Barco Adds Option to Integrate Overture Into ClickShare

Just two days following one of my most popular blogs, Barco’s Overture Dilemma, Barco announced exactly what I suggested inside the blog — they’ve integrated Overture into ClickShare! In a blog post from ClickShare Product Manager Steven Lampshear, shrouded as an educational piece about how ClickShare can make meetings simpler, near the bottom, is a section […]

Barco Adds Option to Integrate Overture Into ClickShare

InfoComm Comes (or Goes) Home

AVIXA is going out of its way to say that its new Integrated Life @ InfoComm isn’t competitive to the industry’s defacto HomeAV show, CEDIA. But, I call bulls*t. First, look at this. That’s basically the what’s new at InfoComm page — letting everyone know what all the new things AVIXA added to the industry’s top […]

InfoComm Comes (or Goes) Home

Barco’s Overture Dilemma

  Update: Just two days following the publication of this blog, Barco announced exactly what I suggested — they’ve integrated Overture into ClickShare! It will be shown at InfoComm. Click here to read more about the announcement. At least year’s ISE show in Amsterdam, Barco officially launched itself into a (potentially) competitive fight with the […]

Barco’s Overture Dilemma

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ Personal AV Tech Controls the Future of AV and Doesn’t Even Realize It

Maybe I’m a skeptic. I don’t think I am but, maybe. Having lived in technology for nearly 30 years, it’s not often a new tech product debuts that I get excited about. The iPhone was a giant WOW. Wireless networking was an “its about time” kind of moment as I was one of those power-travelers […]

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ Personal AV Tech Controls the Future of AV and Doesn’t Even Realize It

Did Plantronics Bail Out Polycom or Is This Perfect Timing?

As the rest of the advertiser-supported AV press just reprints the Polycom or Plantronics press releases, we’re going to call it how we see it — with the truth about this “acquisition.” Yes, Plantronics is taking control of Polycom — a history-making videoconferencing company that all but invented the space — for what amounts to $2.0 billion in enterprise […]

Did Plantronics Bail Out Polycom or Is This Perfect Timing?

Apple Could Fail to Recapture K-12 Market for the Same Reason It Owns the SmartPhone Market

Kids love the Apple iPhone. And most kids in schools who have smartphones have an iPhone — this, all while Android is the world’s leading smartphone platform. And, they mostly don’t use them as a phone. They text on them, Snapchat on them, they post on Instagram and they store their photos on them — lots of photos. And, […]

Apple Could Fail to Recapture K-12 Market for the Same Reason It Owns the SmartPhone Market

The Non-AV-AV Is Getting to Be Bigger than the AV Parts of AV

Since the introduction of the plethora of collaboration boards launched February at ISE, I’ve noticed a troubling and concerning trend: In some segments of AV, the non-AV’ers are doing more AV than the AV’ers are doing. What the heck do I mean? Well, let’s take the huddle space as an example. At first, the AV […]

The Non-AV-AV Is Getting to Be Bigger than the AV Parts of AV

ISE 2018 Will Be the Biggest and Best AV Trade Show in History

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 […]

ISE 2018 Will Be the Biggest and Best AV Trade Show in History

Vivitek’s NovoConnect With LauncherPlus Poised to Catch Barco’s ClickShare

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 […]

Vivitek’s NovoConnect With LauncherPlus Poised to Catch Barco’s ClickShare

So You Want to Go to CES? Nah, No You Don’t. Really, You Don’t – Here’s Your CES 2018 Guide So You Don’t Have to Go

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 […]

So You Want to Go to CES? Nah, No You Don’t. Really, You Don’t – Here’s Your CES 2018 Guide So You Don’t Have to Go

It Worked!!!! We Got a Woman Elected to the CEDIA Board

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 […]

It Worked!!!! We Got a Woman Elected to the CEDIA Board

Creativity Matters in Public Relations – Barco’s PR Team Needs a Raise

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 […]

Creativity Matters in Public Relations – Barco’s PR Team Needs a Raise

Rants and rAVes — Episode 643: Barco Uses rAVe RADIO to Debut UniSee LCD Panel VideoWall Line

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 […]

Rants and rAVes — Episode 643: Barco Uses rAVe RADIO to Debut UniSee LCD Panel VideoWall Line

ZOOM Video’s Happiness Principal Drives CEO Eric Yuan — And He Wants You to Be OK with ZOOM Rooms

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 […]

ZOOM Video’s Happiness Principal Drives CEO Eric Yuan — And He Wants You to Be OK with ZOOM Rooms

On Scott Sharer

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. […]

On Scott Sharer

Amazon’s New B2B Service Includes ProAV

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 […]

Amazon’s New B2B Service Includes ProAV

Crestron Exiting CEDIA Was GENIUS

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 […]

Crestron Exiting CEDIA Was GENIUS

CEDIA’s Keynote Speaker Has Plenty of Irony to Go Around

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 […]

CEDIA’s Keynote Speaker Has Plenty of Irony to Go Around

CEDIA (the Organization) Is Exactly What’s Wrong with Consumer Tech Today

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 […]

CEDIA (the Organization) Is Exactly What’s Wrong with Consumer Tech Today

A Bag of Money Just Fell Out of the Sky and Hit AVI-SPL and SKC on the Head

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 Bag of Money Just Fell Out of the Sky and Hit AVI-SPL and SKC on the Head

The Microsoft Surface Hub Is in Big Trouble

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 Microsoft Surface Hub Is in Big Trouble

HDBaseT Over IP: Courting Disaster

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 […]

HDBaseT Over IP: Courting Disaster

What Do I Think of Legrand Buying Milestone AV?

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 […]

What Do I Think of Legrand Buying Milestone AV?

All the Best, David Silverman

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 […]

All the Best, David Silverman

Epson’s InfoComm Surprise Includes Two Interactive Short-Throw 3LCD Laser Projectors

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, […]

Epson’s InfoComm Surprise Includes Two Interactive Short-Throw 3LCD Laser Projectors

AVaaS is the Future of AV and the Econocom Buyout of BIS Group Will Trigger This First in Europe

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 […]

AVaaS is the Future of AV and the Econocom Buyout of BIS Group Will Trigger This First in Europe

Christie’s Use of SDVoE Validates Standard, But rAVe Gets Scoop Bigger Than That

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 […]

Christie’s Use of SDVoE Validates Standard, But rAVe Gets Scoop Bigger Than That

Christie Takes on Crestron, AMX’s SVSi & Everyone with New Terra AV-over-IP Line

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 […]

Christie Takes on Crestron, AMX’s SVSi & Everyone with New Terra AV-over-IP Line

Sony’s InfoComm Booth is All About 8K (& Digital Signage)

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 […]

Sony’s InfoComm Booth is All About 8K (& Digital Signage)

Vivitek is All About 4K, Collaboration and Short Throw Projectors at InfoComm

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 […]

Vivitek is All About 4K, Collaboration and Short Throw Projectors at InfoComm

Barco to Bring New ClickShare, X Series LEDs and UDX 4K Projector Line to InfoComm

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 […]

Barco to Bring New ClickShare, X Series LEDs and UDX 4K Projector Line to InfoComm

Rants and rAVes — Episode 619: InfoComm Special Videocast: We Got the Scoop on Bose’s Launches for InfoComm

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 […]

Rants and rAVes — Episode 619: InfoComm Special Videocast: We Got the Scoop on Bose’s Launches for InfoComm