Yesterday, Harman Professional gave notice to approximately 650 people that they were restructuring and they will be laid off over the next year. The positions are in the U.S. and Europe and a Harman spokesperson told rAVe today that the result of the restructuring will include facility closures over the next nine months to a year, including Elkhart, […]

Samsung Electronics America Inc. has incorporated Control4 Simple Device Discovery Protocol (SDDP) software into its technology to simplify integration with Control4 automation systems. The integration, coupled with Control4 Certified driver support for the entire 2017 4K UHD TV lineup and the new UBD-M9700 4K UHD Blu-ray Player, debuting at the CEDIA 2017 show in San Diego, is integral […]

Samsung Electronics America, Inc. today announced 5-Star Solutions. “We want to ensure that custom installers have priority access to the product, information and support they require. That’s why we’re launching the Samsung 5-Star Solutions at CEDIA.” says David Carter, Vice President of Sales for Samsung Electronics America. The Samsung 5-Star Solutions provides the custom installer with a […]

Theater technologies have progressed greatly over the last 120 years, but their fundamental design – pairing a projector and a screen – has remained the same. That is, until now. On July 13 in Seoul, Samsung unveiled the next evolution in theater technologies: the Cinema LED Screen, the world’s first LED theater display. The groundbreaking […]

Earlier this week, a class action putative lawsuit was filed by major HARMAN shareholders in an attempt to block the sale to Samsung. The suit was filed in Delaware Chancery Court against the company’s directors and claims that the directors sold HARMAN for too little money when they agreed on the $8 Billion price tag. […]

The New York Times is reporting that Samsung’s current Vice President (and heir-apparent) Lee Jae-yong is going to be arrested on bribery charges this week. Lee is the son of Samsung’s current president, Lee Kun-hee – who had a heart attack a few years ago. Samsung is currently the market leader is flat-screen display sales […]

All the biggest stories of 2016 in the AV integration space had to do with acquisition.  The latest round of which relayed that Samsung bought Harman Group, AVI-SPL bought Anderson AV, and Compass Group bought Waveguide. Well the AV prognosticators are already out in force predicting the future and they see more of this consolidation […]

So, it’s been almost a week and, since then, I’ve reached out to a number of former Harman execs, insiders at Harman and industry gurus that know much more than me about mergers and acquisitions — all in pursuit of finding out what Samsung is going to do with the various Harman brands. Here’s what […]

The biggest news of the year as far as AV acquisitions go is definitely the purchase of Harman by Samsung.  In the commercial AV space, there aren’t many deals that start with a “B” as in billion, let alone $8 billion. Harman does over $7 billion in annual revenue and is also sitting on a […]

Monday morning we woke up to some major news in the AV industry. Samsung had purchased Harman. When I say we, I mean us AV PEOPLE. To the rest of the world, Samsung (a South Korean chaebol) purchased a “U.S. automotive technology manufacturer,” as reported by the Wall Street Journal. Many of us in the AV […]

First off, for the sake of the 8,000 or so employees of Harman, I HOPE this is a good deal. The history of mergers and buyouts in AV isn’t good. Sure, there have been some that have done well (aka Milestone), but most big one’s have failed miserably (aka: InFocus buying Proxima and the first […]

Click here to see Gary Kayye’s thoughts about this acquisition. Samsung Electronics and Harman International today announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Samsung will acquire HARMAN for $112.00 per share in cash, or total equity value of approximately $8.0 billion.  Upon closing, the transaction will immediately give Samsung a significant […]

A recent Deloitte Consumer Review survey in the UK found that there was nearly zero growth between 2014 and 2015 in consumer purchasing of connected home products. The finding cited that, “UK consumers are aware of the potential benefits of the Internet of Things (IoT) but perceived high prices and skepticism about the technology are […]

Eclipse Digital Media provides cloud based Digital Menu Board solution to premium burger chain, Prime Burger resulting in an increase in like-for-like sales of 50 percent. The solution provided includes a variety of Samsung Smart Signage Platform displays together with the cloud based digital signage software, embed signage. Prime Burger, which has outlets in St. […]

As I traveled around South Korea in March, digital signage was everywhere, much like it is in any large city. I saw a couple examples of it in places that I have not experienced them in the United States. In one restaurant we were in, each table that was on a wall had a digital […]

Premier Mounts has released new weather-resistant mounting solutions for Samsung 46” and 55” OH-D displays. The P-Series display mounts are now available with the industry’s-first dedicated adapters for the Samsung OH-D series of displays. Premier says that this new display mount allows for safe outdoor installation while protecting the display and its external power supply […]

Understanding and Specifying Outdoor LFD with Samsung Presented by Jonathan Brawn, Principal Brawn Consulting To view or download the presentation click here.  Understanding and Specifying Outdoor LFD with Samsung from rAVe [Publications]

In March, I had the unique opportunity to visit Samsung Worldwide headquarters in Seoul, South Korea. An interesting note is that the headquarters are in the Gangnam neighborhood of Seoul. So, along with being able to visit the headquarters, I also was able to do the horse dance in Gangnam. For those tech geeks out […]

In Part 1 I explained that I’ve previously written blogs capturing Twitter and Facebook moments at InfoComm 2015, InfoComm Connections in NYC and other trade shows. This time I decided to do a “4000 mile” social media view of Integrated Systems Europe (ISE) in Amsterdam – the AV industry’s largest trade show event which takes place […]

Cloud Video Service Provider Takes Videoconferencing to the Next Level in China Videxio, a leading cloud video service provider, has reaffirmed its commitment to operations in China with the launch of an expanded Chinese service platform, simplified Chinese user interface and cooperation with Huawei to support a fully automated service for Huawei video systems. These enhancements make […]

embed signage just announce the launch of support for the Samsung Smart Signage Platform. The new features include: Landscape, portrait, reverse portrait, reverse landscape video playback Playback two videos simultaneously in landscape Source input switching Touch device including gesture improvements Remote Firmware updating for all firmware versions (main, sub, sub2, mystique) Status reporting including device […]

It’s no secret that there’s a generation of kids that aren’t watching TV on the giant enchanted box that fills the living room of most homes around the world. In fact, most of the Millenials and all of Generation X (nearly everyone below the age of 30, basically) have an obsession with watching TV programs […]

As much as we all hate to admit it, consumer TVs are installed all the time into meeting rooms and even digital signage applications. And, you can’t blame people for doing it as sometimes it’s cheaper to buy five consumer TVs (buy a new one every time it dies) than one commercial AV display with […]

Hypersign today announced the availability of a new digital signage solution for K-12 in collaboration with Google and Samsung Electronics America. The bundled offering enables students and staff to receive a wide range of content on digital signage and desktop PCs such as standard school broadcasts to timely alerts for emergency preparedness. With the combination […]

Samsung’s new WAM7500/6500 use something it’s calling a proprietary ‘Ring Radiator’ technology that allows sound to flow in a 360-degree radius. The company claims it has the perfect balance between treble and bass. WAM7500/6500 was in part developed at Samsung’s new audio lab in Valencia, California and is available in two models: stand-type (WAM7500) and […]

Oculus (the Facebook-owned virtual reality company) has teamed up with Samsung to create the Gear VR Innovator Edition, a development kit for mobile virtual reality. Leveraging only the Samsung GALAXY Note 4 (Samsung will have to do additional engineering work to make the new Innovator Edition work with other phones), the Gear VR Innovator Edition […]

Well, another round of trade shows is upon us and once again the marketing spinnerets are at work spinning nonsense into innovation and trying to capture the consumer in the web. We’ve seen it all year with the misuse of the term 4k and with the unnecessary curving of our LCD and OLED screens, and now […]

By Todd Fender DisplaySearch On Tuesday, Samsung announced the launch and availability of Samsung SMART Signage TV (SSTV).  Targeted at small to medium businesses (SMBs) with one to nine employees, this turnkey, entry-level, digital signage solution combines the functionality of a traditional TV (with tuner) and built-in content management software including 200 customizable templates. The […]

After my last piece on 4K and UHD and the infrastructure challenges we face in order to implement it in its best form, I honestly thought I’d be done with the topic for a while. After all, the most recent piece I wrote on 4K before that was in May 2013, almost a year prior. […]

By Ken Park DisplaySearch The recent announcement by Samsung SDI that it will end plasma display panel (PDP) manufacturing this year also speculated that LG Electronics will shut its PDP business due to low demand, which would leave COC (Changhong) as the sole remaining plasma TV manufacturer. Earlier this year, NPD DisplaySearch predicted the demise […]

Twice in the last month, we have heard “I just used my cell phone to make noise measurements so you do not need to make measurements.” Mobile phone sound meter applications have added a new twist to our consulting services. As for using our smart phones as sound level meters… The standard phone, as delivered […]

Most manufacturers and consumers think a UHD TV should have 3860×2160 color pixels, which typically is understood to mean red, green and blue (RGB) subpixels make up one color pixel. That understanding is now being challenged as subpixel structures using red, green, blue and white (RGBW) and red, green, blue and yellow (RGBY) are increasingly […]