated on the day you won the project. Even if the profits didn’t come in as expected, the next job with this building owner or construction manager could be much better. Take this advice and you won’t have a “one and done” relationship.

Chuck Wilson is the executive director of the National Systems Contractors Association (NSCA), a not-for-profit association representing the commercial electronic systems industry. At the helm of NSCA, much of Wilson’s time is spent assisting contractors with the challenges of today’s business environment. He often gives lectures and presentations at key industry events, and has been published in numerous leading trade journals. Reach him at cwilson@nsca.org

Back to Top

Click above for more information

Receivables Insurance and Integrators

By Lee Distad
rAVe Columnist

ProAV integrators carry a lot of insurance.  Liability, commercial vehicle, property insurance, maybe even insurance on tools.  But how many take out receivables insurance? Of the firms that I know, very few ever do.

One lesson from the economic turmoil of the past two years is that anyone can shut the doors — integrators, builders, sub contractors, or suppliers. The industry is a delicate web of people who both pay and owe money to other people.

This editorial was sparked by how, in the past month, yet another integrator closed their doors in my market. I know for a fact that they were embroiled in litigation after being stiffed on payment for a substantial project with a property management company.

Normally, ensuring that your cash flow is healthy is pretty simple: get paid. Most company owners and General Managers are in fact pretty pro-active at examining their receivables against their payables and routinely quizzing their salespeople about what their deal funnel looks like. “What do you have coming in?” was a pretty routine question I had to answer every week at my old job.

But what happens when you don’t get paid, either because the business relationship goes bad, or because the company that owes you goes under?

Well for a start, I’d submit that having a rock solid phase payment schedule in place on large projects goes a long way towards avoiding the pain of really big and uncollectable balances. A common trend I’ve seen in companies that either go under or come to the brink is putting all their eggs in the basket and leaving too much money dependant upon completion. But for situations where things have gone bad, is it worth carrying receivables insurance?

I spoke to my insurance broker about the subject, since much of her focus is on small business, although primarily in the oilfield service industry, since this is Alberta. In her experience, seldom do her clients take out receivables insurance.

She also pointed out that it’s worth noting the standards that need to be met in order to file a claim. As a manufacturer or distributor, it’s straightforward enough to say that you shipped an order, never got paid, and have been unable to collect. But with integration projects, especially large ones, what qualifies as “finished” can be subject to dispute. In that light, if the unpaid balance is due to a dispute rather than a client who’s gone bankrupt, there’s little value in receivables insurance.

Then again, if you’ve got a project coming up whose total dollar amount is stratospheric, maybe as a business owner it’s something you should talk about with your insurance broker.

Lee Distad is a rAVe columnist and freelance writer covering topics from CE to global business and finance in both print and online. Reach him at lee@ravepubs.com
 

Back to Top

Click above for more information

Pico Projector Market Continues to Advance

By Chris Chinnock
Sr. Editor and Analyst, Insight Media

I have to admit that I spend a lot of time thinking about 3D, but lately I have been paying more attention to the pico projector market. While this area can’t command the headlines that 3D does, there is a surprising amount of activity and new products continuously coming to market. We haven’t yet found that killer combination of application, user interface and technology that can really drive the pico space, but we are clearly getting closer to finding that right combination. Below are a few snippets of information on activities. We cover this in more detail in our Mobile Display Report newsletter.

At CEATEC, Hitachi showcased a prototype scanning laser projector, targeted for embedding into mobile phones and cameras. It uses red, green and blue lasers, plus a MEMS scanning mirror. No word on when they will commercialize the technology, however.

Microvision uses the same approach and recently noted that they have developed the first device using a direct green laser instead of the frequency-doubled type used in previous products. The direct green laser is being developed by a number of companies and is smaller and more power efficient than frequency doubled.

Frequency-doubled laser developer Corning has quietly decided to exit this technology area. Prior to making this decision, Corning had been supplying green lasers to Microvision and others. Why this exit? Competition from direct green lasers.

Light Blue Optics, which also uses laser sources for their pico projector, has received an additional $13M in funding. They plan to use this to further commercialize their embedded interactive projection device. This device can be used at restaurants, for example, to order food right at your table (see photo).

Pico-powered iPod docking stations are becoming more common, too. WowWee and Optoma just now started offering products.

The Philips brand name will be on a trio of new picos that are designed and manufactured by Sagemcom. These are SVGA class devices with outputs in the 20-30 lumen range, using a 0.37" panel from Syndiant.

Speaking of Syndiant, they are starting a contest to get ideas for novel and creative uses of pico projectors. That’s a good idea.

3M has also launched its third generation of projectors powered by Syndiant panels. The MP160 offers 30 lumens of brightness, SVGA resolution and a two-hour battery life.

Finally, AAXA has released the M2 micro projector that offers 110 lumens from an RGB LED and LCOS powered engine. It has 1GB of built-in memory and optional iPod, PSP and smartphone cables — all for $369.

We will continue to focus on this market with relevant news, analysis and market forecast reports.

Chris Chinnock is a senior analyst and editor for Insight Media. Reach him at chris@insightmedia.info

Back to Top

Click above for more information

World's First "Practical Holographic Telepresence" Systems Weeks Away?

Scientists at University of Arizona say their prototype “holographic three-dimensional telepresence” is the world’s first practical 3D transmission system that works without requiring viewers to wear special glasses or other devices. Professor Nasser Peyghambarian, project leader, is especially enthusiastic about teleconferencing. “Let’s say I want to give a presentation in New York,” he said. “All I need is an array of cameras here in my Tucson office and a fast internet connection. At the other end, in New York, there would be the 3D display using our laser system.”

With 3D, one perspective is projected to one eye and another perspective is projected to the other (that's why people have to adorn special glasses that they find annoying). No 3D glasses are needed with a hologram where the number of perspectives is only limited by the number of cameras.  In a videoconference, this means people sitting on one side of a table see the front of a person, people on the side would get a side view and people in the back would see their back. “Holographic telepresence means we can record a 3-dimensional image in one location and show it in another location, in real-time, anywhere in the world,” says Peyghambarian.  The centre of the system is a “photographic” polymer developed in California by research labs of Nitto Denko, an electronic materials company.  Researchers say now they have proved the concept, it will be possible to develop a full-colour system to capture the human body and fast enough to give smooth movements. Professor Peyghambarian predicts it will take 7-10 years’ work before anyone tests a consumer version of the system.

Want more details? Go here: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/8f071d82-e765-11df-b5b4-00144feab49a.html#axzz15Yjjh3FE
 

Back to Top

Pico Projector Market Keeps Triple-Digit Growth Pace

According to Pacific Media Associates (PMA), the worldwide market information experts on front projectors, the worldwide market for pico and pocket projectors grew 125 percent in calendar Q3 compared with the same period last year. This high-growth emerging category includes all models that deliver less than 500 lumens of brightness.

Of the five segments that comprise this category, the Pico Companion segment, which includes all stand-alone battery-powered models, grew from about 45,000 units in the third quarter of 2009 to more than 100,000 units in the third quarter of 2010, making it the largest segment. TI’s DLP technology led in this segment during Q3, with 51 percent of the units and 53 percent of the revenues.

“The entire sub-500 lumen category — and particularly the Pico Companion and Toy/Gaming segments — is coming of age,” said Dr. William Coggshall, President of Pacific Media Associates. “And these two segments are especially poised for growth during the upcoming holiday season.”

In the Pico Companion segment, several major manufacturers recently introduced bright (25-50 lumen) products with SVGA or wide VGA resolution and good connectivity and battery life. Even more importantly, new household-name brands such as Philips and Toshiba will be shipping products in time for the upcoming holiday season, and Acer and Samsung recently started shipping their pico projectors.

Want to learn more about PMA and their reports? Go here: http://www.pacificmediaassociates.com/

Back to Top

ClearOne Reports 35 Percent Revenue Increase in Q3

ClearOne Communications, Inc. (Nasdaq: CLRO) today reported financial results for the third quarter ended September 30, 2010.

For the 2010 third quarter, revenue increased 35 percent to $10.4 million from $7.6 million in the same quarter of last year. Gross profit rose to $6.3 million, or 60 percent of revenue, from $4.0 million, or 52 percent of revenue, for the prior year period. Operating income was $781,000 compared to an operating loss of $646,000 in the same period of 2009. Net income was $987,000, or $0.11 per diluted share, versus net loss of $275,000, or $0.03 per share, for the third quarter of 2009.

Here are all the financial results: http://www.b2i.us/profiles/investor/ResLibraryView.asp?BzID=509&ResLibraryID=41754&Category=17

Back to Top

NSCA's Business & Leadership Conference Details Announced – You NEED to Attend!

Registration is now open for the 2011 NSCA Business & Leadership Conference, the only conference focused on business strategies and professional development for ProAV executives and managers. The event will be held February 17-19, 2011, at the Rancho Bernardo Inn Golf Resort & Spa in San Diego, CA. 

Systems integrators continue to face challenges surrounding the volatile economy, including increasing labor costs, additional burdens on job sites, new regulations and policies, among others. Economists have officially announced the recovery, but business still tells us otherwise.  NSCA says their 2011 Business & Leadership Conference will provide attendees with proven strategies to recover from the recovery and tactics to return to a more profitable, productive business even in an unstable environment. 

You can download the entire event brochure here in PDF format: http://www.nsca.org/Portals/0/Documents/Education/2011_NSCA_BLC_final.pdf

Back to Top

rAVe Founder Brings All-New Digital Signage Seminar to New York in December

Did you know less than only about 16 percent of digital signage installations are done by ProAV integrators? Even the HomeAV market’s doing more digital signage installations than ProAV! Gary has developed a totally new seminar designed to fix that. He’s developed a six-step process for adding a profitable digital signage department to your business. And, it all includes products and technology on display right after his course at the New York version of the ALMO E4 show. 

Want to attend in New York City on December 15th? Go here to register: http://www.almoproav.com/Events/e4/

Back to Top

rAVe Founder to Lead Panel at NSCA's Business & Leadership Conference

The channel has changed drastically in the last few years. How do products get to market? While some manufacturers continue to sell through dealers and
distributors, others are selling products directly to end-users and skipping the distribution channel altogether.

What can we expect in the channels going forward? Are things going more toward multi-line stocking distributors? What about manufacturers with installation divisions?

The method by which manufacturers get their products to market affects how much your business benefits in the process. The value proposition is different now than it used to be, and it differs by manufacturer, too.

Join rAVe Founder, Gary Kayye, and a panel of manufacturers for a lively discussion on the distribution channel, including:

• The future of the distributor network
• The new way of doing business
• The upsides and downsides 
• What we should we expect
• How to profit in the new economy

To register for the NSCA Business and Leadership Conference, go to: http://www.nsca.org/blc/home.html

Back to Top

AUO Takes the Glasses Off 3D

Many consumers resent wearing glasses to watch 3D content on TV, so Taiwan’s AU Optronics (one of the world’s biggest flat-panel producers) has announced a glasses-less, all-angle viewing 3D panels.  AUO will exhibit at FPD International 2010 in Japan a naked eye 3D display solution: the 65" QFHD 4K2K lenticular lens 3D panel. Its proprietary technology resolves uneven brightness that occurs with conventional 3D displays, raising the resolution of a single viewpoint to high definition.

The 3D panel has brightness as high as 500 nits, with eight viewpoints. AUO says its image quality is suitable for commercial use, making the panel "the most eye-catching large-sized 3D public information display currently available."  

The march towards bringing 3D without glasses to all displays from phones to large-screen TVs to commercial displays continues. AUO is not the first in the world to try this concept of glasses-less 3D viewing. Philips had the technology in a spin-off its High Tech Research Park ventures but closed it. Toshiba says it will sell glasses-free 3D TVs in Japan by the end of the year but analysts point out these are still relatively small screens and the image blurs if you are not facing head on.  Having acquired 10 percent of SuperD (a Shenzhen-based developer of ‘naked eye’ 3D technology), AUO claims its panels are the first in the world to have no deadzones: 3D images can be seen from any angle or distance.  

AUO will also showcase the world's largest 71-inch HD 3D TV LCD panel in 21:9 Cinema Scope.

Here’s AUO’s website: http://auo.com/?sn=101&lang=en-US

Back to Top

Christie Dominates 3D With Six New ProAV Models

Yesterday Christie announced that its Mirage Series 3D DLP projector line has expanded with the addition of six models to bring high performance 3D solutions to new markets. The new Christie Mirage M Series 3-chip DLP projectors offer complete compatibility with all 3D standards. They’re not only aiming these towards the high-end home entertainment and video gaming markets, but also positioning them for the museum, education and rental/staging markets too.

The Christie Mirage M Series lineup includes the DS+6K-M; DS+10K-M; HD6K-M; HD10K-M; WU7K-M and the WU12K-M projectors. The models come in SXGA+ (4:3), HD (16:9) and WUXGA (16:10) aspect ratios and resolutions range from 1400×1050 to 1920×1080 with brightness specs from 6000 to 11,000!

Check out the M Series 3D projectors here: http://www.christiedigital.com/AMEN/VisualEnvironments/?pageId=1

Back to Top

Crestron Adds 3D Capability to DigitalMedia

Last month, Crestron announced that the DigitalMedia (DM) product line had been upgraded to be compatible with 3D sources and displays. Available as a free firmware update, DM also supports simultaneous 3D to 2D scaling — so if a family member is watching a 3D movie in the home theater, it can be watched in the master bedroom or kitchen at the same time in 2D; you don’t have to have a 3D TV in every room.   

For complete specs on the DM product line, go here: http://www.crestron.com/solutions/digitalmedia_hdmi_distribution/

Back to Top

Extron Ships XPA 2002

Extron is shipping its XTRA Series XPA 2002 two-channel power amplifier. This compact 1U, convection cooled amplifier offers 200 watts rms per channel into 4 ohms. XTRA Series ENERGY STAR qualified and UL verified amplifiers are energy efficient products that conserve energy and reduce costs. They feature an Extron-exclusive, highly-efficient, advanced Class D design with patented CDRS (Class D Ripple Suppression) technology that provides a smooth, clean audio waveform and an improvement in signal fidelity over conventional Class D amplifier designs. XTRA Series power amplifiers are housed in a compact 1U, convection cooled, full rack width enclosure and do not require fans for cooling, making them ideal for installation in racks, lecterns, credenzas, and other applications with limited space and ventilation.

All the details can be found here: http://www.extron.com/company/article.aspx?id=xtraseriesad

Back to Top

Back to Top

First Denon Pro-Grade Solid State Recorders Ship

Denon started shipping its first rack-mount, solid-state recorders, in the form of the full-rack size DN-F650R and a half-rack size DN-F450R. The DN-F650R records to and between SD/SDHC flash card and USB external HDDs. Denon says it fulfills the most demanding playback and recording applications.

It features balanced XLR analog audio, AES/EBU digital I/Os, unbalanced analog and SPDIP connectivity. Stereo and mono audio channels are available in both .wav and .mp3 formats, with selectable bit rates of 96, 48 and 441 Khz, 24- and 16-bit resolution and MP3 bit rates between 32 and 320 kbps.

Here are all the specs: http://www.d-mpro.com/users/getdownload.asp?DownloadID=495

Back to Top

Barco's OVL Videowall Features "Cool" LED Engine

Barco offers its new OVL video wall range, which the company claims is “the most efficient LED video wall available today,” in 4:3 ratio, with screen sizes up to 80 inches.

The new OVL series has an advanced heat management system based on liquid cooling technology to bring the LED temperature down to the optimal level. This results in what they claim is significantly longer lifetime of the projection system, amounting to 80,000 hours of continuous operation in eco-mode or, as Barco says, "a 35 percent improvement over competing video walls.”  

Want specs? Go here: http://www.barco.com/en/controlrooms/product/2325

Back to Top

Back to Top

Back to Top

Back to Top

Back to Top

Back to Top

Back to Top

AVC Designated as a TANDBERG Premier Partner

Virginia-based integrator AVC has announced that the company has been designated a Premier Partner by TANDBERG (now a part of Cisco).

To read the complete press release online, click here.

Back to Top

Back to Top

Back to Top

Back to Top

For all you REGULAR readers of rAVe ProAV Edition 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 ProAV industry, but we stuff the articles full of our 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

A little about me: I graduated from Journalism School at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (where I am adjunct faculty). I've been in the AV-industry since 1987 where I started with Extron and eventually moved to AMX. So, I guess I am an industry veteran (although I don't think I am that old). I have been an opinionated columnist for a number of industry publications and in the late 1990s I started the widely read KNews eNewsletter (the first in the AV market) and also created the model for and was co-founder of AV Avenue – which is now known as InfoComm IQ. rAVe Publications has been around since 2003, when we launched our original newsletter, rAVe ProAV Edition.

Everything we publish is Opt-in — we spam NO ONE! rAVe ProAV Edition is our flagship ePublication with what we believe is a reach of virtually everyone in the ProAV market. rAVe HomeAV Edition, co-published with CEDIA and launched in February 2004, is, by far, the largest ePub in the HomeAV market (we blow away ANY other Publication in the high-end home AV market.  We added rAVe Rental [and Staging] in November 2007, rAVe ED [Education] in May 2008 and then rAVe DS [Digital Signage] in January 2009. You can subscribe to any of those publication or see ALL our archives by going to: https://www.ravepubs.com

To read more about my background, our team, and what we do, go to https://www.ravepubs.com

Back to Top

Copyright 2010 – 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 contains the opinions of the author only and does not necessarily reflect the opinions of other persons or companies or its sponsors.