We came across one of the first, ever, articles written for rAVe back in June 2003 — it was Gary’s review of the InfoComm 2003 Show. It’s an interesting look at how much our industry has changed! Oh, and, back then, InfoComm’s association was called ICIA (thus, the ICIA references) in case you wondered what-the-heck […]

It’s simple, really. I often speak to dealer sales and system sales people who seem to have a hard time with the concept of selling systems to airlines and insurance companies. I’m not exactly sure why, but they seem to have difficulty grasping the concept of variance pricing based on need and use. It’s not […]

Medialon will be demo’ing its Overture facility-wide AV Management system to the U.S. market at InfoComm 2015 next week. Medialon’s Overture won a rAVe Best of ISE Award earlier this year and they attribute the award to the system being integrated into a multitude of places including a conference center and a theme park. Available […]

Audinate’s Dante networked AV system is dominating the ProAV world. There simply isn’t any other competing system that’s even close to the saturation level Dante has attained for putting audio on a network. With over 200 “adopters,” Dante is the defacto-standard and not only biggies like Extron, Crestron, Bose and Mackie have adopted Dante, but […]

We’re likely less than a month away from a plethora of Apple HomeKit product announcements as Apple is likely to tie in its home control of nearly everything to a brand-new Apple TV. Although Apple is usually hush-hush on new product pushes, this time, with HomeKit, they’ve been talking about their position and plans, telling […]

I am wondering if we’re doing ourselves a disservice by continuing to label ourselves as the AV market. Yes, I realize that perfectly wraps-up what we do 90 percent of the time, but what about the other 10 percent and, more importantly, what about all the emerging markets we are engaging in that aren’t as […]

The other day, I was on the phone leaving a voicemail for someone and I literally said “comma” and “period” in the same sentence — out loud. So, let’s back up. For those of you out of the “Siri-loop” let me bring you in. Siri is Apple’s voice-recognition and dictation software. It is simply awesome. […]

Do you know of someone with a new product that could help AV integrators and benefit from exhibiting at InfoComm 2015? Last year in Las Vegas, InfoComm 2014 hosted 974 exhibitors on more than 490,000 net square feet of exhibition and special events space. That was a record-breaking year for the show and this year […]

Our Reader’s Choice Awards blow away ANY other industry award. And, I can say that with 100 percent confidence. How? Well, first off, last year, we had over 54,000 votes — no one has those kinds of numbers! No one. Secondly, the votes came from INTEGRATORS — not manufacturers stuffing ballots or people voting multiple […]

2014 was one of the best years in AV history – more new products, technology and people, literally. More new people entered the AV market than in any year prior. And, it was a year for innovation — the biggest AV shows, ever, supported over 400 new products that were launched in both the ProAV […]

The concept of Smart Buildings is not new. For over two dozen years, the construction design and management industries have been implementing the standards of Building Information Modeling and making each building “smarter” than the next. Gone are the days with manual security systems, manual fire control systems, camera-less buildings or floors and nowadays everything […]

This week, Apple spent 85 percent of its time during its Spring Forward press conference on the Apple Watch and how it works, what it’s priced at and what it actually looks like. And, I will likely pre-order — no, I will pre-order — the Apple Sport Watch on April 10th, the first day they […]

The 2015 version of the Digital Signage Expo (DSE) kicks off next week in Las Vegas and it will mark a major milestone – it will be the biggest digital signage show, ever. And, in 12-years, DSE has gone from a total-hardware based show to a hardware, software and, now, creative services show. In fact, […]

The 12th year of the Digital Signage Expo kicks off next week in Las Vegas with over 200 exhibitors and the most education ever offered on digital signage in one place. I was joined on today’s videocast by the president and COO of Exponation (parent company of DSE), Chris Gibbs, who gave me a great overview […]

ISE’s managing director, Mike Blackman, was the happiest person in Amsterdam as the show closed — he declared a show attendance record of over 59,000 attendees. The HomeAV and ProAV mega trade show had over 1,200 exhibitors — nearly 250 new ones — and over 400,000 square feet of exhibition space. This interview with Mike […]

There were many rumors about Sharp’s demise in Europe, but they were wrong. Although the company did have a re-organization, its strong new interactive and 4K product portfolio will help boost it in 2015. Here, Sharp’s director of marketing in Europe, Michael Bailly, talks about the company’s new line and all that is going on […]

In a way, ISE 2015 was an official launch for Oblong Industries as, although they were at InfoComm last June, now they have a shipping product called Mezzanine. Oblong’s Global VP of Sales Mike Brown talked with Gary in this one-on-one interview about the company’s strategy.

Barix invented a new category for the AV integration world called Audio Signage and SoundScape. Their new system allows you to add sound to anything, anywhere via a portable device — like a phone, etc. Gary interviewed Barix Managing Director Frank Frederiksen, who talked about what he thought of the ISE 2015 attendees and where […]

Jupiter Systems’ Devon Wright, manager professional services, took time to talk with me about their new CSR-4k wireless collaboration system that debuted here at ISE 2015 and will sell for $6,000. It’s sort of a high-end version of ClickShare but, instead only managing four sources simultaneously and putting up everything in a 2×2 wall configuration, […]

Listen Technologies Vice President of Business Development Cory Schaeffer is clearly excited in this video. Listen has a new, competitively priced ($500 U.S.) IR Transmitter that the company says can cover any receiver in a room, no matter where it is. Aiming it at Williams Sound and Sennheiser, Cory says the new IR Transmitter uses […]

Milestone, the parent company for Chief, Da-Lite and Projecta, had a visual representation of their company’s history in AV and it dates all the way back to 1909. Chief Sr. Marketing & Product Manager EMEA Commercial Robert de Jong, talks with me about their history and future in this one-on-one video interview from ISE 2015.

Medialon’s founder, Alex Carru, is more excited about their new Overture network-based control system than anything they’ve ever done. There’s no question that Overture will have an impact on the control world as Medialon is now where the rest of the control system market wants to be. Here’s a one-on-one interview with Medialon’s Alex Carru.

One of the busiest stands at ISE 2014 was NEC — it had one of the top lead totals for the show. I caught up with NEC Display Solutions VP Simon Jackson, who told me how the company’s three focuses at ISE 2015 are LED, LCD and projection — specifically laser phosphor projectors. Check out […]

I stopped by the Sennheiser booth today and spoke to Andy Niemann, director of business communication. His enthusiasm for Mobile Connect — the company’s new app makes live audio streaming, audio description and assistive listening possible everywhere: cinema, theater, signage, etc. via an app on your phone. Different audio content can be provided on four […]

A year ago, Vaddio was pushing the simplicity of their USB-based products and technology. Here at ISE, it’s all about Cat5. Here’s an interview I did today at ISE 2015 with Vaddio’s National Sales Manager Tim Henry who explained what Vaddio is focused on now.

One of the coolest products I’ve seen so far is from Williams Sound — it’s called the Hearing Hotspot. You know when you go to a fitness center and they have those RF receivers so that, while you are exercising, you can listen to the TVs hanging around the gym? Well, imagine if those terrible […]

Today, I had the chance to corner Sony’s Business Head Damien Weissenburger during the busiest trade show day of the year. Sony’s clearly most proud of its laser phosphor projectors and he even claimed close to a 60 percent market share — he’s probably right. As with most display manufacturers on the show floor, 4K […]

We actually shot video of the entire Microsoft press conference conference today so you can see the way they’re promoting the Surface Hub 84” multi-touch tablet/flat panel display to the ProAV market. It’s an interesting pitch as it’s big-data focused rather than application focused. I suspect that the Microsoft folks didn’t necessarily consider they audience […]

Ever since we broke the story that Microsoft would launch the 84” Surface Hub in their booth at ISE, everyone in the AV market’s been talking about what Microsoft would do with it and what features it would have. Well, now you’ll know as Gary did a one-on-one interview with their Director of Product Marketing […]

SMART kapp was a hit at InfoComm 2014 — not just because it was new, but because it invented a totally new product category for the industry. It has been 20-something years since SMART invented the entire category of what is now known SmartBoards — more broadly known as interactive whiteboards. Well, in 2014, SMART […]

Kramer wants to be known as more than a glue company in the AV market. Started as a video and audio accessory company, the company has now ventured into control, BYOD wireless collaboration and HDBaseT signal distribution. I took the opportunity to speak with Ari Gorlin this morning at ISE about where Kramer is positioned […]

As the show was just opening here on day one at ISE in Amsterdam, I was given a sneak peek at the new AMX gear launched here at ISE and it includes a new Enova, an expanded ENZO product line and a brand-new mic mixer aimed at meeting room installs. AMX’s VP of Product Management […]