Updated Nov. 16, 2020: I reached out to both Kevin Morrison, CEO and Frank Pellkofer, president, Utelogy Corporation for their thoughts and, interestingly enough, they praised Barco and the Overture system with this quote: “Barco is a fantastic company that make world class products. These are extraordinary times and companies across all industries including AV […]
By: Steph Beckett & Leah McCann Wednesday marked the start of the seventh-annual Audio Collaborative conference put on by UK-based Futuresource Consulting. Over two days, the 2020 conference, a virtual version of the show this year, tapped a lineup of industry experts to inspire a listening audience. Who was that audience? AV, technology and IT […]
We’ve all heard the phrase “a meeting that could have been an email.” Add in today’s additional methods of communication and you’ll get “a meeting that could have been a Zoom call, that could have been an email, that could have been a phone call, that could have been a text.” I put this idea […]
For years, many of us in higher ed have used the various laws associated with the Americans with Disabilities Act to determine what was required for accessibility in classroom and campus spaces. We thought about things like closed captioning for movies, support for hearing aids and the ability to view a screen properly. However, this […]
Effective Nov. 1, 2020, Sharp Corporation (hereinafter “Sharp”) and NEC Corporation (hereinafter “NEC”) completed the previously announced transaction to form a joint venture by Sharp acquiring 66% of shares for NEC Display Solutions Ltd. (hereinafter “NDS”), a subsidiary of NEC. The new website is here. In connection with the completion of the transaction, NDS has […]
I love an industry trade show as much as the next person. But COVID-19 had other plans for us this year. “No trade shows for you!” it said. “No fun for you!” it said. No sir/ma’am, the AV industry responded. Instead, it got creative in a collective effort to meet virtually and connect the world’s […]
After 20 years in the audiovisual and control industry, I got to thinking: How did I get here? I’m sure we’ve all wondered that at some point or another in our careers. Let me be clear: I don’t mean in some existential way. More so, I mean who helped along the way, who kept the […]
Every year, the DPAA, or Digital Place Based Advertising Association, hosts an event called the Video Everywhere Summit. The event is traditionally held in New York City, positioned as “the largest one-day omnichannel marketing event of the year.” It usually, impressively, includes big household names — last year, it was Adidas, Deloitte, IBM, HP and […]
Like many people who work in AV, my journey to the industry came about through music. I’m a lifelong, passionate multi-instrumentalist musician, and both a studio and live sound engineer. I’m even lucky enough to have been in a band that had a Billboard chart-topping #1 single some years back. On the business side of […]
CEDIA announced today that CEDIA President Tabatha O’Connor would depart the organization at the end of her contract in January after an 18-year tenure, during which the industry and CEDIA itself went through much transformation. In 2016, the association integrated its North American and worldwide operations to form a single integrated global organization. In 2017, […]
THE rAVe Agency, the AV industry’s only creative agency, is pleased to announce Amanda Beckner, CTS, as president and chief operating officer. Beckner brings more than 20 years of strategic, operational and educational success to THE rAVe Agency. She will be instrumental in driving long-term strategy and capitalizing on operational success for THE rAVe Agency. […]
Dear Zoom, We began using Zoom three years ago as a corporate replacement for Skype. The technical staff and our faculty and staff absolutely loved it. Slowly, we acquired more and more licenses. Then in March of 2020, COVID hit, and Zoom went from an essential tool to a business-critical application. And that is when […]
From “Hey, Cortana” to cloud-enabled interactive sound for HoloLens to Windows Sonic (Windows 10 comes with support for virtual surround sound), Microsoft invests heavily in research on audio. And the company is convinced the ProAV market fails to recognize this. They have a point here. Did you know speaker detection technology developed by Microsoft researchers […]
Earlier this week, DSE show organizers confirmed what many of us had suspected for months — that DSE would not happen as planned in 2020. What came as a bit of a surprise was Exponation’s entry into Chapter 7 bankruptcy — such an abrupt and terminal move by the organization that lifted up our industry […]
On Tuesday, I attended the first-ever virtual iteration of NSCA’s Pivot to Profit event — P2Pv. The National Systems Contractors Association (or NSCA, as I mentioned earlier) puts on Pivot to Profit every year, but this time around the show looked a little different. In a great way. My recap from Tuesday’s event is here, […]
There’s no doubt that Microsoft Teams has been playing catch-up with Zoom for months; some would argue years. But, this week, Microsoft upped its game by adding a host of features that even Zoom power-users will love. Here’s a summary look at each one: Together Mode: Together mode re-imagines meeting experiences to help participants feel […]
This week, I was excited to cover my first virtual event on the first official day of fall (Yes! Fall officially began Sept. 22!) on what’s finally a beautiful (not deathly hot) North Carolina day. This show was one that I’d never attended, and one that would be all-brand-new to me — designed specifically for […]
How an “AVSM” mindset can supercharge growth in the AV industry. In the last few articles, I talked (ranted) about the gap between the AV world and our customers. This gap has been the source of misunderstanding, poor experiences and lack of relevance at the big kids’ table. I recently saw an article discussing how […]
Update: We reached out to Rich Ventura of Sony (formerly of NEC) to talk to us a little more about what the loss of DSE will mean to the rest of the DS side of the AV industry. Ventura is the chairman emeritus of the Digital Signage Federation and serves on its board of directors. […]
By Kane McKenna Futuresource Consulting The rate of growth in the office based headset market has been steadily increasing in recent years. A key driver of this has been the rising importance of video conferencing, explored in Futuresource’s 2020 Video Conferencing report. Many end users have been looking to improve their videoconferencing experience, leading to […]
It looks like the industry pundits that predicted the ISE’s demise for 2021 were wrong as Integrated Systems Events, today, issued a statement that their new 2021 dates are 1-4 June and it will still be held at the Fira Gran Via in Barcelona, Spain. The decision to reschedule ISE 2021 from February to June […]
By Bob Snyder It’s an image so large it would take 378 4K ultra-high-definition TV screens to display. The resolution is so high you could see the dimples’ texture on a golf ball even if it was 24 kilometers away. This month, a lab at Stanford University, operating on behalf of the U.S. Department of […]
Update from rAVe Editor Sara Abrons: We reached out to AVIXA to see how the rescheduling of ISE would affect InfoComm and if there were any plans to delay, with ISE moving to June, the same month InfoComm is scheduled to take place. Rochelle Richardson, senior vice president of expositions and events for AVIXA, said […]
As technology people, we in the AV world are not immune to being drawn to new, fancy, shiny objects. We know we need to ask the right questions, make sure it fits our needs (or our customers’ needs), but wow, that new tech can be exciting. On occasion, we are also drawn in the opposite […]
By James Manning Smith Futuresource Consulting The video gaming industry has risen to new heights in 2020, with prevailing market conditions stimulating consumer demand and console lifecycles coming together to create an environment of opportunity. According to Futuresource research, by the end of this year the gaming software market will be worth U.S. $154 billion, […]
Way, way before COVID-19, UCC saw explosive growth. Because of it, “collaboration” was not only the buzzword of InfoComm 2019 but also completely dominated ISE 2020 — the last great AV event of 2020. But, UCC doesn’t mean meeting room or huddle room, by the way. If you read the spec sheets of the plethora […]
We at rAVe were as excited about day two of LAVNCH EMEA — UCC Collaborative Day — as any other LAVNCH event we’ve hosted thus far. It’s like Chris Mcintyre-Brown of Futuresource said yesterday on ProAV Day and reiterated this morning: UC&C (unified communications and collaboration) is intertwined into every AV discussion today. How could […]
ClearOne and Shure continue to battle via the courts — with the latest ruling that Shure is held in contempt over its MXA910-A ceiling microphone. A judge in the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of Illinois ruled that “Shure has violated the preliminary injunction order and is found in contempt because it designed […]
Us rAVe-rs woke up bright and early — some of us never went to sleep, actually — to get online today. The occasion: LAVNCH EMEA, which kicked off Wednesday in an exciting start to two full days of AV innovations and solutions launched virtually through our live, online event platform called LAVNCH. If you’ve been […]
World Wrestling Entertainment is a sport that relies on fan engagement and interaction more than any other. A big reason for that is the fact that it is staged. Yes, there is a substantial degree of physicality that goes into it, along with choreography and excellent timing. Yet, in the end, we know it is […]
I’d never heard the term “double join” until a few months ago on a call with one of our board members, John Case, who is a great resource to talk with if you’re researching the world of video conferencing. John spent a long time at Microsoft building the Office 365 product family and now puts […]
Suppose you’re active in social media at all. In that case, you may have noticed that quite a few strong opinions are resurfacing about AV’s “Experience” movement that has been happening since InfoComm became AVIXA. I believe the sudden rise of cloud-based conferencing, AV-over-IP and the retraction of hospitality, live and experiential events due to […]
