Barco announced today a restructuring plan to align the organization with changing market demands and growth opportunities while enhancing the company’s long-term profitability. This comprehensive plan addresses specific aspects of Barco’s organizational structure and effectiveness particularly in the areas of product management and commercial and service delivery processes. The plan also includes the re-investment of […]

Barco has entered the projection screen market — targeting Stewart, Da-Lite and Draper, with its new RigiFlex line. Branding it as a “powerwall” screen, it’s billed to be both rigid and rollable. As it’s designed to be a rear-screen screen surface, they’ve categorized it as a virtual reality-application screen. Rear-projection is the mainstream projection mode […]

Barco has re-launched its Virtual Classroom (with weConnect) system and, at the same time, announced its first install at the IESE Business School in Barcelona. The newest use case of the weConnect, cloud-based SaaS solution makes remote, higher education more interactive and engaging. Barco says the Virtual Classroom allows Business Schools, Universities and Corporate Learning […]

Draper is launching a trim solution for the Barco UniSee video wall system. SmartTrim for Barco UniSee is a patent-pending, design protected solution co-developed with SMS Smart Media Solutions, a Draper subsidiary in Sweden. It provides a simple and elegant trim remedy for a wide range of standard and custom Barco UniSee configurations. Standard kits […]

Barco just a product competitive to the Nureva Wall called the Ideation Wall, which uses a combination of the ClickShare CSE-800 and their UniSee LCD Wall system. The Ideation Wall consists of several building blocks that Barco says are unique on their own, but when combined, they complement each other. By combining a Barco UniSee […]

Barco quietly launched a new AV-over-IP adapter into medical imaging market today — not even mentioning ProAV. But we found the announcement and, even though it’s aimed at a specialty market not integrated by Pro AV installers, it signals their intent to enter thee AV-over-IP market, eventually, in ProAV. In their case, it appears they […]

Barco is one of the few companies in our industry that’s public that exclusively makes products for the commercial AV market. So, seeing their results helps us understand where the market is at any given moment. Remember, however, due to the nature of Barco’s typical products, their sales results lag behind, timeline-wise, the rest of […]

Almo ProAV today announced it is now offering Barco ClickShare Certified Technician training. Taking place on June 19 and June 20 at the new Almo ProAV office in Baltimore, the training is worth three AVIXA CTS Renewal Units (RUs). Participants in the June 19 session can earn a Certified Specialist designation while those in the […]

Barco announced that ClickShare now integrates with Zoom Rooms – the software-based video conference room solution from Zoom Video Communications, Inc. ClickShare will be part of the Zoom Technology Ecosystem Program and will also share common channel partners. This integration allows ClickShare users to easily share content to their Zoom Room and remote attendees. Remote […]

Barco has announced that its AV monitoring and control solution, Overture, now includes Active Directory and Microsoft Exchange. This latest update to Barco’s AV control solution uses ADFS (Active Directory Federation Services) and LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) for Cloud and On-Premise deployments respectively. These two elements offer increased security through enterprise level access control, […]

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 […]

  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 is launching a new range of laser projectors dubbed the XDL. Designed specifically for very large venues and events, the XDL is spec’d to be Rec. 2020 color, uses a native (4096×2160) 4K resolution 3-chip DLP system and can handle content up to 120Hz. The XDL will be launched to coincide with InfoComm 2018. The XDL series also […]

Cinionic, the Barco cinema joint venture, and Ultrahaptics, has launched a turnkey visualization solution that engages patrons in an interactive, sensory experience right in the cinema lobby. Millennials and “digital natives” are driving new trends and feedback-driven experiences. Cinionic and Ultrahaptics have collaborated on the design of innovative digital movie posters – embedded with mid-air haptics and motion tracking technologies – […]

Barco strengthens its ‘One Barco’ approach — as well as its manufacturing operations — with a future-proof new home base for its manufacturing department. Since 2016, all Barco’s departments in Belgium have been gradually united on the new campus in the Beneluxpark in Kortrijk. ‘One Campus’ symbolizes ‘One Barco’, meaning it is more than just a building. It represents a […]

Leveraging Barco’s cinema laser technology RGB laser projection, Cinionic, the Barco Cinema joint venture, now turns its attention to smaller screens. Today, Cinionic announces a new Smart Laser High Contrast (HC) projector series designed to deliver stunning image quality never-before-seen in this footprint. Based on the Barco Smart Laser projector platform, the HC models are native 4K resolution (3840×2160), use DLP technology and are spec’d at at least […]

Barco announced the sale of Montréal-based X2O Media to STRATACACHE. STRATACACHE will offer an enhanced focus and new growth opportunities for X2O. After its acquisition in 2014, X2O became part of Barco’s Enterprise division, which focuses on solutions for meeting and control rooms. Over the years, X2O secured top tier customers including John Deere, Verizon, FoxNews and Accenture. All customer agreements will […]

We just returned form the first stop on the 2018 ALMO E4 AV Tour in Washington DC and it’s safe to say that Almo ProAV still has THE BEST regional trade shows of ANY AV distributor in North America. Not only do they blow away the competition in sheer numbers — 500+ attendees, 45 exhibitors and two […]

The Kindermann Klick & Show wireless presentation solution was originally launched into the market in October 2017. During the course of the ISE 2018 the product was presented to a larger AV community for the first time and immediately turned out to be a tremendous success — even though Barco issued a press release claiming to ask Kindermann to […]

Barco is releasing a new 4K@60 output card, a new Super-Destination programming mode and an enhanced system expansion capability for its Event Master screen management systems. The new output card, along with software release 5.1, launched at ISE 2018. Barco Event Master screen management systems offer event professionals flexible and scalable solutions for shows of all sizes. The E2 is […]

Barco has become the first manufacturer to launch a AVaaS (AV as a service) model for integrators that involves real hardware that the client never has to purchase. Here at ISE today, Barco announced the launch of what it’s calling, in the press announcement, a SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) offering — something I predicted back last fall. Powered by […]

Update: The Klick & Show was shown at ISE 2018 on Kindermann’s stand. A new story is here. Today, on the opening day of ISE, Barco instructed bailiffs to approach the booth of Kindermann and collect evidence of its Klick & Show wireless presentation system present at the show. Barco will now use this evidence […]

Barco and Vogel’s Professional have announced new Barco UniSee Universal video wall solutions. Using a specifically designed adapter, a Barco UniSee video wall can now be connected to the ceiling and/or floor or be used as a free standing installation. Features include: Dedicated Unisee Mount adapter (included in UniSee Mount packaging) Easy and quick installation Modular system Lightweight […]

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 […]

Last month, we partnered with Almo Pro AV to create a comprehensive survey that asked you the AV community — users and integrators — to tell us what the state of the BYOD (bring your own device) and collaboration (insert your own definition here) market is. The results? Most importantly, nearly everyone in the AV market […]

One could argue that Global Caché might have just won the AV-lottery with a new partnership with Barco to supply Overture control software and Global Caché hardware to integrators. The new partnership provides what global cache calls seamless compatibility of Global Caché hardware from within Barco’s IP based Overture control software. Thus, Overture, is shipping now with Global Caché support and connectivity built-in. […]

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 […]

This week I went to New York City for the global unveiling of a new product from Barco, UniSee, which signals Barco’s entry into the LCD video wall market. The Barco people had described this product as “disruptive” to the video wall market. I think “game-changing” was also mentioned. This made me a bit skeptical. […]

Barco is building its new UniSee direct-view LCDs, aimed at the video wall market, in Taiwan. And because the new UniSee line is aimed at simplifying the installation of LCD video walls, Barco has also custom-designed a UniSee mount that, the company says, guarantees less than a 1.09-millimeter separation between pixels from one monitor to […]

Barco today launched the updated weConnect 1.2. But the big story here is in the details that are buried in the press release. The collaborative cloud-based learning solution is aimed at higher education and now has two new use cases and new upgrades. Adding interactive huddle space and lecture hall as brand-new use cases Modular cloud-based solution […]

Barco announced an update to its A/V control solution Overture. New automation features that allow users to better schedule events and automate behaviors are now available to existing and new customers. Released in February 2017, Overture created a revolution in A/V control solutions. Because it’s an IP-based software system where any network-connected device can be controlled via a browser. By introducing […]

To complete its offer for the fixed installation market, Barco is extending its F-series platform with a flexible new projector, the F80. Marketed as “the silent” F,” it’s designed for museums and venues that require brightness under 10K lumens, 24/7 up-time and 4K resolution (4096×2400). The F80 builds on the fundamentals of the other Barco F-series phosphor […]