3D, or not 3D, that is the question.

A favorite scene for any AV geek has to be when R2D2 gets cleaned up by Luke Skywalker on Tatooine.  All of a sudden, a light sputters out and projects a holographic image of Princess Leia pleading with Obi Wan Kenobi to save her.  That scene set the stage in many people’s heads about the […]

3D, or not 3D, that is the question.

Hey Crestron & AMX: Google Buys Nest for $3.2 Billion

The biggest news in electronics the week after the giant CES (Consumer Electronics Show) wasn’t even talked about at CES because it happened the very next day. Google puts up $3.2 Billion to buy Nest, the three year old company started by former Apple design guys Tony Fadell and Matt Rogers. Nest is best known […]

Hey Crestron & AMX: Google Buys Nest for $3.2 Billion

Hardware is Dead! Long Live Hardware! In Defense of the Appliance, and a Look Ahead at Software Solutions

Last week Ryan Pinke joined a new tradition in proclaiming the video conference Codec dead. In my own look ahead I posited a potential future free of boxes, in which software solutions largely replace dedicated appliances. Is Pinke right on this one? Have we reached, or are we nearing the end of hardware? I don’t […]

Hardware is Dead! Long Live Hardware! In Defense of the Appliance, and a Look Ahead at Software Solutions

TV Web Apps Redux

Back in October of last year I wrote a blog post entitled Network Broadcast Apps: Very Different Experiences wherein I played compare and contrast between the iPad apps of two of Canada’s major broadcasters, CTV and Global. Since then, enough has transpired to merit revisiting the subject. First things first, the good news. Shortly after […]

TV Web Apps Redux

WWE Changes Television

One great thing about having young children is that they keep you on top of all the latest technology trends. My son, CJ (10) became a wrestling fan last year. Every Monday and Friday night he is glued to the television watching the latest episode. And the company is truly a marketing and entertainment genius. […]

WWE Changes Television

BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) to the Conference Room: Is Vaddio the Game Changer?

BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) has become quite common in the IT world of large organizations. However, BYOD has not been adequately applied to video conference rooms. Vaddio is out to the change the face of video conferencing for the better by creating “adaptable” systems. Vaddio introduced its GroupSTATION and HuddleSTATION at Infocomm 2013. While […]

BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) to the Conference Room: Is Vaddio the Game Changer?

Are You Leveraging Negative Energy?

Ever since cavemen sat around a fire and pointed at cave drawings, light has played a key role in communication. It is hard to imagine an AV industry without devices powered by artificial light. We owe a lot to people like Volta and Edison and their little glowing pieces of wire. Going a level deeper, […]

Are You Leveraging Negative Energy?

Remembrances Of Memory Past

Just the other week I replaced the hard drive in my laptop, which I alluded to in my previous blog post. I paid $69 on Amazon for a 500Gb hard drive. In that same week browsing Amazon I saw a price I could not resist and paid $119 for a 3Tb external hard drive. Three […]

Remembrances Of Memory Past

Mersive Solstice: An IT-Ready Platform

We’ve all heard about the convergence of AV and IT, and we all know there will be leaders and laggards as it arrives. If you look at the leading wired and wireless platforms for same-room PC or mobile device sharing, you’ll notice a pattern. Traditional AV companies have gone the route of proprietary hardware and […]

Mersive Solstice: An IT-Ready Platform

The Video Conference Codec is Dead (Or At Least the Writing Is on the Wall)

New VC technology lets everyone into the party It always amazes me the calls I get from very large organizations and universities making the comment “We don’t want Cisco or Polycom endpoints.” At first I thought this was just a few fringe organizations, but it is becoming all too common request as of lately. While […]

The Video Conference Codec is Dead (Or At Least the Writing Is on the Wall)

New Year’s Resolutions for the AV Industry

OK,  so maybe like one of my favorite movie protagonists, Jerry Maguire, on New Year’s Eve “I ate two slices of bad pizza, went to bed and grew a conscience!” Only time will tell if what I’m about to write should have been ‘the things I think but do not say’.  (Even the cover looked like The […]

New Year’s Resolutions for the AV Industry

What We Can Learn From the Top Pins of 2013 on Pinterest

It is no secret that I, Molly Stillman, LOVE Pinterest. I can easily burn a few hours on Pinterest and not even blink. I’ve talked about Pinterest (somewhat ad nauseum) in my social media tips of the week and I’ve mentioned how companies and businesses (specifically, AV people) can better use and integrate the social […]

What We Can Learn From the Top Pins of 2013 on Pinterest

Churches Put On Their A-Game for Christmas — Will You Take Advantage?

Churches are taking these two weeks to prepare for their next big push — to connect with those who visited during Christmas and are checking them out again. They put on their A-game for Christmas, but they’ve got to keep the excellence factor high every weekend, and the AVL technology is playing an increasingly important […]

Churches Put On Their A-Game for Christmas — Will You Take Advantage?

“Remote” – a “Must Read”

As I mentioned in my last column in rAVe’s Rental and Staging e-newsletter, I read a lot of business books but totally embrace the ideas in very few of them. Most of the time, I am very pleased to get just one or two ideas from each one that I can apply to my own […]

“Remote” – a “Must Read”

Another Visit To The Obsolete Gear Closet: Disc Errors

So, a couple of weeks ago the hard drive on my laptop failed. I have to admit, that by hardware failure standards, it was the most polite one I’ve ever encountered: my laptop’s diagnostic app let me know that the C drive was failing, and was going to tank any day now. I know, right? […]

Another Visit To The Obsolete Gear Closet: Disc Errors

A Pixel and Ink Stained Year in Review

It’s the end of the year as we know it. This year in review and its companion peek into my pixel and ink-stained crystal ball at the year coming up will be largely “pixel” posts in that I’ll talk about commercial AV. Perhaps one or two literary mentions to round things out. And more on […]

A Pixel and Ink Stained Year in Review

Media Servers Never Worked Out, And That’s Good

There are those who say that the greatest curse is remembering. Occasionally, I’ll go back into the archive on my hard drives of AV articles I’ve written in years past and browse. And I cringe when I read stories and editorials I wrote where, with the perspective of time, I can see that I was […]

Media Servers Never Worked Out, And That’s Good

Intercepted! AV Letters for Santa

It has been an interesting December to say the least.  I have been from the “79 and Sunny” of Rancho Santa Margarita to the subzero climate of Eden Prairie for the Milestone annual meeting, I have had to break the reality of Christmas traditions to my 10 year old daughter, and I have fought the […]

Intercepted! AV Letters for Santa

How Many Flashlights Does One Guy Need?

I make no secret of the fact that I love tools. I read something recently that resonated. It was a post that said “having the right gear, and using it properly is everything: with the right gear you can go to Mars or the Moon.” For sure, having the right tool for the job can […]

How Many Flashlights Does One Guy Need?

Five Things You’ll Never Hear in a Convention Center

In your twenties, trade shows are awesome. You’re single, traveling to all the cool big cities, getting free dinners at night, going to late night parties, networking, exchanging business cards, making new friends — then you go to bed and get up and do it all over again. In your thirties, you’ve seen (and smelled) […]

Five Things You’ll Never Hear in a Convention Center

Gaming the AV Industry: Lift Off!

I’m sticking to my promise, and this will be my first article featuring specific ways to add value to your game-centric home theater setup. It may actually be too specific, in that you’ll have to do some custom woodwork until and unless an AV furniture company starts selling similar products. But I’m getting ahead of […]

Gaming the AV Industry: Lift Off!

Holiday Musings on Cooperation and Collaboration in the AV industry

It’s non sectarian holiday time in the city. Last night was one of the New York AV community’s traditions: the Sapphire Marketing holiday party at the Crestron showroom in midtown Manhattan. In what may or may not become a bee annual party of the transition, George Tucker and Chris Neto broadcast an AV related chat […]

Holiday Musings on Cooperation and Collaboration in the AV industry

AV/IT — An Aerial View Assessment

It looks as if lately LinkedIn group discussions have become the basis and inspiration for my recent blogs. The previous one I was encouraged to write by the moderator of the group discussion, this one I was not, however I saw the opportunity to put together collective thoughts, some related to the thread and some […]

AV/IT — An Aerial View Assessment

Gary’s HDBaseT Petition — A Bridge Too Far?

AV social media maven and rAVe Pubs founder Gary Kaye is making waves with a recent blog post in which he lambasted the HDBaseT Alliance for its failure to properly monitor and implement the “standard” of HDBaseT.  His article is well researched, and makes a number of very valid points. A few weeks prior to Gary’s post, another well-respected AV blogger, Leonard […]

Gary’s HDBaseT Petition — A Bridge Too Far?

Digital Menu Boards Done Right

I will be honest, even though I work in the AV industry, I often get annoyed by some of the applications of digital signage in real life. So often I feel like a restaurant or retail establishment will invest all this money into digital signage or digital menu boards without ever really taking the following […]

Digital Menu Boards Done Right

Great Techs, Lousy People Skills

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but there often seems to be an inverse correlation between how brilliant a tech is and whether you should ever let him anywhere near customers. Not all the time, perhaps, but definitely much of the time. Looking back, I can think of numerous examples of people I’ve worked with […]

Great Techs, Lousy People Skills

Gaming the Industry: Xbox One Review and Install Tips

If you read my last article on the PS4, you’ll no doubt be unsurprised where this article is going next. We’re covering Microsoft’s entry into the next-gen console market: the Xbox One. Next week will be my first non-review column and I hope to go into more detail with some specific solutions that will add […]

Gaming the Industry: Xbox One Review and Install Tips

Barnes and Not-So-Noble: The Grinch Who Stole Christmas

It’s getting close to Christmas time and as such family traditions are in full swing at the Coxon household.  One of those traditions for the last 5 years has been reading “The Elf on the Shelf.” For those of you unfamiliar, the book relays the story of an elf that comes to watch your children […]

Barnes and Not-So-Noble: The Grinch Who Stole Christmas

Everything is Empathy

Think about your last horrible experience with a company. Perhaps the product didn’t work as expected or advertised. Did that company listen to you and try to make it right in a way that was mutually acceptable? Or did you get the loathsome “I’m sorry you feel that way,” which is a particularly insidious type […]

Everything is Empathy

The Other Side of the Bridge — A Look at Some AV Streaming Solutions

One comment I frequently hear about HDBaseT is that it’s a “bridge technology” between the old days of simple point-to-point connectivity and a future in which AV joins the rest of our data on those great big IP networks which dominate the rest of our lives. Are we ready for this paradigm shift? Is the […]

The Other Side of the Bridge — A Look at Some AV Streaming Solutions

Black Friday & the AV Industry: Does it Help, Hurt, or Hardly Matter?

It’s that time of year here in the United States – we just celebrated Thanksgiving and we’re in the thick of the holiday season. And, of course, the day after Thanksgiving (or, really, Thanksgiving day in many stores) means Black Friday – the day where people go crazy, hit the stores crazy early, and sometimes […]

Black Friday & the AV Industry: Does it Help, Hurt, or Hardly Matter?

AVPhenom’s Blessings and Turkeys of 2013

I sat down last night with the intent of writing my 2nd Annual Thanksgiving post on the AV Industry’s “Blessings” and “Turkeys” for 2013.  Upon sitting down to write, I found out that one of the hardest things to feign is “righteous indignation”.  I just wasn’t feeling it. This morning, while helping some integrators get […]

AVPhenom’s Blessings and Turkeys of 2013