Gary was joined by NEC Display’s Rich Ventura today on a video version of his Rants and rAVe podcast – and this one was definitely a rAVe! The NEC ThinkHub is coming off a four-city roadshow, where 500+ people got to play with it first-hand. The response is that NEC Display’s collaboration with T1V for the ThunkHub collaboration board in 55” […]
Gary caught up with Anchor Audio‘s new director of sales, Nick Craig, on a pre-InfoComm videocast today where he talks about why Anchor added their Air feature to the Bigfoot and Beacon portable PA systems. Air is their wireless system and they have a very cool feature where you an use different PA’s together, wirelessly. Watch this videocast with Nick […]
The world’s first look at the new indoor LED M Series (m for mobile) from Absen happens right here – on Gary’s latest Rants and rAVe podcast. The M series is completely modular – even the video board is modular. On this special InfoComm videocast Gary is joined by Absen’s Marketing Communications Manager, Alison Maxson. And, Absen’s Key Account […]
To say that the “perceived” sudden departure of CEDIA‘s short-time president and CEO, Vin Bruno isn’t big news would be a lie. It’s all nearly every Home AV manufacturer I’ve spoken to over the past two weeks has asked about it, asked if I know what happened, asked if I knew if Vin got fired, asked if […]
dnp is known as the company that invented the ambient light rejection screen technology. And, now they have AV furniture — here, take a look a the video we shot of some of their projection furniture this past February at ISE here. But, as you’ll see on today’s pre-InfoComm videocast with the VP of Global Sales […]
You’ve been hearing about the new Nureva HDL300 audio conferencing system for almost a year now. And if you’ve had the fortune to attend the half-dozen or so shows that it was demo’d at, you were able to hear what it’s like to have 8,192 virtual mics (using Nureva’s Microphone Mist technology) inside a room so that […]
Gary was joined on his Rants and rAVe podcast by QSC’s product manager, Martin Barbour who explained the philosophy behind their play-oriented booth at this year’s InfoComm 2017 booth. In the past, QSC has built running systems in their booth but this year they will be focused on engaged interactivity. Of course, they’ll have all their gear there, […]
For the 12th year in a row, the industry’s most famous (and only) band will play a benefit concert during InfoComm. With the money going directly towards financing the NSCA Educational Foundation and Ignite program, the Drunk Unkles will put on a show with a 9 p.m. concert at BB King’s across the street from the Orange […]
I have been harping on this for years. I have been telling everyone in the AV industry that to survive the future of AV, services need to be front and center, along with the products. Sure, a good mix of products with both established technology as well as future-forward, emerging technology is a giant part […]
In 2016 some industry self-appointed pundits in the AV-industry were overusing the trite term known as the “Internet of Things” (aka IoT) way, way too much last year. I keep seeing content marketing and blogs using the term — as if we are really part of it. We aren’t. Thank God we are in 2017 […]
You’ve all seen them. Emails from the plethora of analog and digital magazines covering InfoComm this year — all asking or you to PAY to ENTER their awards programs. I am writing to BEG YOU to stop doing this. This is not only a rip-off, but it’s completely unethical. Sure, a $10 or $20 fee […]
With the deluge of new “Collaboration Boards” that will hit the market over the next six months (this was the most popular launch product at ISE this month), there’s no question that Microsoft will have to cut the price of their Surface Hub. They can’t keep ripping people off at $8,000 — $9,000 (55″) and $20,000 (84″) […]
Barco — Belgian American Radio Corporation I am sure I can’t be the only person in AV who’s noticed the subtle re-branding of Barco. But no one seems to be talking about it. Go look at their website, for example. It’s different — more retail-like. And, then, on Friday, I found this video — it only has 800 […]
The word collaboration is hackneyed in AV — but, I feel we need keep using it as it does, in fact, define a trend in business. People want to connect, share and work in groups — whether they are in-person or working via the Internet. Many would argue that Barco started all this, in AV at least, with their wireless collaboration […]
Update: I spoke to ZOOM CEO Eric Yuan this morning. He told me that it’s correct that they do try to establish relationships directly with the clients. But, he says that ZOOM’s policy about this is very specifically defined: If an AV integrator has an existing client relationship, all they need to do is register that […]
At ISE, I had a chance to get a behind-the-scenes, top-secret look at the new SiliconCore LISA technology. LISA is basically an LED video-wall material (modular, like all the others) where the electronics and board drivers use Chip On Board (COB) manufacturing technology. So, on one side of the PCB is the LED array and on the other are […]
I was honored to be the Luncheon Keynote Speaker at the AVI LIVE 2017 show yesterday in Cincinnati, Ohio, yesterday. And, it was incredible. Everything about it! The branding, the education, the atmosphere, the venue, the vendors, the customers, the food — well, OK, the food was decent, but the rest was awesome. The Branding: AVI Systems founded in […]
Are you a new company selling a new product? Well, this blog’s for you! Listen, don’t let people fool you — this industry is NOT that complicated. You don’t need a fancy marketing campaign and you certainly don’t need to waste your money with banner ads on on-line publications to make it BIG in AV. […]
In the ProAV market, unless you’re blind (or just like to deny truths), you see the writing on the wall, LITERALLY (you’ll get that pun if you keep reading). The projection screen market is about to nearly die a somewhat rapid death. Let’s look at the reasons why: 1. The flat screen monitor (LCD and […]
You’ll read a lot about ISE over the next few months. It was the biggest ProAV and HomeAV show ever. Over 73,400 people attended in Amsterdam and it is NO LONGER A EUROPEAN SHOW. ISE is truly an international show. And, you’ll read about all the 4K stuff, all the new software codecs, all the new wireless stuff, all the […]
While at ISE, I caught up with InfoComm Sr. Vice President of Expositions Jason McGraw, and he filled me in on a bunch of new things going on at this year’s annual show in Orlando in June. This year’s event has more education than any show, ever, in the ProAV world. But, one special Tuesday […]
Planar Leyard surprised everyone at ISE with a 0.7 millimeter LED wall at ISE — it was in there booth as well as in the LANG stand. This is a big deal as the previously smaller working LED was 0.9 millimeter. And, 0.7 millimeter represents nearly the same resolution as direct-view LCD. In addition, Leyard […]
NEC Display Europe went to ISE with a new collaboration board where they partnered with Huddly (for the camera), Sennheiser (for the audio) and FlatFrog (for the touch) and built a Windows 10 interactive board with wireless collaboration integrated all-in-one. It was one of three big attractions in their stand at ISE this year and […]
There’s a lot of confusion about AV-over-IP in the AV market right now — with the only “standard” being Dante — and that’s basically all-audio. But, the SDVoE Alliance started by AptoVision, is trying to explain why they think the AptoVision way of doing AV-over-IP is best. I had a chance to speak to SDVoE’s […]
Last year, WeConnect was in a private suite hidden from the show floor during ISE in Amsterdam. This year, it was surrounded by people interested in understanding how the wireless collaboration system, aimed at colleges and universities, works. If you haven’t heard of WeConnect, you should watch this interview I had at the Barco stand […]
I caught up with Mike Blackman, ISE’s Managing Director, during the final hours of the show to find out his observations of the show — a show that ended up breaking the world’s largest AV trade show attendance record by more than 8,000. Over 73,500 people came to ISE in Amsterdam and Friday was still […]
In 2016 some industry self-appointed pundits in the AV-industry were overusing the trite term known as the “Internet of Things” (aka IoT) way, way too much last year. I keep seeing content marketing and blogs using the term — as if we are really part of it. We aren’t. Thank God we are in 2017 […]
I was talking to one of my oldest industry friends at ISE this week here in Amsterdam and he told me how he’d be “shaken-down” by the MPEG LA (the licensing people for DisplayPort). Basically, some two years after he’d been selling products with DisplayPort ports, he was called, out of the blue, by the MPEG LA […]
One of the big stories from Day 1 of ISE here in Amsterdam was certainly the fact that a court officer from Belgium traveled down to the Amsterdam RAI convention center, entered the KanexPro booth and removed all of their MyTurn Collaboration Systems that were being launched into the market. It was the result of a judge’s order that […]
Vivitek is clearly staking a claim to be the one-for-all (applications) projector company — all using DLP technology. Their booth has projectors form 500 lumens to 12,000 lumens and everything from pocket projectors to large-venue projection. I caught up with Holger Graff of Vivitek about both their future projector strategy as well as their new […]
Bose Professional is well-known for their high-end and live-events speakers and processing products. But, they also want to be known for their new audio conferencing line of products, now, ControlSpace EX line. The ControlSpace EX series includes their EX-1280C conferencing signal processor and three new Dante-based ControlSpace under-table endpoints (EX-4ML, EX-8ML and EX-UH). Bose’ Fuat Koro joined me for […]
I was asked to come to the Barco stand before any other member of the press to get a sneak-peek, up-close view of their newest ClickShare, the CSE-800 The CSE-800 is a two-output 4K resolution (4096×2160) HDMI ports and a dual-band wireless access point. In addition, the new ClickShare has annotation, white boarding capabilities (although, they call […]
