Gary’s Rants & rAVes

Planar’s new DirectLight LED wall system comes in four pixel pitches and includes an integrated mounting system. Those are just two of the differentiators in this new product line. Listen to the podcast to learn about these new displays, which represent a totally new product line for Planar. Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: […]

This is the 12th year of the Digital Signage Expo and we will be covering it live with our rAVe NOW service.  Find out how you can follow along with us while we’re in Vegas! Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: RSS

Listen to this podcast so you’ll understand why our Readers Choice Awards are different than anyone else’s in the industry. Both the nominations and the award winners come completely and exclusively from you, the readers. Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: RSS

Do you agree with our assessment of what the Microsoft Surface Hub will be on our market? Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: RSS

Atlona started focused only on the HomeAV market. But, in recent years the company has been focused on the ProAV market as well as been a big proponent of routing signals via HDBaseT. Here’s an interview with Atlona President and CEO Ilya Khayn. Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: RSS

What have you learned being in our industry? NSCA Executive Director Chuck Wilson shares the 100 things he’s learned over the course of his career. Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: RSS

PISCR is a projected image system contrast ratio specification developed by InfoComm and ANSI together. It doesn’t specify what the contrast ratio of a projector should be, but actually specifies what the contrast ratio of a projected image should be in a specific room environment. Listen to this podcast and you’ll understand it better.And, after […]

Nearly every high-end projection company launched a laser phosphor base projector at ISE. Listen here to find out why… Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: RSS

Gary and Joel wrap up ISE 2015 with commentary on the best and worst stands, the show in general, and the coolest products… don’t miss this one. Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: RSS

Atlona started in the HomeAV market as a connector and signal distribution company, but now 50 percent of the company’s business is ProAV thanks to its new 4K line of products as well as the company’s adoption of the HDBaseT standard. This is according to Atlona President and co-founder Ilya Khayn. In addition to converting […]

Everyone by now knows that Microsoft has officially entered the AV market with their new 84” interactive Surface Hub display  – launching themselves into the AV market against biggies like SMART and InFocus. But, like Jeff, I agree their entry into the market will be good for everyone – listen to this podcast to understand why. […]

 SMART Technologies has signed up Ingram Micro to be their first distributor of their new KAPP product line. This is a great partnership as it opens SMART’s most popular product – now available in both 42” and 84” – to the entire AV market without any buying commitment. Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: RSS

On today’s podcast, we actually bring you a videocast all about a new product that Jupiter is debuting at next week’s ISE show in Amsterdam. Aimed at small huddle rooms, Jupiter will bring its high-end technology down to the small meeting room market with a wireless collaboration system dubbed the Canvas CRS-4K. Watch this videocast with Jupiter […]

In today’s podcast, Gary caught up with Medialon’s North American Sales Manager Eric Cantrell, who fills us in on the company’s new Overture Control platform. It’s uniqueness is that the control interface is customized per user — not per room — so anyone who uses a room with AV gear controls and/or sees only the gear […]

Arthur Holm’s new double-sided (two sided) monitor acts as both a giant name-tag for the attendees of a conference or meeting while display the presentation content right in front of each attendee. The DynamicNameTag sits flush with the table when retracted and, when needed, rises up into position and automatically turns on to display the […]

Gary caught up with Arthur Holm’s International Sales and Marketing Manager Motse Romero today. Arthur Holm is using ISE to launch a handful of new products including a new, slimmer DYNAMIC3 and X2, as well as totally new foldable Dynamic1H and a giant digital nametag monitor called the DynamicNameTag. If you aren’t already a dealer […]

I was intrigued by some figures I saw on a study commissioned by Jupiter Systems, which cited the growth potential of the worldwide collaboration market is $2 Billion. I spoke to Jupiter’s VP of marketing and strategic alliances, Brady Bruce, to get the details and how Jupiter is playing into that segment of the market […]

Anthony is the person we featured this month in our AV People column. You may have heard of his name because he is our primary columnist for the rAVe HOW [House of Worship] e-newsletter. But in this month’s AV People feature, you learn a lot about his personal life and how it affected his professional […]

The digital signage market is growing faster than any market of AV technology. And you should know what’s going on in that market whether you’re in digital signage yet or not. Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: RSS

In case you haven’t heard, Microsoft, sort of, entered the AV market last week with an 84-inch version of its Surface tablet. Aimed at that meeting room market, the tablet accepts wired or wireless content, integrates videoconferencing and is multi-touch. What do you think? Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: RSS

Today Gary had an ISE video cast scheduled with dnp’s http://www.dnp-screens.com Johnny Jensen, the company’s senior product manager. The topic for discussion was dnp’s Supernova XL as it will make its European debut at ISE in Amsterdam in stand 1-Q14 (in Hall 1). But, in addition to telling Gary all about their ISE plan for the XL, […]

Gary caught up with AMX VP of Product Management, Shaun Robinson, to talk about the company’s ISE plans — including the new product announcements we can expect from AMX. Shaun hinted at 4K developments, more wireless BYOD products and AMX’s plan to integrate HiQnet from HARMAN at ISE. Be sure to visit AMX in stand 1F6.  

While walking the show floor at CEDIA Expo 2014, Gary saw a carpet company exhibiting there the piqued his interest — yes, carpet. But, it wasn’t the Home Depot kind of carpet — it was really cool home theater-style carpet. Joy Carpets (www.joycarpets.com) is a Georgia-based carpet company that’s aiming to set-up AV integrators as […]

InfoComm has started a women’s-only group called Women of InfoComm. They’re going to be hosting a breakfast at both the ISE show next month in Amsterdam as well as the InfoComm show in June. For more details, listen to my podcast. Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: RSS

The ambient light rejection category of screens was invented by dnp http://www.dnp-screens.com, first with its rear-screen materials and then added to its front-screen line. Since then, every screen manufacturer has attempted to emulate what dnp has done. At ISE 2015, dnp will focus on the Supernova XL and Supernova STS for both residential and commercial […]

The BARIX SoundScape made its ISE debut in 2014 and now it’s starting to ship. But ISE 2014 only told part of the SoundScape story and ISE 2015 will introduce the industry to the entire audio signage product line — including a cloud-based management solution for SoundScape. BARIX is in stand 8-M245 and will exhibit […]

Today, Gary caught up with Joe Andrulis, AMX’s global VP of marketing, and talked to him about the company’s plans at Integrated Systems Europe (ISE) next month in Amsterdam. AMX’s stand (Hall 1-F2) is integrated into the Harman Group’s presence and will incorporate three distinct areas along. They’ll also have afternoon receptions. Listen to get […]

Gary caught up with ISE Managing Director Michael Blackman for today’s podcast and talked all about the upcoming show. ISE 2014 drew more than 51,000 AV’ers to Amsterdam last February and the 2015 show will be bigger and. Based on the enormous success of both InfoComm 2014 and Cedia EXPO this past September, the co-producers […]

Our blogger and 10-year AV veteran Leonard Suskin and his wife are about to embark on a $20,000 journey to bring his wife, Karine, a pain-free life. Leonard is an amazing guy and fantastic blogger. He’s also a systems designer at Shen Milsom & Wilke and we are trying to help them. Please listen to […]

The HDBaseT Alliance is asking IEEE to approve it as a tech standard. Listen to my podcast so you’ll understand why I’m completely against that. Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: RSS

Every year we produce a video that’s a summary of everything that happened in the audiovisual industry that year. Today we released our 2014 year in review video – I hope you’ll listen and then watch! Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: RSS