If you’re not headed to Amsterdam next week for ISE, you should be. So, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE make reservations to go next year. ISE has quietly and quickly become the most important AV trade show on this planet. I don’t know which show AV people on Mars go to, but on Earth, nearly all of them are […]
In the five or so years since Barco debuted the ClickShare, no company has had anything significant, as a stand-alone packaged product, which comes close to the simplicity and compatibility of their BYOD solution. The ClickShare likely has a more than 70 percent market share of this segment even though there have been a half-dozen or so […]
During the CES (Consumer Electronics Show) each year, nearly every big consumer tech company debuts something new — and many of them will declare it “disruptive” or “game-changing” or “innovative” or one of a dozen or so other self-congratulatory adjectives that mean nothing. And all the while, the city for Las Vegas commences to ripping people off […]
After writing this piece on how CEDIA needed women on their Board, I received overwhelmingly positive feedback from the industry. Some of you wrote to me via my LinkedIn post, some commented on Facebook and Twitter and some of you emailed me privately. I even got four phone calls from current and former CEDIA Board members — and one […]
PR (public relations) in the AV industry, generally, sucks. Trust me. Not only do I teach to PR students at the University of North Carolina and see (and read) great PR pitches all the time from them, but the agony of reading boringly written or overly-flub-ridden press releases from MOST (not all, just most) PR […]
With their new product UniSee, Barco is doing something that no company’s ever done in the video wall market – launching a turn-key product that includes a completely bezel-less 55” LCD monitor integrated with a purpose-built mount (specifically for UniSee) and integrated with a modular electronics design. Yes, it’s three things in one: a native 1080p panel with […]
ZOOM Video Communications was the brainchild of WebEx founder Eric Yuan. He wanted to find a way to make people happy using videoconferencing — not frustrated. In six years, it’s gone from his idea to a company with headquarters is in San Jose, Calif. that’s projected to be valued at well over $1 Billion. And, Yuan […]
Like many of you, I’ve known Scott Sharer for many years. He developed the first videoconferencing classes more than 20 years ago and taught them for 15 or so years. He and I served on numerous committees together at InfoComm and we taught at InfoComm’s and PETC Institutes for 20+ years all over the world. […]
At least five MAJOR ProAV manufacturers have relented to Amazon’s push into the ProAV market. In case you haven’t heard, Amazon quietly launched a business-to-business initiative earlier this year called — appropriately — Amazon Business. Its charter is to become a multi-billion-dollar supplier of anything a business needs to operate. And, Viewsonic was one of […]
It appears that Crestron can, in fact, predict the future. The 2017 CEDIA Expo is shaping up to be a very good show. We have a team of five people out in San Diego right now covering it live and you can follow our coverage here. The show floor is beautiful and we’ll spend the morning, right before the […]
There’s no doubt that Amazon’s Sarah Zenz will be one of the best keynote speakers CEDIA has ever heard. She’s one of the smartest people at AMAZON, she’s an amazing speaker and she was a kick-ass product manager. But, in a doubly-irony, she’s been asked, by the ALL-MALE CEDIA board to address the attendees who […]
Here’s a list of the current CEDIA Board of Directors. Notice anything wrong? Yep, you got it — all dudes. No women. How could this have happened? Is CEDIA so arrogant to think the the way to solve the world’s HomeAV problems is to have a group of dudes sitting around making decisions on how […]
Earlier this week, we broke the news that Plantronics was entering the ProAV market with a new product called Habitat Soundscaping. It wasn’t a complete surprise as Plantronics is one of the worst companies I’ve ever seen at keeping secrets. I found out about the product five months before they called me out of the blue to “tell […]
A few months back, I wrote a column: Will Microsoft Be Able to Continue to Rip People Off With Their Surface HUB? Most of you agreed; some didn’t. And now, four months after writing that piece, I still think it’s way, way, way overpriced for what you get. But on the same week that Whitlock recently awarded Microsoft’s Surface Hub […]
The HDBaseT Alliance used InfoComm to officially debut the first set of products using their new HDBaseT over IP infrastructure — designed to compete against the SDVoE Alliance standard, more commonly known as the AptoVision BlueRiver NT+ AV-over-IP system. This is a disaster waiting to happen. Why? Well, I love HDBaseT. The transport platform that was originally launched by — and is still […]
Legrand announced the acquisition of Milestone AV early this morning but the rumors of a Milestone AV purchase had been flying for weeks. (Here’s a link to our breaking news story.) There was no question they were selling, but this is a merger of two giant, awesome companies. I can see nothing but fantastic things […]
When David became the editor of Sound & Communications Magazine, I was already a technical advisor and columnist for them for four years running. And I was their “video guy.” Sound & Communications (S&C) had been 99 percent audio when I was brought in in 1996 to start a column and consult for them on […]
Get ready for the industry’s one and only short-throw laser projector in the form of two new versions of the Epson BrightLink line. BrightLink is their Interactive line of short-throw projectors and Epson, this morning, rolled out one aimed at education and one aimed at corporate applications in the form of the BrightLink 710Ui and BrightLink Pro 1470Ui, […]
Last week, in an acquisition that was barely mentioned by the AV trades, Econocom Group purchased 100 percent of BIS Group, an AV and Smart Buildings integrator mostly focused in the Netherlands and Belgium. And, Econocomm also purchased a 40 percent stake in JTRS, an Apple and Google partner focused in the education market in the UK, as well as 100 percent […]
The SDVoE just got the biggest endorser yet. SDVoE is currently the only off-the-shelf technology that offers a “full stack solution” for AV-over-IP. SDVoE addresses the full seven-layer OSI network stack and offers solutions at every layer. SDVoE technology creates a flexible hardware and software platform which can enable many applications including matrix switches, KVM switches, video walls controllers and multiview image processors. It can also be integrated […]
In addition to showing new 4K projectors, a new high-end Spyder processor and an all-new LCD lineup at InfoComm, Christie is getting into the AV-over-IP market as a founding member of the SDVoE Alliance and a new product line called Terra. Christie Terra solutions support video formats up to 4K at 60Hz (10-bit color) and provide the processing […]
Sony will take to booth 2200 at next week’s InfoComm show with two demos of 8K resolution displays – one using a curved CLEDIS (the mind-blowing LED technology they showed at InfoComm last year and won our Best of InfoComm 2016 award with) and the other made from Sony’s new laser projector line. I was joined on today’s […]
Vivitek will be in booth 4443 at Infocomm next week showing a few industry firsts. They’ll have a 4K home cinema projector for sub-$3000 that also reproduces the Rec.709 color space! And, we got the scoop on my podcast today – you’ll even see it asa we did a videocast demo of the product. And, they’ll […]
I was joined by Barco Strategic Marketing Director Wouter Bonte today to talk everything InfoComm. Barco’s new UDX 4K Laser projector line is already making a splash in the rental market and the new products will spill into the install market as they begin to ship this summer. Barco’s booth will have a dual-projector seamed-demo that will likely […]
Bose Professional is hitting the show floor (in booth #4061) at InfoComm with three major new product launches. The company is using InfoComm for the official U.S. rollout of ControlSpace EX, the conferencing solutions that originally debuted at ISE in Amsterdam in February. I nabbed a one-on-one interview with Rob Kosman, Bose’s events and applications manager, today on […]
Altia Systems, creators of PanaCast 2 Panoramic-4K USB video camera system, has worked with Intel to launch PanaCast Whiteboard, a computer vision software that detects content on an existing whiteboard and displays (in any room) and adds it in (automatically) into a vide meeting. This may not seem like a big deal but, watch this videocast with their CEO and […]
Today’s edition of my Rants and rAVe’s podcast includes the first public showing of Logitech’s new MeetUp ConferenceCam I was honored to be joined by Logitech’s Head of Marketing for the Collaboration Business Unit, Joan Vandermate, who explains the features behind the 4K USB camera and what makes it perfect for small rooms and huddle spaces. This is one […]
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 […]
