By Frank Kenna President and CEO, The Marlin Company I’ve often written about the ROI of using digital signage for effective workplace communications and how it’s dripping with cost savings, but today I want to focus on an issue that concerns most of our customers: safety. Safety ROI can be broken down into two primary […]

Nearly 250 consultants, integrators, sound engineers and IT managers from all over the world came together in Las Vegas on June 17th, 2014 for the AV Networking World Conference to learn about Dante, the audio networking solution. “Attending AVNW from a broadcasting and live sound perspective, it was amazing to see the different ways companies […]

By Tim Kridel Special to InfoComm International For a technology that debuted barely four years ago, HDBaseT has amassed an impressive following among pro AV vendors and integrators. Crestron alone, for example, has more than two dozen HDBaseT extenders and other products. One reason is that HDBaseT is a Swiss Army knife in terms of […]

By Frank Kenna President and CEO, The Marlin Company That title is from a June 9th article in The Wall Street Journal, which examined the trend of employees going off on their own — around corporate IT — to get their jobs done. It’s an important development because of the way it’s transforming the software […]

By Aldo Cugnini DisplayCentral Google has announced that it is investing more in their two popular platforms — Android and Chrome — with the goal of making it easier to move content and functions between one’s phone, tablet, laptop, TV, car or bodyware. Two weeks ago, Google welcomed 6,000 developers to their 7th annual Google […]

Were you one of the more than 37,000 AV professionals attending InfoComm 2014? Whether you were part of the crowd, or sorry you missed it, this is your chance to catch up on everything from the sanguine to the silly. InfoComm International celebrated its 75th Anniversary at the show at the 75th Anniversary Awards dinner. […]

A new study by Acclaro Growth Partners is projecting that audiovisual products and services will become a $116 billion global industry by 2016. The 2014 Global AV Market Definition and Strategy Study, conducted on behalf of InfoComm International, is the only worldwide study aimed at sizing the commercial audiovisual industry. The growth of conferencing, signal […]

By Len Scrogan Display Central Is the education market bouncing back after nearly a half-decade absence? Many existing companies and startups hope so. And if the recent ISTE conference—held this week in Atlanta—is any indicator, then the education market is indeed on the mend. ISTE 2014 is the largest ed-tech conference in the U.S., organized […]

Crayon manufacturer Crayola looked to create an experience called Art Alive! at its Crayola Experience Center that allowed users to draw a picture on an iPad, pick an effect for the picture and then project it to a nearby wall in real time. Users could then step up and interact with their pictures via gesture. […]

By Ken Park DisplaySearch The recent announcement by Samsung SDI that it will end plasma display panel (PDP) manufacturing this year also speculated that LG Electronics will shut its PDP business due to low demand, which would leave COC (Changhong) as the sole remaining plasma TV manufacturer. Earlier this year, NPD DisplaySearch predicted the demise […]

By Paul Flanigan Digital Screenmedia Association We need to get this together Last week I had the opportunity to speak in Seattle at the Future Stores conference. It was an event focused around understanding the consumer through an analytic microscope. I spoke about the Connected Consumer, bringing the worlds of mobile and digital signage together […]

By Rob Sheeley CEO, Vaddio Well friends, I just want to say a few words about my upcoming departure and a few thoughts about what it has been like to have been a part of this amazing adventure we call Vaddio. Starting simply as a call to my friend Tom back in November of 2002, […]

By David Danto IMCCA The InfoComm 2014 conference — the world’s largest communications expo — has come to a close — and after this year’s jaunt to Las Vegas, the world will never be the same. Over the next few days I and countless others will be writing blogs, reviews and wrap-ups describing the details […]

By Bill Bishop Chief Architect, BrickMeetsClicks.com Stuart Armstrong was pushing the boundaries of using POS data at IRI to understand shopping behavior when I first met him. Today he’s pushing the boundaries of using digital screens to communicate with shoppers inside stores at ComQi.* In between, he developed multi-channel marketing strategies for the consumer goods […]

By Norbert Hildebrand Display Central Here we are. InfoComm 2014 is basically over and all the polished product presentations are being broken down and shipped back to the office. The main event for the Pro AV industry is closing their doors on Friday and the excitement of the last three days gives way to ‘business […]

By Lauren Gonzalez, Olivia Hart and Morgan Manson rAVe Reporters Mike Walsh, author of bestseller FUTURETAINMENT and the CEO of Tomorrow, a global business consultancy, delivered the opening keynote at InfoComm 2014 on Tuesday, June 17 at 4 p.m. InfoComm International CEO David Labuskes introduced Walsh as a futurist whose ideas are cohesive with InfoComm’s […]

If you’re a CTS holder coming to InfoComm 2014, you are among the industry’s highest achievers. Here are just a few highlights that you might want to add to your schedule: Meet Chuck. Chuck Espinoza, CTS-D, CTS-I, is the chair of your Certification Committee. He has time set aside to be at the Certification Table, […]

By Premier Mounts As we all know, the industry is changing in front of our very eyes and one change that concerns us all is that many products have become more and more commoditized, and the result is eroding margins. Premier Mounts is directly addressing the changing nature of the market in order to serve […]

Lamp-based projectors are being challenged by all-laser and laser-phosphor projectors. This transition to solid state sources will have a big impact on manufacturers and the uses of projection in a host of professional applications. At the upcoming Display Summit, June 16-17 just prior to InfoComm in Las Vegas, an entire day will be devoted to […]

By Tim Kridel Special to InfoComm International WebRTC is one of the hottest topics in pro AV, with plenty of hand-wringing about whether it will commoditize video conferencing or grow the market by creating more endpoints that SIP and H.323 systems can connect to. Either way, it’s clear that there’s already enough customer interest that […]

Art of Context designed and developed innovative baggage claim information displays (BIDS) on behalf of the Massachusetts Port Authority (Massport), owners and operators of Boston Logan International Airport. The large displays show relevant, real-time information to passengers, including baggage information and future bus times. BACKGROUND The BIDS’ content was designed and developed by Art of […]

Rants and rAVes — Episode 254: Rental and Staging Market Trend Predictions for 2014 and Beyond THE WEEK — Episode 71: Onsite at Comradity Rants and rAVes — Episode 253: Should Manufacturers Be Able to Talk Info Direct to End Users Without Upsetting Their Dealer Base? Rants and rAVes — Episode 252: Submit Your Product […]

Corey Moss: Disruptive Forces in AV/IT – Part 3: Zoom Anthony Coppedge: Tradeshow Season Ron DeVoe: Old Dogs at InfoComm Lee Distad: What Can AV Pros Learn From A Shoe Store? Mark Coxon: The DMZ for Direct Sales People Lee Distad: Extraordinary Results Require Extraordinary Efforts Gary Kayye: Royal Caribbean Debuts Virtual Balcony Scott Tiner: […]

By Claire Kerrison Market Analyst, Futuresource Consulting The Q1 2014 worldwide projector market grew 7 percent in volume compared to the same period a year ago, to 1.87 million units, according to the latest round of research from Futuresource Consulting. In value terms, the market also grew by 7 percent to reach $2.3 billon. An […]

By Ron DeVoe Principal, Successful Sales Consulting InfoComm is now 75 years old and while I am not quite that age, I look around and found that I have become an “old dog” of the AV industry. You can spot an “old dog” fairly easily. Sometimes he is identified as one who remembers easels, speaks […]

Io 4K from AJA Video Systems is capture and output hardware that offers professional video and audio connectivity with support for the latest 4K and UltraHD devices and High Frame Rate workflows. The power of Thunderbolt 2 enables Io 4K to handle a wide range of formats from SD to HD, UHD and full 4K […]

HDMI Forum has released the Compliance Test Specification (CTS) for Version 2.0 of the HDMI specification, the document by which adopters can ensure that their 2.0-enabled HDMI products are compliant with Version 2.0 of the HDMI Specification. Launched late in 2013, Version 2.0 of the HDMI Specification offers a significant increase in bandwidth (up to […]

If you do any marine business at all, you realize one modern problem of yacht owners is how to stay connected with the Internet. The tragic disappearance of Malaysian Airlines flight MH-370 underlined for the public that there are still places on the high seas that are unreachable by what we think is our ubiquitous […]

The quarterly financial report is out and IMAX has signed contracts for 36 theaters, including 23 across Europe, in the first quarter. It’s good financial news but not the 2014 news the industry is waiting for. Since IMAX bought the Kodak 3D patents, it has been busy with its own digital 3D two-projector/polarizing filter regime […]

By Len Scrogan Display Central The challenge of selling to schools reminds me of a flowing description I penned in a soon-to-be published book: Imagine a river, deep and fast, charging downwards through a majestic canyon, slowing to a crawl as it ambles its way through a lush green valley. Although a winding river may […]

By Aldo Cugnini Display Central Earlier this year, we saw the introduction of curved displays from a growing set of manufacturers — Sony, Panasonic, LG, Samsung, Haier, Konka, to name a few — and are motivated to explore how useful (or desirable) such displays can be. The answer is somewhat complicated, involving as it usually […]

By Lyle Bunn Strategy Architect, BUNN Co. Digital signage hangs on one single word — “benefit” and it is content, the media presented on digital signage that delivers this benefit once the technology infrastructure is in place. The quality of content and the merit of investing in this has been an ongoing frustration for network […]