DPAA announced today that Daktronics has joined its membership ranks. Daktronics, based in Brookings, South Dakota, helps its customers impact their audiences throughout the world with large-format LED video displays, message displays, scoreboards, digital advertising displays, audio systems and control systems in sport, business and transportation applications. The company’s screens include high profile installations in locations such as Piccadilly Circus in London, […]

Savannah, GA-June 2019… When completed at the end of 1919, Armstrong House was one of the finest examples of the Italian Renaissance style in America. Designed by Beaux Arts architect Henrik Wallin for shipping magnate George Armstrong, the mansion boasts a magnificent main hall, a grand cantilevered staircase with solid marble steps, Romanesque plasterwork detail, cast […]

5/30/2019 Rancho Santa Margarita, CA Every year, Phenomenal Industries introduces at least one new GAMECHANGING product before InfoComm, AV’s premier commercial trade show.  Last year, there was an explosion of activity around ShareChair, the revolutionary huddle room collaboration product that blurred the lines between technology and furniture to change the way we share information. It […]

May 30, 2019 – Atlanta, GA – DigitalGlue has announced a significant price reduction for the //BREATHLESS series of its creative.space storage appliances, the world’s first, and only, On-Premise Managed Storage™(OPMS) system. creative.space, a convergence of both hardware and software, gives production and post-production houses the option to avoid purchasing another piece of iron and […]

VISTA, Calif. (May 21, 2019)—Today Denon®, the world’s leading manufacturer of premium home entertainment and personal audio products since 1910, announced two new X-Series AV receivers. The Denon AVR-X2600H (95W per channel) and AVR-X1600H (80W per channel) deliver lifelike, visceral 7.2 surround sound experience far beyond the capability of TV audio or even traditional sound […]

By André Atique “We think artificial intelligence (AI) will have the greatest impact when everyone has access to it.” This statement is taken from the Google page on AI, but what does it mean? Artificial intelligence is the science responsible for getting machines to act rationally, as people. Google briefly presents on its AI page […]

One of my stock catchphrases when I re-share something on social media that I find odd or surprising is “Well, it turns out that haven’t actually seen everything yet.” That’s how I felt, and in fact keep feeling, when I see frequent mention in my newsfeed of this artist or that either releasing new material […]

When I first joined the ranks of Milestone one of my coworkers told me that “Every integrator wants to work for a manufacturer when they grow up.” It was funny, and at the time I identified with that statement on some level.  Working for a manufacturer offered a few advantages for sure.  From a sales perspective, […]

I had the pleasure of visiting my friends at Mad Systems last week.  It is a company I know quite a bit about, (in large part because I worked there for 4 years), and I was invited to come and take a look at what they’ve been up to lately. They have a history of designing […]

Imagine my surprise when I received an email out the blue telling me that Ultraviolet, the movie library service will be ending its operations at the end of July 2019. Honestly, I’d mostly forgotten about Ultraviolet. So, curious after reading the email, I went to the website to learn more. Of course, first I had […]

WolfVision announces an important extension to its system portfolio with the new vSolution Cynap Pure wireless presentation system. The product will be featured at ISE 2019 on WolfVision’s stand in Hall 1: M20. Cynap Pure transforms meeting rooms, huddle spaces, and classrooms of all sizes into high performance wireless presentation environments, using WolfVision’s BYOD wireless […]

Last month I asked if the AV Industry was getting soft.  I hope that it is… because it should be. In a time when technology is advancing at an alarming rate and becoming more and more advanced, it may seem counterintuitive to tell companies that they should hire less technically minded people, but that is […]

The connected era we live in is pretty amazing. A huge proportion of my job can be done by phone, text, and email. But there’s still replacement for meeting customers in-person. Even video conferencing isn’t quite the same. If you’re a sales rep there are a lot of good reasons to travel your territory and […]

One of the items that popped up in my feed this week was the news that Google no longer requires job candidates to possess a four-year degree. Further discussion among friends and acquaintances in the tech sector pointed out that this isn’t an earth shaking development. It’s been the case for decades that tech companies, […]

Some people fear change. Some people embrace change. And I suspect that for many of us it’s a mix of both, depending on the circumstances. Despite somehow having earned a reputation as some sort of “tech guy” I can be kind of stodgy. I’m definitely not an Early Adopter. I like to see how things […]

Articles and blog posts about selling talk a lot about cold calls, but seldom deal with warm calls. While I think cold calling has an undeservedly bad reputation, and can actually be fun once you find your mojo on it, I’m willing to concede that warm calls are most salespeople’s favorite. Unlike cold calls, where […]

We all have things that we hold dear. And often, the things that we believe are so internalized that we take them for granted, assuming that everyone else knows what we do. Take baking bread, for example. When leading training I often use that as an example of a basic skill. The thing about baking […]

If you haven’t already been following the conversation about selling AV software and services, I encourage you to catch up on my last couple blogs where I lay out the three main issues that I believe are stalling the transition from hardware-based businesses, as well as some specifics on business models that may play a […]

We live in society where newer equals better. Every month, if not every week, tech companies race to create and release newer, faster, sleeker, sexier gadgets. And while some of them really are worth their weight in gold, most are flash-in-the-pan trends. So, as AV experts looking to guide our customers to not just a […]

LAS VEGAS and RANCHO SANTA MARGARITA, CALIF., APRIL 23, 2018— Huddle Rooms and Collaboration are some of the hottest buzzwords in AV, and AVPhenom will be introducing a new Collaboration Product at Infocomm 2018. Over the last few years, huddle room and collaboration products like wireless screen sharing technologies have been some of the hottest new […]

Dripping Springs, TX – April 2018… With a focus on helping people expand their spiritual levels through worship, study, mission, and social action, Dripping Springs United Methodist Church (UMC) helps ordinary people live extraordinary lives through Jesus Christ. To make their services more relevant to all who attend, the church recently upgraded their sound reinforcement […]

By John Purvey Belden To support higher video resolution and refresh rates and real-time, interactive technology such as virtual reality, the HDMI Forum continues to update HDMI specifications. First announced in late 2017, the newest HDMI standard for video cables and connections – HDMI 2.1 – is faster than its predecessors, and ready to support […]

In AV, we are sometimes very product-focused. Manufacturers build best in class products and then engage a dealer channel to make sure those products have a solid strategy to get into the marketplace. Integrators get trained on how the product works, many times engaging with the manufacturers to become certified in the installation and/or programming […]

Yamaha today announced the DXS12mkII and DXS15mkII portable powered subwoofers that combine a super-efficient Class-D amplifier putting out 1,020 watts of peak power (as compared with 950 watts in the originals) with a unique bandpass cabinet design. This configuration helps the subwoofers achieve remarkable sound pressure levels (SPL) from compact enclosures; the DXS12mkII and DXS15mkII are capable of a maximum SPL of […]

ANAHEIM (January 25, 2018) — Yamaha today announced the DXS12mkII and DXS15mkII portable powered subwoofers, which provide clean, punchy, loud low-end to musical groups and venues requiring the highest quality bass output. Following on the success of the Yamaha DXS 18 subwoofer, the DXS12mkII and DXS15mkII are more formidable than their predecessors. These models combine […]

Today, Sony announces version 1.1 of its interactive collaboration and active learning solution Vision Exchange. The upgrade adds Skype for Business (but, weirdly, no Zoom support) and something they are calling Personal Note Taker. The updates to Vision Exchange aim to eliminate any logistical remote learning issues and applies to the two main unit series PEQ-C100, PEQ-C130 and Pod PC Software […]

I’ve got no real point to this anecdote this week. I just wanted to reminisce and allow readers to bask in some corporate schadenfreude. I dislike legacy systems. In fact I may have already mentioned my feelings about them upon occasion. At one job I had the company’s sales processes were burdened by not one […]

Extron just introduced the SME 211, an H.264 streaming media encoder for distributing audio and video signals over IP networks. The SME 211 accepts an HDMI signal with embedded audio and an analog audio signal. Extron high performance scaling and flexible signal processing facilitate superior image quality for content from computers, cameras, and other HD sources. The SME 211 supports […]

At Integrated Systems Europe (ISE) in Amsterdam, IHSE will be introducing a solution to extend and switch immersive reality signals over long distances using Draco KVM systems. The new solution addresses growing interest in virtual and augmented reality (VR/AR) systems in a wide variety of pro AV market sectors; in corporate and education applications such as product design and prototyping; in situational training […]

Adamson Systems Engineering will be at Integrated Systems Europe (ISE) 2018 with a pair of new point source additions to its heralded IS-Series of install-focused loudspeaker products in Booth U270, Hall 15 and will be previewing the new models in a series of intimate and informative IS-Series demonstrations at the nearby De Balie theatre. On display at the show are the latest additions […]

I woke up Sunday morning to some interesting Twitter conversation started by fellow AV professional Chris Neto about the subject of AV education. The question revolved around whether or not certifications or formal college education is more important in qualifying someone to be successful in the field of AV. To break down the responses in […]

This weekend the New York Times published an in-depth investigative piece, The Follower Factory. It details the use and abuse of fake accounts on Twitter. It was such a captivating read that I shelved the blog post that I was working on for this weekend and felt compelled to chime in on the subject. Anyone […]