rAVe [Publications] Rant's and rAVes: Recent Episodes
rAVe [Publications]
Gary Kayye, founder of rAVe Publications, is one of the most prominent personalities in the audiovisual industry. Listen in to this podcast as Gary interviews numerous AV professionals in the industry and provides insight into current events in AV.
As you may know, rAVe [PUBS] is now part of THE rAVe Agency — a full-service creative agency that serves the AV and UCC markets exclusively. We just launched a new service called [STORYTELLING] that helps you tell your brand, product or service story using words, video or voice. No, it’s not PR — there are plenty of awesome PR firms out there; this is [STORYTELLING]. Listen to the leader of [STORYTELLING], Morgan Lawrence, share how your company can benefit from it.
The recent news of video interoperability between Cisco, Zoom and Microsoft has generated a lot of industry buzz. If you’re interested, listen to rAVe Founder, Gary Kayye’s take on where he thinks all of this is headed and why we need to pay attention to the upcoming ISE show in Amsterdam in February 2020.
I have to be perfectly honest with you. Before deciding to do a podcast with ViewSonic’s Ryan Strayer, I had no clue that ViewSonic even made projectors or had a line of interactive flat-panel displays (aka Collaboration Boards). Maybe I am too occupied at shows like InfoComm, ISE and DSE to do and see everything, but today I did some research and then called Ryan. And, what I learned is that ViewSonic is one of only two display manufacturers that makes everything — monitors, projectors, interactive flat panels, wireless collaboration devices and collaboration boards. Did you know? Listen up!
A start-up from a bunch of audio engineers debuted at InfoComm earlier this year under the moniker, Stem Audio Touting an ecosystem approach to solving audio quality, connectivity and usability in UCC spaces, Stem launched a family of 5 products, a wall-mount, table-top and ceiling-mount mic/speaker that connects via USB or “the network” a touch-screen controller and a Hub. It’s secret-sauce, if you will, is its RoomDesign management software platform that lets you design, build, quote, guides you through set-up and even certifies room sound quality. And, it became available yesterday, via any web browser, for you to use to build, spec and order a Stem Audio system.
With that news in mind, Gary reconnected with Stem’s CEO, Jacob Marash, to explain their launch plan. Listen and give it a try yourself: https://www.stemaudio.com/roomdesign/
Gary was joined on today’s podcast by Rob Moyer, Senior Vice President of Cloud Services, Mobility and IoT for SYNNEX Corporation, to hear about cloud-based collaboration and how integrators can lean on the distributor in this evolving market. During the podcast, Rob discussed business transformation and how the way people work and interact has changed dramatically. Listen in and also visit synnexcorp.com/stellr to learn about the tools and support SYNNEX can offer to help integrators address this critical market segment in verticals including corporate and education.
AVaaS isn’t new; in fact, we’ve been writing and talking about it here at rAVe since 2016 — it’s just new in AV. What?
Ok, well, aaS (as a service) is the ecosystem of the entire software world — nearly nothing is purchased anymore, its’ “rented” but, it’s rented with the understanding that that it (the rental fee) includes upgrades, improvements (bug-fixes) and compatibility/scalability. But, in AV, we don’t do this. Systems are installed/integrated and then, we walk away. Well, sort-of. The good AV integrators walk away but sell RMM (remote monitoring and management) or, at the very least, service contacts to keep it “up-and-operating.”
But, the promise of AVaaS — something that’s just around the corner – is that in addition to managing the system, remotely, and, as such, setting up data analytics to predict likely system problems, we also offer the client the ability to upgrade it, indefinitely – as long as they pay the monthly “aaS-fee.”
Don’t understand this? Or, want to learn more, here’s one opportunity. Gary was joined with Legrand AV’s Scott Lowder and Mark Tracy to talk about RMM, AVaaS and what the opportunities are for both the integrator and the client. And, if you still want more AVaaS, register for Gary Kayye’s FREE Webinar on Monday, November 4th at 2PM EST here — it includes 1 AVIXA CTS RU too.
Gary was joined by Sharp USA‘s Distribution Sales Manager, Dave Lacoff the VP of New Business, Cliff Quiroga and Mehryn Corrigan its Director of Strategic Partner Alliances for a 4-way videocast that covered two of the hottest new technologies in the ProAv market. Sharp was the first collaboration board company to announce their version of the all-new Windows Collaboration Display (WCD) earlier this year and the 70” version ships in November! It’s Skype certified and integrates a camera, mic and speakers. And, this will be at the Almo ProAV E4 Experience next week in Atlanta, too!
8K is certainly the future native resolution for everything but, for now, Sharp is leading the professional segment of 8K with cameras and displays — all native 7,680 by 4,320 resolution. And, you’ll get to see a handheld 8K camera on this podcast. Watch!
Although you may know TierPM as that recruiting and AV staffing company, they have something they call the Unified Communications Dashboard that you need to know about. AV integrators can white label it and support thousands of rooms simultaneously or it can be deployed and managed through the cloud by the client themselves.
TierPM’s Program Manager, Sarah Vanroyce delivered a perfect demo of the system to Gary on today’s videocast. Watch!
Gary was joined by Almo ProAV‘s Brian Rhatigan to talk about the busiest week of the year for Almo – starting in just 12 days. In addition to attending and debuting their new Zoom Room Bundle Solutions at Zoomtopia, Almo will be stopping in Atlanta for the E4 Experience. The E4 Experience will bring Atlanta-based integrators and design consultants the opportunity to take advantage of 11 AVIXA CTS-accredited courses featuring AVIXA’s own Chuck Espinoza, Legrand‘s Joe Cornwall and Gary’s AV-over-IP keynote; along with a 50-booth show floor featuring over 115 new products launched in 2019! So, register here and check out Almo here.
One of the top digital signage content companies in the world is Mvix Digital Signage. So, I asked Mvix’s Senior Director of Business Development, Mike Kilian, to explain how AV integrators can get into this lucrative and profitable segment of the signage market: selling content creation and managed services. He explains it beautifully!
Watch this videocast version of Rants and rAVes as Gary talks with Integrated Systems Events Managing Director, Mike Blackman. They discus all things related to the Integrated Systems Europe show held at the RAI Amsterdam February 11-14 2020. Hear about the decision to leave Amsterdam and host ISE’s future shows at the Gran Via, in Barcelona, Spain 2-5 February 2021. You don’t want to miss this podcast!
Gary was joined on today’s podcast by long-time channel executive and friend TJ Trojan to hear about his new responsibilities as Senior Vice President for SYNNEX since returning from his assignment as CEO of SYNNEX Japan. On this special interview podcast edition, TJ discussed SYNNEX’s UCC strategy and how they are helping partners transition from traditional UC to today’s new collaborative market. SYNNEX is well-positioned to support this evolution due to its deep relationships with vendors across UC, IT, AV and even CE. Listen to understand how you can engage with SYNNEX in this important market segment.
Absen recently added their first, ever, distributor in Almo ProAV. Their strategy is in the hands of one Adam Coleman and you get to hear his pitch of why you should put in an LED instead of a projector in classrooms and meeting rooms. It’s compelling and it gives reason to consider Absen’s iCon Series of all-in-one LED walls — especially in the 1.2mm pixel range — instead of a projector in long-term applications.
And, Adam will be at the Almo E4 Experience in two weeks with the Absen product line — you can register to see it here: e4experience.com
You may have been to some of the road-show events in the NY or NJ area over the past few years, but that doesn’t mean you have any clue what an E4 Experience is like. The E4 Experience is NOT a road show, not an AV tour stop and certainly not just a “showcase” of AV gear. It’s 12+ AVIXA CTS RU credits (including I and D, too!), it’s 50+ manufacturers showing ONLY new products, it’s the ONLY place to see my 2019 AV-over-IP keynote and it’s, thanks to Sharp, the only way to get a selfie AND an autograph with NFL Hall-of-Famer, Lawrence Taylor.
It’s truly an EXPERIENCE. Gary was joined on today’s video-version of his podcast with Almo VP of Marketing Melody Craigmyle to talk all-things-E4 — which is in Teaneck, NJ, on September 25th! Watch below and then be sure to register online here.
Oh, the E4 Experience heads to Atlanta in October!
Gary was joined on today’s podcast by SYNNEX Senior Vice President, Financial Operations, Alan Buttery, to talk about the plethora of SYNNEX Financial Services that are designed to support AV Integrators, specifically around collaborative meeting spaces. Typically, we think of distributors as suppliers of AV gear but, more and more they’re becoming service providers, too. It’s worth listening to this podcast to understand how SYNNEX VISUALSolv and Financial Services differentiate their offering with leading hardware, software, design and installation, and alternate procurement models.
Barco is using CEDIA Expo 2019 to officially launch its Bragi Cinemascope native 4K LED-based cinema projector. This is a stunning box that got to see at the ISE Show. Gary was joined on today’s special video-edition of his pre-CEDIA podcast with Barco Residential GM, Tim Sinnaeve, to talk about the Bragi, the theater they’ll have in their booth (#3030 at CEDIA Expo) and why they’ve added their famed UniSee products to the high-end home mix of products that also includes architectural-focused products, too. Listen and plan to put booth #3030 on your list of CEDIA stops!
Digital Projection has always blown CEDIA attendees away with image quality — this year’s show will not disappoint. In addition to a 0.9mm LED wall with a protective clear-laminate, reflective coating greeting attendees, inside the booth they’ll have a “projector gallery” showing their three most popular projector configurations for high-end imaging. But, the show-stealer will be their new satellite modular laser projection system. Why? And, what is it? Well, listen to today’s podcast with Digital Projection’s VP of Sales, Chuck Collins, to learn all about it. Trust me, you don’t want to miss this — hint: it includes laser, fiber, 60K lumens and the DLP digital cinema chip! Digital projection will be at CEDIA in booth 2543 — make sure you go by!
TeamBoard President Jitu Patel picked rAVe RADIO for the one-and-only sneak-peek of the all-new TeamBoard line of Collaboration Boards — to be available in 55″, 65″, 75″ and 86″ sizes. And, their differentiation is unique as they will be the ONLY Interactive Flat Panel with a fully-functional Android OS embedded inside the 20-point IR touch-based system. All those other Collaboration Boards on the market, using Android, are purpose-built — so, you can’t upgrade the OS or the Apps via the Google Play Store. With TeamBoard, you can.
This marks a major difference from nearly every other Collaboration Board as it’s not Windows-based, doesn’t require a separate computer, isn’t using a custom-configured OS and is open-source Android-based. Listen to Jitu describe their strategy and why they picked Integrate for the global rollout of their new product line on this podcast now! And, TeamBoard is looking for dealers and distributors globally, sign up here: https://teamboard.com
Technology Core‘s National Sales Manager, Andy Penman, joined Gary on his podcast today to talk all-things-Integrate; Australia, that is. Technology Core will have their biggest show stand, ever, in two weeks at the opening of Integrate 2019 in Melbourne, Australia, and they’ll outfit stand D34 with a focus on collaboration and ProAV systems integration with their entire product line. Listen to Andy’s Integrator-pledge on this podcast and all the products they’ll have on display — and make sure you make D34 a planned stop on your Integrate booth tour! In the meantime, they are here: https://technologycore.com.au
You guessed it! Integrate will see the official worldwide trade show debut of the Extron NAV AV-over-IP family of products. NAV is unique as it’s an AV-over-IP ecosystem where their 1G and 10G transmitters and receivers work together in one system approach. Extron’s Australian National Sales Manager, Ben Fabien, joined Gary on today’s first pre-Integrate podcast to talk about their plans at the show with not only include the NAV rollout but also new UCC products, new amplifiers and partnership demos, too.
Finally, we’ll be in Extron’s booth at Integrate with our LIVE rAVe [TV] coverage and that will include live booth tours, daily news briefs from the show floor and interviews with show influencers, too! So, be sure to follow our coverage of Integrate at http://www.ravepubs.com/integrate2019.
And, Extron is at http://www.extron.com
Longtime HomeAV distributor and manufacturer, SnapAV, is now aiming its sights on the Commercial AV market. And, their plan includes using their OvrC support platform to do it. What’s OvrC and how does it work? Well, watch this video cast with SnapAV’s Scott Normand, Director of Commercial, who demo’s OvrC live on rAVe RADIO and talks about SnapAV’s commercial AV plans.
Monitors Anywhere basically makes the ClickShare of monitor walls. Using USB to HDMI adapters or thin-client Android computers, you can build network-based digital signage systems or fill video walls with content – in any configuration. So, no digital or analog signal processing – all network-based. If you don’t know Monitors Anywhere, this is the podcast for you. Monitors Anywhere Product Manager, Roy Tal, explains where they came from and what they do!
In this episode of Rants and rAVes, Gary is joined by Visix founder Sean Matthews. They discuss (and shows) viewers all six new products Visix launched at this years InfoComm, including explaining VUI voice activated wayfinding, and a four output video player. Watch as Sean shows everything that Visix brought to InfoComm 2019.
You can watch all the videos here. To find out more information about Visix click here.
Will you succeed in putting video onto your existing data network? Laurent Masia, of Netgear, thinks not! See the full blog post here. Make sure you listen to this episode of Rants and rAVes to hear from Justin Kennington and Gary Kayye as they talk about why #AVoverIP should be on a separate network.
For years, industry pundits have predicted the immediate demise of the projector, due to flat panels. Now, there’s a cry that the flat panels will disappear, any day now, due to LEDs. Do you believe the hype? Well, here’s what Absen’s Director of Sales, Mitch Rosenburg, thinks — and this matters as, not only is Absen the world’s largest exporter of LEDs but, they have a vested interest in the flat panels’ and projector’s imminent demise. So, when Mitch said it’s a lot further away than everyone thinks, I believe him. But, this podcast is worth listening to as he does present a roadmap of sorts and the blueprint of how and why it’s going to happen. Listen to today’s podcast and let me know what you think!
Normally, Nureva is tight-lipped with future product development plans but, on today’s Post-InfoComm 2019 podcast with Nureva’s VP of Products, Rob Abbott , he clearly outlines what new products we will see launched at ISE 2020 in Amsterdam. And, it’s a logical transition into a new market category fro them. So, listen to see why it’s likely that, if you are in the UCC market, you’ll want to either sell Nureva. If you’re an integrator or make plans to integrate Nureva if you’re building out new conference rooms for your facility!
In addition to this new product surprise on today’s podcast, Rob discusses the recent API announcements to both its Span and their HDL300 systems that will see them more of an open platform design. And, we actually showed some of that, already, buy shooting a few videos of Nureva products integrated with other products and companies on the show floor- you cans all the videos we shot of Nureva product in their booth and in other booths at InfoComm and at UBTech here: https://www.ravepubs.com/?s=nureva&cat=23919&post_type%5B%5D=rave-video
Peerless-AV’s Nick Belcore joined Gary for a post-InfoComm Podcast and, we here around rAVe, this it’s the best podcast Gary’s every recorded. Seriously. Listen. Nick wraps up their presence at the show and explains the logic of their booth. And, as you may know, rAVe partnered with Peerless-AV and actually integrated the rAVe RADIO podcast network into the Peerless booth and we recorded over 90-podcasts live inside their booth. And, Nick said they not only doubled their leads from 2018 but that the response to their SEAMLESS LED Solutions line was astounding. And, of course, Peerless-AV is here: https://www.peerless-av.com
NEC Display’s Keith Yanke joined Gary on today’s post-InfoComm podcast to talk InfoComm 2019 impressions. NEC had a record number of visitors to their booth and they had a very unique way of tracking this — in fact, no other booth was able to track the attendees the way NEC did — so, this is worth listening to. If you didn’t get to go, start by listening to this podcast and then go over and watch the Tour that Gary took inside the NEC Display booth at InfoComm with Keith and, finally check out all the videos we shot inside the NEC booth here!
Gary was joined with Shure’s Chris Lyons to talk about all they did at InfoComm 2019. Shure, the dominant mic company in the ProAV market for over 50-years, focussed their InfoComm presence on both the UCC market as well as the traditional ProAV presentation market. With Shure’s new “Make Connections Feel Effortless” initiative, Shure has aimed at simplification nd one example of that is their new IntelliMixDSP to MXA910 Ceiling Array Microphone – you can watch he video we shot on that here This is aimed as a universal mic-array solution for all meeting and conference room applications. Listen so to this podcast with Chris as he does hint at the future direction for Shure’s product development. And then, you can go watch all the videos we shot at Shure’s booth here or check them out online here: http://www.shure.com
InfoComm 2019 was apparently Kramer‘s best InfoComm in many years — in addition to launching a plethora of new products. On today’s post-InfoComm 2019 podcast, Kramers VP of Marketing, David Margolin, talks with Gary about his show impressions, Kramer’s new cloud and software offerings, wireless and AV-over-IP strategy as well as their new partnerships – including one that saw Kramer integrate their BrainWare control platform inside the new Sony Bravia Series of monitors. We actually shot 10 videos in the Kramer booth at InfoComm 2019 and all of them are here.
If you didn’t to go by Leyard‘s booth at InfoComm 2019, you missed the industry’s only commercially available 0.7mm LED – that’s a pixel pitch that’s good enough to go in nearly any meeting room or classroom in the world. In fact, 0.7mm is arguably right at the perceived pixel pitch of a direct-view LCD — if there was one.
But, you missed something else, too – the launch of their all-new LookThru Transparent OLED display!
In today’s podcast. Both are covered by Leyard’s Vice President of Product Marketing, Steve Seminario, and you can listen here.
But, after you listen, I’d recommend that you watch this booth tour video I took of the Leyard and Planar booth so you can see all that they launched at InfoComm 2019:
On today’s post-InfoComm 2019 podcast, BlackMagic Designs demos their new ATEM Constellation 8K – a 10 input and 6 output 8K SDI-based production switcher. That means you get 4 M/Es, 40 x 12G‑SDI inputs, 24 x 12G‑SDI aux outputs, 4 DVEs, 16 Keyers, 4 media players, 4 multi viewers, 2 SuperSource and standards conversion on every SDI input! So, if you’re not using 8K yet, you can use the Constellation 8K to drive 40 4K inputs to 24 4K outputs, too! On today’s videocast, BlackMagic’s Director of Sales Operations, North America, Bob Caniglia who demos the capabilities of the Constellation 8K in real-time.
And, we actually shot a video of this product in action at InfoComm 2019, too. You can watch that new product launch here:
Recorded before InfoComm 2019, Black Box‘s Keith Pelkey and Jonathan McCune deliver a real-time demo of its new 10G-based AV-over-IP MCX system. The MCX is an SDVoE-based AV-over-IP product lien that include transmitters, receivers and a controller. In addition to this real-item video demo here, we actually shot a video of the MCX at InfoComm 2019 as well and you can see that here:
Only a few manufacturers on the InfoComm 2019 show floor actually had native 4K projectors; Casio was one of them — and, their 4K center-mounted-lens, 5K lumen 4K projector is less than $8000. Gary was joined on today’s post-InfoComm podcast with Joe Gillio of Casio to talk about his new XJ-L8300HN LampFree 4K projector as well as tell the LampFree story. In fact, Gary received a personal, one-on-one booth tour from Joe that includes the story of how and why NASA chose Casio for the one and only projector on the International Space Station. We actually shot six videos of Casio between our coverage of InfoComm and UB Tech last week and they’re all here. In the meantime, we hope you’ll listen to Joe and Gary’s podcast!
Did you know that Logitech had product in over 50 booths at InfoComm 2019? Well, they did. Gary was joined by Logitech’s Head of Marketing, Joan Vandermate, on today’s podcast and she not only reviews Logitech’s InfoComm 2019 impressions but, also talked about its partnerships. Of course, in addition to supporting 50+ companies to make collaboration happen in Orlando, Logitech was there to launch and show new UCC gear and two of the most popular were the TAP (for touch screen UCC simplification and control) and the Zone (a UCC headset). At InfoComm 2019, we shot nine videos of Logitech products and interviews, they are here. We hope you’ll listen to this podcast!
What did Epson think was their game-changer at InfoComm 2019? And, what were most people that toured their booth interested in? Well, today’s podcast is with Epson’s Senior Product Manager, Gavin Downey who talks Epson at InfoComm and why we shot 16 videos in their booth this year. Oh, and he and Gary talk about how and why 4K will affect the ProAV market and it isn’t the way you might think; so listen!
Whenever you see the number “2” at the end of any Anchor Audio product, it means the product is using Anchor’s new lithium ion battery technology (now with 2,000 charge cycles) and a 1.9 GHz wireless frequency. Anchor’s integrated the “2” throughout the entire product line, so we shot six videos on Anchor products at this year’s InfoComm 2019 show. Hey, need a portable PA system that can broadcast throughout an entire high school football stadium? Try the Big Foot 2. Listen to today’s podcast with Anchor Audio Director of Marketing Bethany Dineen and then watch all six videos here.
Barco’s VP of Channels, Kurt DeYoung, joined Gary’s podcast today to talk about their plethora of product launches, including a new XT LED line, a 40K lumen UDX 4K projector, and the new UDM line of projectors, at InfoComm 2019. Also, Gary noticed something in Barco’s booth that barely anyone at the show saw – did you notice it? Watch this and see what it is! Watch all 14 of the videos rAVe shot in Barco’s InfoComm booth here or you can go to their website: http://www.barco.com
Intel’s VP of Global Sales, Thomas Loza, joined Gary on this port-InfoComm 2019 podcast to talk about his impressions of the show and their launch of the new Intel Unite Cloud Portal Intel was one of the best represented companies on the InfoComm 2019 show floor as they were in at least 12 other booths, in addition tot heir own. You can see all the Intel Unite integration videos we shot on the show floor here and you can watch Gary’s interview with Thomas from the show floor below by clicking the video thumbnail below:
NETGEAR’s Laurent Masia, Director of Product Line Management Managed Switches, took less than 45-seconds of today’s 10+ minute podcast to talk about products and spent the rest talking about technology, the status of the evolution of AV-over-IP, the market forces and the total number of AV-over-IP units shipped – yes, he gives you a glimpse into the numbers on today’s pre-InfoComm podcast.
NETGEAR is the hub of the AV-over-IP movement and is standards agnostic as their switches work with nearly all of the AV-over-IP platforms – SDVoE, H.264, H.265, 1G JPEG 2000, VLC, 10G SDVoE, Pure 3, IntoPix, etc. Laurent explains where the market is now, talks about Av-over-IP market share data and he projects the future of AV-over-IP including what percentage of the market he thinks will be 1G vs 10G routing of signals by the end of 2020.
But, he did spend a few seconds launching their new 16-port copper (with and without PoE) switch as well as their new 24-port fiber switch (both here: https://www.netgear.com/landings/proavm4300/)! And, both will be at InfoComm 2019 in their booth 4286 as well as in the SDVoE booth at 1143. Listen as Laurent is awesome!
There’s no question that Logitech is about to ship the most popular UCC-based touch controller on the market in the form of the Tap Originally launched at ISE in Amsterdam earlier this year, Tap is the simplest and most competitively priced turn-key touch control for UCC and includes native support for video conferencing room solutions from Google, Microsoft and Zoom AND, it’s natively integrated with Extron room control, too. Gary was joined on today’s podcast with Logitech’s Head of Marketing for its Collaboration Business, Joan Vandermate, who talked Tap, the one-year anniversary of Rally, the huddle room solution MeetUp and how Logitech has some major momentum heading into next week’s InfoComm Show where they will be in booth 3681. Speaking of InfoComm, Logitech is also leading three educational sessions and you can learn about hem and find registration information about them here: https://blog.logitech.com/2019/05/28/infocomm-2019-will-we-see-you-in-orlando/
There is no better signage CMS provider to partner with than Mvix. They are focused on servicing the integrator channel, have over 200 add-ons/integrations for creative signage designs and applications, they offer white-labeled creative signage as a service AND they are hardware AGNOSTIC – their platform works on any hardware player including BrightSign, OPEN, Android, Chrome devices, LG’s WebOS, etc. And, they have a dedicated integrator partner portal for you to become a dealer: https://www.mvixusa.com/partners/
Gary was joined on today’s podcast to talk about Mvix Digital Signage’s Mike Kilian, Senior Director of Business Development. He explains their philosophy of providing recurring revenue opportunities to both signage pros as well as newbies, how integrators can make money offering signage services and how the Mvix CMS works. Mvix will be in booth 255 at InfoComm next week as well as in the exhibition hall at UB Tech. But, start here and listen – then go to : https://www.mvixusa.com/partners/ and sign up!
Gary was joined on his pre-InfoComm podcast today with Christie Digital’s Mike Garrido who talked Laser, Laser and more Laser — oh, and the MicroTiles LED (the 2019 winner of the Best of ISE Award). Christie will showcase their new Roadie 4K40 – a 40,000 lumen RGB Laser projector, their new Crimson 1-chip laser/phosphor line and, of course, the MicroTiles LED in booth 2543 at infoComm 2019 next week. Mike provides a glimpse of what to expect and why you should plan to stop by — and, Gary explains how the MicroTiles LEDs work, including their connection with SDVoE. Listen.
Epson’s Moverio AR glasses have been around for nearly a half-dozen years. But, with their new Mover Assist SaaS solution, integrators will have the perfect tech and remote support feature to amp-up their relationships with clients. With Moverio Assist, Epson now offers a complete, end-to-end remote assistance solution for AR smart glasses that breaks down existing barriers to getting started. Moverio Assist emphasizes practical features (video stream, two-way audio, file sharing), and provides an off-the-shelf, scalable solution for companies looking to get started today. Assist will debut at InfoComm today in booth 2129 but this videocast is a great way to understand how it all works.
Gary was joined on today’s videocast with Epson’s Moverio Techical product manager, Leon Laroue, who explains how Assist works, the benefits to the ProAV integrator and pricing model. Moverio Assist is both Windows and MacOS compatible can drive direct visual connections between an AV integrator and their in-the-field client or customer to both walk them through VISUAL tech support issues or even real-time product training.
The Moverio Assist feature is compatible with two styles of the Moverio AR-glasses, the BT-300 is – which include a front-facing camera, WiFi connectivity, a built-in microphone, speakers, Bluetooth and a 3.5mm wires input and the BT-350 with all those same features but adding an ANSI Z87.1 safety shield.
On today’s pre-InfoComm podcast, Barco officially launched their new XT Series LED tiles into the North American market — with special pre-configured 1080p and 4K packages launching at InfoComm 2019 next week using the 27.5” LED cubes. At ISE, when the product was first launched, it also came with a guarantee from Barco’s XT Product Manager, Koen Werbrouck, that if there were to ever be a problem with an XT Series wall, it would take anyone less than 2-minutes to replace an entire module — while the wall is still up-and-running! Well, on today’s videocast, he did just that! In fact, in less than 1-minute, 20-seconds. Watch this and make sure you go by and see the new 0.9, 1.2, 1.5 and 1.9mm LED tiles in Barco’s booth 3400 at InfoComm!
FSR will be heading to InfoComm 2019 with an entirely new product line called SymphonyLinx and, if you want to know what it is, you’ll have to listen to today’s podcast with FSR’s Director of Global Sales, Chaz Porter. In addition, they’ll launch a family of UCC room kits, an add-on to their Digital Ribbon cable and a presentation switcher that’s build into a table! All the details are here on Gary’s pre-InfoComm podcast with FSR!
Here’s your chance to meet (and see) the 2019 Michael Vergauwen Scholarship Winners, Rachel Brown and Ryan DeMello (bios below). Both of them are college Juniors and will be attending InfoComm in Orlando later this month! The scholarship is open to third- and fourth-year college students, or those in their last year at a two-year school, who are dependents of employees or employees of an AVIXA member organizations. The scholarship amount is $5,000. Both Rachel and Ryan joined Gary on this videocast – and, remember, they’re both looking for jobs!
Rachel Brown is a junior at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities majoring interior design and minoring in architecture. As an interior designer, Rachel does not design for what she knows, only for what she hopes to accomplish. She knows that in order to make a space user-friendly and purposeful, she will need to collaborate closely with AV engineers. As Rachel grew-up her father made sure to point out AV systems, their purpose and if they were fulfilling their purpose. With this knowledge, she grew to understand the importance of AV systems within a design space. In addition to her full-time studies, Brown has interned at Collage Architects, an architectural firm specializing in residential and mixed-use projects, where she has been responsible for creating visual packages, producing drawings in CAD and Revit, and participating in client meetings.
Ryan DeMello is a junior at Oregon State University. DeMello began working in Oregon State’s Academic Technology Department as a support technician while in high school, exhibiting a vast working knowledge of presentation technologies while helping students and professors use campus technology. He has also helped provide AV services for a local event production company
Gary was joined on today’s podcast by Sandi Stambaugh, Vice President, VISUALSolv, SYNNEX Corporation, to talk about the company’s presence at InfoComm next week. Their booth, #1351, will include a record number of SYNNEX team members from the US and Canada ready to educate attendees about the company’s differentiated financial and services offerings specific to collaborative communications and digital signage. Attendees will have an opportunity to see a range of technology solutions in the booth while hearing about SYNNEX subscription-based financial offerings and receiving a demo of the self-service quoting tool available to partners. The booth features aaS meeting room solutions including vendors like Samsung, LG, Microsoft, Poly, Vaddio, Middle Atlantic, Logitech and Kramer, and includes a meeting scheduling solution from OneLan, a Peerless AV kiosk, Verizon digital signage offerings, NEC’s ALP analytics platform, Security by HPE and Watchguard, W-Fi from Aerohive and more.
LG’s booth at InfoComm 2019 is literally 35% bigger than last years and, according to LG’s VP of Business Development, Dan Smith, EVERY product category will see new products — including OLED, LCD, Outdoor LCD, LED, Touch and a new UCC solution. And, I will tell you that there is one thing LG will launch that NO ONE will expect – including their competition — and it’s something that EVERYONE on the show floor will be talking about. See if you can figure it out in this podcast with Dan?! I can’t tell you what it is but I can assure you that once you hear about it, you’’ go to booth 252 and see if for yourself. That, I can guarantee you!
DEXON USA’s president, Drew Taylor, is heading to InfoComm for the first time wearing a DEXON USA badge. DEXON, well-known in the EMEA control room market, will debut a new version of its DIVIP lineup in booth 871. On this videocast you can see a real-time video demo of their HDBaseT-based DIVIP804KC (an 8 x 4 presentation switcher with seamless switching and video wall capabilities) with Gary — call controlled via IP over an iPad.
DEXON USA is here: http://www.dexonusa.com
Leyard and Planar always have a wow-factor booth. And, this year will be no different. In addition to launching an all-new LookThru Transparent OLED display (here’s our story on it), they will have a giant immersive LED flanking booth 3143 at InfoComm 2019. Leyard and Planar’s VP of Product Marketing, Steve Seminario joined Gary on this pre-InfoComm 2019 podcast to explain what you an expect from them at this year’s show — and, if you’re in the Rental & Staging markets, listen as they have a section of their booth this year specifically for you!
Just when we all thought 4K was going to be the standard resolution in AV for a while, here comes 8K — primarily driven by large, high-resolution LED displays. And, Blackmagic Design’s Director of North American Sales, Bob Caniglia , joined Gary on today’s pre-InfoComm podcast to talk about 8K adoption, the applications and the products that Blackmagic plans to debut at InfoComm 2019 Certainly, one of the most popular with ProAV rental and stagers will be the HyperDeck Extreme 8K HDR — capable of recording and driving 8K content to any display. Blackmagic Design will be in booth 4001.
On today’s pre-InfoComm podcast, Gary talked to WyreStorm’s CTO, David Silberstein about their NetworkHD 10G-based 600 Series of HD and 4K AV-over-IP products that use SDVoE. WyreStorm is one of the original SDVoE adopters — and they’ve not only added a bunch of new video wall, multi-view and control features to them but also how they are the first AV-over-IP company to partner with Domotz for remote monitoring and management of entire AV-over-IP systems (something WyreStorm launched at ISE earlier this year). They’ll be at InfoComm in booth 4561 with the 600 Series, their NetworkHD 400 Series of 1G AV-over-IP products. But, the big news is Thunder — listen to this podcast to find out about it!
Gary was joined by Casio’s Senior Director of Marketing at Casio, Joe Gillio, on his podcast today to talk about the 10+ year history that Casio has building LampFree projectors — starting with the LED/Laser/Phosphor-based technology and now, at InfoComm 2019, introducing a new R-Hybrid technology that’s allowing Casio to get 4000 lumens in a 1920 x 1200 resolution package. You’ll have to listen to today’s podcast to get all the specs (or wait another two weeks until InfoComm — they’ll be in booth 900) and, while you’re listening, Joe talks about Casio’s new Click, Connect and Collaborate-based wireless presentation system, dubbed the One-Click, that’s aimed at schools as it’s compatible with every OS including a ChromeBook (most wireless presentation systems aren’t ChromeBook capable). It’s all wrapped into this podcast and we hope you’ll listen and then head over to booth 900 at InfoComm!
Nureva’s engineered an ecosystem that includes interoperability with not just UCC spaces but AV meeting rooms, classrooms and even ad-hoc work spaces, too. And, at UB Tech in booth 718, they’ll not only demo their HDL300 Microphone Mist technology but also a Nureva Sketch plugin for the Intel Unite platform. Of course at InfoComm in booth 4476 they’ll demo both of these alongside their Span Workspace and and Nureva Wall products, too. In fact, in February they integrated Jira for Agile software development, too, into the Span system. Gary was joined by Nureva’s VP of Products, Rob Abbott who talked about how at both InfoComm and UBTech they’ll not only show these innovations but they’ll demo them, too. Do not miss Nureva at InfoComm and prepare for their presence by listening to today’s podcast!
SDVoE’s President, Justin Kennington, talked InfoComm 2019 on today’s podcast — including an interesting in-booth (1143) demo that will include a 4 x 4 matrix switch built both using SDVoE and using traditional matrix switching gear (in fact, here’s a blog Justin wrote about that earlier this year). What they hope to show is the added-value of interoperability (each SDVoE manufacturer’s gear is compatible with the others) as well as multi-viewer (or what I’ve been calling digital canvasing) – where you can put multiple pieces of content on one screen (or multiple screens) simultaneously. Justin also highlights a few of his favorite in-booth classes planned for InfoComm 2019 (full schedule is here). Listen and plan to put booth 1143 on your InfoComm 2019 schedule!
Want to be able to totally-customize a Room Sign for your clients in Higher Ed, corporate or UCC spaces? Well, according to Visix founder Sean Matthews — in booth 2321 at InfoComm 2019 — they’ll show you the most customizable Room Sign lineup in the digital signage industry — all Windows 10-based. You can literally edit anything and everything including customized graphics, panel layout and branding. Oh, and Visix just launched voice-controlled wayfinding too. Listen to this podcast with Sean and make plans to go by the Visix booth at InfoComm!
Although Siemon has been around for over 100-years, it’s likely that you haven’t heard of them. But, at InfoComm 2019, they’ll be in the SDVoE Booth (booth 1143) , they hope to change all that. Siemon has engineered a fool-proof system to expedite Cat6A and Fiber termination aimed at simplifying AV-over-IP installs. And, on this videocost, Siemon’s North American Technical Services Manager, Dave Valentukonis, shows a real-time demo of it being done — Cat6A terminated simply and perfectly in under 60-seconds and fiber in under 90-seconds. Watch this video as it’ll make you want to go to their booth and sign up to be a dealer for Siemon!
Cleerline Technology Group won accolades at last year’s InfoComm show for their CLEERFIBER transparent Fiber cables but at this year’s show they’ll focus on a wider range of new products including new rack enclosures, a new family of HDMI solutions and growth of their micro distribution products. Gary was joined on today’s podcast with Cleerline Technology Group’s Managing Partner, Rick Sant, who used rAVe RADIO to debut his new products before they are shown at InfoComm 2019 in booth 3189 in Orlando next month. Cleerline Technology Group is here: https://www.clrtec.com
In addition to adding a Dante Bridge product at InfoComm 2019 in both 653, IDK will use the show to debut a new ruggedized (rental/staging) version of their IP-Ninjar family of SDVoE-based 10G AV-over-IP products. Gary was joined by IDK’s US President, Ryohei Iwasaki and CTO Chris Miller, to talk about those new products as well as where they see the AV-over-IP market heading.
IDK builds their own SDVoE product line so it’s not an OEM-version of another manufacturer’s AV-over-IP product. They have some unique features like the addition of KVM switching, 3G-SDI and more control over displaying the content. IDK is here: http://www.idkav.com
BrightSign will be in booth 343 at InfoComm 2019 showing their new BSN.cloud, their 3-part cloud management platform for digital signage including Control Cloud, Management Cloud and Content Cloud. The Control Cloud is a free subscription service for use with all connected BrightSign players. The Management Cloud offers a fee-based, data-driven cloud service that delivers a complete set of digital signage network management tools. The Content Cloud is a fee-based service that adds the media library and content feeds, presentation management, scheduling and content distribution tools. This is THE FUTURE of digital signage so you NEED to go to their booth and see it! In the meantime, listen to this podcast with BrightSign’s CEO, Jeff Hastings, as he tells the BSN.cloud story.
I love doing video demos (or what we call videocasts (podcasts) as it helps me visualize the market for something. And collaboration-baed products are my favorites right now. Well, yesterday, I did a video demo with T1V’s EVP Sales + Marketing, Adam Loritsch, and CTO Jim Morris in real-time. So, what you’re about to watch is the entire T1V ThunkHub Connect demo in a mock-classroom from their Charlotte, NC, headquarters. T1V also shows how their MultiSite BYOD collaboration feature works. I hope you will watch this as the T1V’s ability to build a digital canvas in the front of a room and then share it anywhere with anyone is very cool. And, their in-room ViewHub feature is perfect for classroom collaboration within a room — for example, when you break-up a class into small groups to work on projects in the same room. They’ll be in booth 3971 at InfoComm 2019 and after watching this, I am sure you’ll want to go by and see it live.
Matrix is solidly being the AIMS (Alliance for IP Media Solutions) and their interest in the SMPTE ST 2001 standard for AV-over-IP interoperability. Matrox’s Director of Sales, Samuel Recine, joined Gary on his podcast today for an in-depth discussion on why he believes the SMPTE ST 2110 is the best path fro the commercial AV industry. It’s already being used in the broadcast industry to send 4K video (and audio, control ethernet, USB) via networks from 1G to 40G (uncompressed). Although Matrox has H.264 AV-over-IP streaming video products, they are awaiting a “standard” to be adopted for 1G and higher video over IP. They will be in booth 3055 with all their KVM and video products for ProAV, video walls and digital signage but, in the meantime, you an learn more about their product line here and your an learn all about AIMS here.
One of the most unique applications to demo AV-over-IP no-latency at ISE was DVIGear‘s racing simulator using their DN-200 series DisplayNet Series SDVoE-based 10G AV-over-IP processing. It, alone, is a great reason to make sure you stop by booth 1725 – oh, by the way, they’ll be giving away an iPad Pro to the highest score each day; here’s the video we shot of the simulator at ISE earlier this year. DVIGear will also be showcasing the DN-150 series, too.
In addition, DVIGear will show HyperLight cables and a totally new product line that people will want to see — listen to this podcast and see if you can tell what it is as IDVIGear’s Matt Pulsipher explains their InfoComm 2019 plans!
There are three reasons to head over the Anchor Audio‘s booth (6053) at InfoComm this year. First, they’re having Happy Hour in the booth on Wednesday and Thursday from 2-4. Second, according to Anchor’s Director of Sales, Nick Craig they’re demoing their new battery technology that delivered a 10-fold improvement with over 2000 charge cycles in the Beacon 2 and BigFoot Line Array portable PA systems and three, they’ve giving away Beacons, too! So, stop by, have a beer and get to know Anchor as, eventually, you’ll need a PA system and you’ll see why they are the official PA system provider for rAVe and THE GAME 10 at InfoComm 2019!
Intel Unite’s VP of Sales, Thomas Loza used today’s podcast to tease a new product launch at InfoComm 2019 in booth 3300. The Unite lets you create and manage a secure content sharing and collaboration platform for your organization. Wirelessly connect displays, employees, and mixed technology environments so your team can share and collaborate seamlessly, wherever they are. But, you need to make sure you plan to stop by their booth as they’ll debut something no one else has in the collaboration space! In the meantime, Unite is here: http://www.intel.com/unite
Newline Interactive picked rAVe RADIO for the first place to talk about heir new Z5, IP and NT Series of Collaboration Boards to be officially launched at InfoComm 2019. Each one has a very unique niche – including the NT (for No Touch) collaboration that includes four HDMI ports and 85” and 98” sizes, the Z5 is aimed at the huddle space and the IP is all-about-security. So, what’s the differences in each one, we are the only publication with the scoop and you’ll want to listen to Newline’s Tim Garber as he’ll explain each one on today’s podcast and plan to head to booth 4073 at InfoComm 2019 to see them live! Newline Interactive is one of only two Collaboration Board companies that only does Collaboration Boards – so, don’t miss seeking them!
A little over a year ago, Paul Harris launched something called ReAX — a Javascript and HTML 5-based control platform that he felt would simplify control programming in the AV space. Well, now it’s ready for prime-time and his company Aurora Multimedia will head to InfoComm 2019 with 8 ReAX products to show. And, he’s still willing to license ReAX to his competition, too. Watch this video as Paul explains why he thinks ReAX represents a monumental shift in the control of AV gear and how he’s implementing it. Aurora Multimedia will be in booth 1931 at InfoComm with it too. One cool thing that Paul shows is a control panel that can be used in portrait and landscape mode and the ReAX engine automatically flips the control interface. Watch!
Last week, Stem Audio debuted a family of audio products that aims to simplify the design, set-up, integration and management of UCC-based rooms. How? Well, on today’s pre-InfoComm 2019 videocast, Gary was joined by Stem’s CEO, Jacob Marash, who not only showed how the system works, but also explained the ecosystem, product-by-product. In addition, he hints that the future of Stem will include video, too. If you are curious how Stem works, WATCH THIS VIDEO! And, then, go to booth #4161 at InfoComm.
We are not kidding with that headline. D-Tools will not survive the capabilities of XTEN-AV — nor can they compete with their pricing model. Don’t believe me, watch this demo and you tell me what D-Tools does that this doesn’t do? And, then, compare what you’re paying for D-Tools to what you’d pay for this – and, oh by the way, this does more than D-Tools does. Vib Singh and Sahil Dhingra, from XTEN-AV, joined Gary on this video cast to demo — in real-time — the capabilities of XTEN-AV’s AI-based cloud-driven software platform for developing AV system designs based on AVIXA published standards and design guidelines. You NEED to watch this demo as this will turn ANY sales person into a systems designer. They’ll be at booth 4347 at InfoComm 2019 and you need to go by there and sign up to use this software.
At InfoComm, RGBlink will have two major announcements — the first is a new D4 2-channel 4K presentation switcher and the second is Version 2 of their XPOSE control and configuration software. Neither has been launched yet but Gary got the scoop on them from RGBlink’s Justin Knox during today’s podcast! RGBlink is in booth 601 at InfoComm 2019 and we hope you’ll listen to this podcast so you know what D4 and XPOSE do and will plan to stop by RGBlink’s booth and see them in operation. Listen!
Gary was joined on today’s podcast by Eddie Franklin, SYNNEX’s Vice President, Sales, Westcon-Comstor and Public Sector, to talk about how integrators can benefit from the company’s robust education business and dedicated subject matter experts, combined with leading offerings and support through SYNNEX VISUALSolv. Listen to understand how you can lean on SYNNEX to keep up with the digital experience required in today’s K-12 and Higher-Ed classrooms.
The ENCO enCAPTION 4 is literally a live, automated closed captioning and transcription system that (with less than a 4-second delay) can convert audio to text for ADA compliance broadcasts, collaboration rooms and classrooms. Yes, ADA compliance means that you may need to provide transcription services to your meetings and the ENCO enCATION product is the quickest and easiest way to do this, with a 95-97% accuracy. On today’s podcast, Gary was joined by ENCO’s International Sales Manager, Gilbert Felix, who demo’d how the system works in this live, videocast. ENCO will be at InfoComm 2019 in booth 5491 – so stop by as, eventually, you’ll need to be ADA compliant.
T1V’s CTO Jim Morris literally did a real-time live demo of the T1V digital canvas’ing software, known as ThinkHub xCanvas on this pre-InfoComm video-edition of Gary’s Rants and rAVe’s podcast today. If you aren’t familiar with what T1V does or how their ThinkHub xCanvas software creates a giant digital canvas — that can be joined and collaborated with using any OS platform on earth, this is a great demo to watch. T1V will be at InfoComm in booth 3971 and this video will make you want to go by and see them, live, on the show floor. Seriously, watch!
Nick Belcore, the EVP of Peerless-AV, refers to their in-booth dunking station and debris box, that demo the rigidity of their Xtreme Outdoor Displays, as ‘torture chambers’ — and, that’s basically what they are. No other manufacturer has ever shot a paint gun or submersed a monitor totally underwater just to prove they can literally withstand anything, and still operate. But, Peerless-AV does; and will.
Nick joined Gary on his podcast today to explain why they’ll do this again at InfoComm 2019 in booth 3429 next month as well as to talk about their newly minted, exclusive relationship with MiLB (Minor League Baseball). In addition, they both talk about why the home of rAVe RADIO — and the 50+ podcasts we will record LIVE from InfoComm 2019 — will be right smack-dab in the middle of the Peerless-AV booth. Listen and make sure you plan to stop by Peerless-AV in booth 3429 as their Extreme Outdoor Displays are ON while they’re being tortured, too!
Digital Projection has always pushed the resolution (and light output) envelope. The first company to demo native 4K at InfoComm was DPI. 8k; DPI. And, at InfoComm 2019, they will not only show mind-blowing 8K imagery, but you’ll see a special projector that can display three 4K images simultaneously using 360fps technology. We saw this at ISE and it was a game-changing moment for me in real-life 3D modeling. Gary was joined on his podcast today with DPI’s VP of Sales, Chuck Collins, who explained this demo, as well as what to expect when they demo the brightest 1-chip DLP projector on earth in booth 1642 at InfoComm. And, of course, their LED lineup will be amped-up too. Their booth will be the largest they’ve ever had, in the history of the company and, after listening to this podcast, you’ll want to put #1642 on your InfoComm map.
Zoom Video Communications used the Enterprise Connect show last month to launch Zoom Phone. Here’ s our story on it. Gary was joined on today’s podcast with Zoom CIO, Harry Moseley, to understand the strategy being Zoom Phone, the zero-touch provisioning with 3rd-party products from companies like Poly, Crestron and Yealink and how it fulfilled Zoom’s vision for a full UCaaS platform.
The QuirkLogic Quilla is an eInk based virtual (and endless) flip chart that puts simple collaboration on steroids. The Quilla is a paper-like writing experience (no glass and weighs only 23 pounds), allows for simultaneous remote collaboration (with other Quillas or via iOS and Android devices) and you can save, share and manage content on-the-fly. QuirkLogic’s Co-Founder and CTO, Mike Mabey and Director of Product Management, Tamara Drake pull off this truly real-time video demo of the simplest collaboration product I’ve ever seen. You gotta watch this!
Next week, on Tuesday, April 23rd at 2pm, Gary is delivering a LIVE webinar that’s worth 1.0 AVIXA CTS RUs that will not suck. If you’re curious about what a DSP is, what does Beamforming Mic Array does or how to install really good audio in a UCC space, this is the perfect 1-hour learn-it-all webinar for you. It’s free and we hope you will, in the meantime, watch this short videocast with Gary Kayye and Almo ProAV audio guru, Rob Ziv, as they talk about what will be delivered on the webinar next week — register here.
Gary was joined on his podcast today, via video, with TASCAM’s Chris Wright and Dirk Born, to demo their new MM-2D and DCP Connect Software appliance The MM-2D-X is a compact converter that converts 2-channel mic/line input/output signals into Dante signals. The TASCAM DCP CONNECT is a remote control software designed for system integrators to configure AND control any TASCAM Dante Compact Processor Series. This software is free for Windows/macOS/Android/iOS devices and this demo will wow-you for sure. Watch it below!
At the DSE (Digital Signage Expo) last week, we partnered with Epson to shoot the highest resolution VR-based trade show booth tour, ever. No one has ever shot an entire VR tour in 72 Mega-Pixel resolution — and it’s one you can see with either VR goggles OR with a regular web browser — using rAVe’s patent-pending VR technology. On this podcast, Gary speaks to Epson’s Senior Product Manager, Remi Del Mar, about how the VR experience works, the integration of their huge 15’ x 19’ projected interactive PlayWall inside the DSE booth and the use of their LightScene digital signage laser projectors — all of it you can see by clicking here! When you take the VR tour you can not only walk around Epson’s DSE booth, virtually, but you can play all the videos of the new products we shot inside the VR tour, as well as find links to the product websites and download product brochures, too!
Epson’s dedicated Digital Signage microsite is here.
All of our DSE show coverage is here.
Gary was joined by MSolutions CEO, Eliran Toren, to talk about the industry’s smallest HDBaseT Switcher. Dubbed the MS-0401, it’s a handheld 5 port combo-switch (HDBaseT and Ethernet) that can be 1×4 or 4×1. It has a data rate of 8.91 Gbps, and supports HDBaseT 1.0 and 2.0 and is HDCP 2.2 compliant. It’s an interesting piece and, since every AV integrator does HDBaseT and is moving toward AV-over-IP eventually, this is a box that will do both! Eliran talks about this, and their new matrix and the product M Solutions built their brand with, the MS-TestPro Tester. Listen!
Gary was joined on today’s podcast by Kirk Nesbit, SYNNEX’s Vice President, Design & Support Services, to talk about their amped-up focus on AV integrator education. In fact, SYNNEX will be adding on-site AVIXA CTS certification to their menu of services, too. Listen to learn how you can benefit from the free educational services and get a broader overview of SYNNEX SERVICESolv.
You can get in contact with Kirk here.
Gary was joined on today’s podcast with Logitech’s Head of Marketing, Joan Vandermate, who talks all about Logitech’s giant showing at the Enterprise Connect show last week. Enterprise Connect is the industry’s only dedicated UCC show and Logitech was in 20+ booths on the show floor with their new Logitech Tap MeetUp and Rally Ultra-HD ConferenceCam system with automatic camera control. In addition, they showed integration with Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Google as well as their partnership on the Tap with Extron. Here are all the Logitech videos we shot at the EC 2019 show last week. Listen!
Gary was joined on today’s podcast with Epson’s Sr. Product Manager, Remi Del Mar, to talk both LightScene and their Digital Experiences booth at the show. Epson excited the projection market last year at DSE with the debut of their LightScene Accent Lighting Laser Projector lineup and at DSE 2019, they’ll focus on differentiated applications with LightScene as well as their entire laser projector lineup. Listen as Remi describes how projection is a viable alternative for signage to both flat panels and LEDs — yes, both. Listen!
Almo is growing — big-time. And, we welcome three new BDMs (Business Development Managers). This is a great offline discussion of what they do and who they support inside the Almo Pro AV support system. Please listen to this podcast with Angie Greene, John Borns and Melanie McKowan. And, don’t forget the Almo E4 Experience is coming up in Costa Mesa, California on Friday, April 5th — be sure to register here: http://www.e4experience.com
Gary was joined on his podcast today with Sharp’s Product Marketing Leader, Gary Bailer today to talk about their ‘4K & Beyond’ theme for the DSE Show and how it’s influencing product launches. Sharp will debut a few families of new products at DSE — from 43” to 86” LCD monitors — and will also demo their newly debuts WCD (Windows Collaboration Display), which won a BEST OF ISE 2019 Award last month. Sharp will be in booth 1207 at the DSE (Digital Signage Expo) show but, in the meantime, you can see their entire lineup here: http://www.sharpusa.com/monitors. And, all our coverage at DSE (including Sharp’s video are here).
I am excited to bring you an exclusive podcast with the newly promoted Chief Marketing Officer at AVIXA, Dan Goldstein, a year and a half after the rebrand — which saw the debut of AVIXA — the AudioVisual Integrated Experience Association. This underrated effort to separate InfoComm (the show) from InfoComm (the association), has turned out to be pure genius. And, Dan’s the genius behind the genius. How and who did he do it? Listen to my podcast with the best-dressed man in AV and you’ll hear all about it!
Next week, Gary Kayye is delivering a webinar that’s sort-of a “state-of-the-digital-signage-market” that’s a must-attend. Digital Signage has been the fastest growing segment of the AV market for eight of the last 10 years and 2019 will see its biggest year, yet. Why? Well, you need to join Gary’s FREE webinar next week (Tuesday at 2pm EST) and listen how. In the meantime, Liz Wheeler joined Gary today on his podcast to details the three core Samsung digital signage lines and whether or not they are 24/7 or 16/7 products and she also explains Samsung’s built-in media player options. It’s a shot listen and will give you all you need to understand the Samsung QHH, QMH and QB Series products.
Oh,and you can register for the Free webinar here.
Lisa Peveler “fell” into the AV market in a similar way to how many of us do, accidentally — and thanks to a friend. And, she’s grown to love it and she’s worked at both big-time manufacturers like Acoustic Innovations and Stewart Filmscreen. But, now she’s a regional manager at Mizzen Marketing in TOLA – don’t know what that is? Then, listen to Lisa’s podcast and how her literal LOVE of working led her from a 16-year old basically working full-time to one of the best manufacturer’s reps in the entire AV industry!
This is the official launch-podcast for NEC at the DSE (Digital Signage Expo) show. In addition, to a refresh of their entire LCD lineup, NEC is launching a new, unique 49” display in Vegas next month, 55” 4K display as well as new signage projectors and LEDs . Which signage markets are growing the fastest and what can you expect to see in NEC’s booth at DSE? This is THE PODCAST that answers all your questions as Gary was joined by NEC’s Sr. Director Product Marketing, Keith Yanke, who details their DSE plans.
The all-new Panacast 3 panoramic camera is shipping right as they ink a deal to be acquired by GN Audio – of Jabra-fame. In today’s podcast, Gary is joined by Aurangzeb Khan, President & CEO at Altia Systems — makers of the Panacast line — and they talk about the pending acquisition, their ISE showing and they even hint at something special coming at Enterprise Connect in Orlando later this month! And, if you’d like to watch all the videos shot at the Panacast stand at ISE, go here.
At ISE 2019, Philips launched a totally-new family of LEDs fringing from 1.2mm to 4mm and we were there for the debut. In addition, their new line of Hotel TV’s pioneered something that every hotel chain has been asking for – integrated wireless BYOD sharing via Chromecast. So, now, anyone can stream anything to a Philips Hotel TV and the line also used an Android OS so 3rd party developers, in eluding integrators, can customize content for the chains, too. Gary was joined by Philips EMEA GM, Chris Colpaert who talked about these two new launches as well as all the new products at the Philips stand at ISE. In fact, here are all the videos we shot at the Philips booth at ISE.
On today’s AV People we feature UX guru in Crestron’s Rosanne Lang — the Yoda of AV Tradeshow directors. Rosanne basically fell into the AV industry working for a small (now giant) remote control company in her home town. Gary’s discussion with Rosanne spans her nearly 30-year career in AV, her love of cooking (baking, specifically), her sons and her passion for travel. Listen, enjoy and learn from her experiences. And, reach out if you need a mentor as Rosanne will help!
Today’s podcast with ABSEN is to not only talk about their ISE presence last month but also to prepare you for their upcoming stint in Las Vegas with both DSE (Digital Signage Expo) and NAB (National Association or Broadcasters). Absen will be at both. And then, InfoComm. Gary was joined by ABSEN’s own Alison Maxson who explains their show plan as well as their future positioning as LED pushes to become the dominant display technology in signage – and, remember, Absen is the world’s leading exporter of LEDs too.
VuWall has a unique solution that addresses the needs of connecting and integrating both legacy (HDMI/VGA) sources as well as network sources into a Videowall, network operations center or presentation system. Their ecosystem allows for it all, regardless of source or destination signal type, to be controlled, switched and managed via their proprietary ecosystem software platform. VuWall’s president, Paul Vander Plaetse, took the time to explain it all to Gary on today’s podcast. And, you can see all the videos we shot of the VuWall system at ISE here.
Gary was joined on this post-ISE podcast with SDVoE‘s Justin Kennington to talk all about AV-over-IP. He’s bullish on 10G and a bear on 1G – and he makes no bones about it. And, although he and Gary may disagree on the importance of a 1G AV-over-IP system, he’s steadfast in his belief that IT and AV professionals will eventually pick less compression over more. We hope you enjoy this friendly debate on today’s podcast.
One of those hidden-gems at ISE this year was a company called Monitors Anywhere – it’s likely you haven’t heard of them but they are doing some creative things using Window’s Extended Desktop. For one, the least-expensive video wall solution I’ve ever seen – like 1/10th the cost of anything else. Yes, 1/10th. So, I asked Monitors Anywhere Product Manager Roy Tal to join me on today’s Rants and rAVe’s videocast for a live, real-time demo on how simple this system really is. Seriously, watch!
Nureva added a new feature to their HDL 300 Microphone Mist and Speaker-bar offering at ISE 2019 called Active Zone Control AS a user of the HDL 300, this is the perfect feature addition for rAVe founder, Gary Kayye, and his UNC classroom. In his case, the HDL 300 is used as a microphone array system to capture and record any and all lectures he delivers into an Extron SMP (H.264 streaming media recorder). As he normally stands at the front of the room to teach, the active zone control allows you, through their DSP, to focus the primary microphone pick-up point in the front of the room — where he stands to lecture. But, there were more launches at ISE and Gary was joined with Nureva’s VP of Products, Rob Abbott today to talk all about what Nureva offered at ISE — oh, and here’s a direct link to all the product videos we shot at ISE, too.
Gary was joined by DSE’s Director of Expositions, Andrea Varrone today to talk all about the DSE (Digital Signage Expo) show — coming in less than a month in Las Vegas. The DSE Conference starts 26th and the expo is open March 27 and 28 but there are 4-days of education, you can become digital signage certified and DSE has added a day for newbies to the digital signage world — listen to this podcast and then REGISTER to attend here: https://www.digitalsignageexpo.net/
Gary was joined on today’s podcast via video with SiliconCore‘s Director of Marketing, Johanna Ocampo and Jim Wickenhiser, Senior Vice President, to talk all about heir big launch at ISE 2019 of a new line called EZ-HD Basically, EZ-HD is is a series of three turn-key LED displays that are 110”, 130” and 165” diagonal that are all native 1080p. But, the really unique thing is that SiliconCore says that two techs can install them in less than 3-hours! How? Well, watch this and you’ll learn what they are doing!
No doubt the most ubiquitous tech in the UCC Hall at ISE was all about the Intel Unite platform. Nearly every manufacturer of UCC gear referenced its compatibility with the Intel Unite platform So, what does Intel’s Global Director of Sales for Unite, Thomas Loza, see as the top-3 differentiators of their platform over others and where does she see the future of the UCC market and how it relates to the AV integrator? Well, listen to this post-ISE podcast with Thomas as it’s all in here!
Few people know how to engage an audience into LITERALLY interacting with a screen as well as my featured AV People guest today, Meghan Athavale. Her LUMOplay system is creativity at its finest. If you haven’t heard of LUMOplay, you should go check it out here, now: https://www.lumoplay.com. What you’ll see, immediately, are self-playing videos of kids – lots of kids – interacting with virtual environments using projection technology in ways the projector manufacturers only dream of. How’d she do all this? Well, she started out, some 22 years ago, in animation (when it was all done via hand) the rest is documented in today’s podcast! She’s the CEO of Lumo Interactive and has a story you’ll love.
Vivitek had 56% more attendees enter their 2019 ISE booth than in 2018. Not only is that a testament to ISE’s growth but it’s also a result of the ecosystem approach of Vivitek’s General Manager of EMEA, Holger Graeff. Holger joined Gary on his ISE wrap-up podcast today to talk all about ISE and what Vivitek products the attendees gravitated towards and where he sees the big opportunity for the AV integrator in 2019 — hint, it’s not all AV. Listen!
rAVe RADIO got a scoop today when Epson announced on Gary’s podcast that they will launch a 30,000 lumen 3LCD laser projector at ISE in Amsterdam next month. Part of the Pro L Series the new projector will be able to use the exact same lenses all the there large venue projectors use. In addition, Epson’s Sr Product Manager – Large Venue & Meeting Room Projectors Gavin Downey told Gary that their will have a new series of meeting room projectors, too, that will be able to use all the same interchangeable lenses all the other projector use – with brightnesses up to 8000 lumens. Listen to this podcast and make sure you plan to go by Hall 1, Stand H90 as Epson always impresses with their demos entering the booth!
Gary was joined by Intel’s Global Director of Sales, Thomas Loza today to talk all about their ISE plans – including a booth in Hall 12 as well as one in Hall 8 – C240. The Intel Unite platform is universal so it supports nearly every UCC video collaboration system and allows for room, gear and even environment control, as well. If you’d like to learn more about he Intel Unite platform go here: http://www.intel.com/unite
Vivitek EMEA will kick-off the ISE show celebrating 10 years in the EMEA market by launching a few major new products including brighter projectors, more interactive panels, non-interactive panels with built-in NovoConnect and a new 4000 lumen projector integrated with their NovoConnect Wireless Collaboration System. Gary was joined with Vivitek’s General Manager for EMEA, Holger Gräff who talks about all the new launches happing at ISE 2019 next week in Amsterdam. Vivitek will, again, exhibit with parent company, Delta Displays, in Hall 5 stand R60.
In this edition of his pre-ISE podcast, Philips teases a totally-new product line they will launch at ISE next week. Gary was joined with Philips’ VP or EMEA, Franck Racape to not only talk about the new product line but also their plans in wireless streaming for both the corporate meeting room and huddle rooms space but also inhospitality – like hospital and hotel rooms. Philips will literally enter a totally new product category for them on opening day of the ISE show in Amsterdam in Hall 10 stand K170. So, this should be one of our first ISE stops — we assure you that this new product line entry will excite and surpass many of you in the commercial AV industry.
Gary was joined with WyreStorm’s CTO Dave Silberstein today to talk about two major initiatives they will launch at ISE. In addition to to showing the first AV-over-IP integration of Domotz’ Remote Monitoring & Management platform they will be showing the capability to both build video walls with AV-over-IP sources but also tile multiple sources on one screen – what Gary calls Digital Canvasing or video tiling. This is a rAVe RADIO scoop so to hear the details directly from Dave, list to this podcast. And, make sure you put Wyrestorm on your ISE plans in Hall 1 stand N100.
Gary was joined on his pre-ISE podcast today with Absen’s Christian Czimny, Director of R&D, to talk all about their ISE plans. As we reported earlier this week, Absen has big plans at ISE and, after being recognized as the top exporter of LED in the world for the 10th year in a row, they will be all about LED — big, small and pre-packaged. The Absenicon, Aries Series and CR Series will all take top billing at ISE and you need to listen to this podcast as there’s a reason to stop at Absen’s booth and skip all the other Chinese-based LED companies. Seriously!
At ISE 2018, NEC Display Europe was awarded Best Booth by rAVe — and a host of other publications covering the show. Their 3-applications areas really simplified the technology for the attendees. And, for 2019, they’re back — the three areas are retail/digital signage, Collaboration and Large Venue and the entire thing, according to NEC’s Section Manager Strategic Product Marketing, Thomas Walter — who joined Gary on his pre-ISE podcast today, will be even more applications focused. Of course, they’ll be launching new InfinityBoard collaboration board products, new LCDs, new LEDs and a handful of new projectors, but everything will be in the context of the real-world use-case of the technology. And, NEC’s even offering free booth tours every 30-minutes, too. NEC will, again, be in Hall 5 stand R20 and you’ll want to make sue you add them to our schedule for attuning ISE. In the meantime, listed to this podcast as Thomas talks a lot about what you can expect at ISE with regards to their new products and technology. Enjoy!
BrightSign just changed the digital signage world forever, with their new BSN.cloud. It’s the future of how all digital signage will be controlled, managed and distributed. Don’t believe me? Well, then listen to this podcast and let the CEO of BrightSign, Jeff Hastings explain it — then you’ll understand why I can confidently make this claim. And, afterwards, read Gary’s piece on how it works here.
Oh, and BrightSign will be at ISE in Hall 8 stand C-165 next week demo’ing this as well as their new Series 4 players — now all capable of 4K (a scoop only available on rAVe RADIO).
There’s no doubt that Barco is leading the wireless collaboration market with their ClickShare lineup of collaboration devices and, just last week, launched two new units — the ClickShare CS-100 Huddle and the CSE-200+ with a 4K Output. In addition to integrating enterprise-level security, adding extended desktop and universal App connectivity to all models they are also adding Blackboarding, Annotation and IT compliant network management to the line, too. Gary was joined on this pre-ISE podcast today with Barco’s Lieven Bertier and Michaël Vanderheeren to talk all-about-collaboration. And, if Gartner is right with their year 2020 predictions on wireless collaboration in businesses, Barco’s in a good position to continue to lead with their ClickShare products.
NETGEAR will again be in the SDVoE Alliance Booth (Hall 3 stand B150) at ISE next week and they will be demo’ing a reference design for an HDMI input card directly into the 96X series of NETGEAR switches. The advantage of a on-board card is that racked sources can be connected directly to an AV-over-IP switch without the need for an encoder (as the encoder is on the card) and the card can actually act as a encoder (output card) as well. Listen to this podcast from NETGEAR’s own Laurent Masia as he explains the card-concept and the unique position of the 96X series AV-over-IP switches.
OLED is the most innovative of the direct-view display technologies — even companies without OLED talk about OLED. And, LG is leading the OLED revolution in monitors by miles. They have transparent, bendable, curved, convex, wallpaper and now rollable OLED. What’s next? And, what’s the use case — can you use OLED in a retail application where the store is open 18-hours a day? Well, listen to this podcast with LG Sales Engineer, Roger Greenhaw, as he answers all these questions. And, of course, the distributor of LG’s OLED is Almo ProAV.
The SDVoE Alliance will be at ISE, again, in Hall 3 Stand B150 with 40+ other companies showing the industry’s only AV-over-IP standard of products. Gary was joined on today’s podcast with Justin Kennington the SDVoE Alliance President, to talk about the state of the AV-over-IP market and the products that will be at ISE — including an HDMI card for the NETGEAR 10G switch. And, even if you’re not going to ISE in Amsterdam next month, this is a great update on the SDVoE Alliance and their member products.
When Stephanie Gutnik was graduating from McGill University in Montreal just 8-years-ago, she had no idea she’d be working inside the industry most creative professionals think of as the future of advertising. But, she is. And, not only is she, at less than 30-years-old, already the Vice President of Business Development for Broadsign (a leading DS provider), but she’s also on the Board of Directors at the Digital Signage Federation. And, that’s not all! You should listen to this as her journey is interesting and she’s a champion for women in both the AV and digital signage industries. Listen and comment!
Want to see a live, real-time demo of the new Altia Systems PanaCast 3 UCC camera? Gary was joined today by Altia Systems CEO Aurangzeb Khan and he did a demo of the PanaCast 3 — using the PanaCast 3. It’s smaller than the PanaCast 2, has three higher resolution cameras and is officially debuting stand number 13-B150 at the ISE Show in Amsterdam in February. But, you can see it, first, here!
Nureva has clearly used the ISE Show annually, as a launching pad for their new products. They have a big, new audio-based product coming at ISE but a whole lot more, too. In addition to some big Span updates, they will be there with simpler software functionality for casual Nureva Wall users and demo’ing their Microphone Mist technology. This podcast includes Nureva’s founder, Nancy Knowlton, and it will convince you to put Hall 11, stand B180 on your booth tour list as Nureva has something big planned. Listen!
Gary had a chance to talk to DVI Gear’s Matthew Pulsipher who detailed what the DN 150 is and why it’s replacing the DN 100 Series — it all has to do with 4K and the need to convert it into a “virtually matrix-able” AV-over-IP signal (10Gbps via SDVoE . And their demo of it is going to be pretty cool (and can win you prizes). In addition, he used rAVe RADIO to officially launch their new HyperLight active optical cables (AOC) that have interchangeable ends for HDMI, DisplayPort, etc. This will all debut in Hall 1 in stand M100 at the ISE Show in Amsterdam on February 5th!
On today’s pre-ISE podcast with CTOUCH CCO, Francois Barlinckhoff, it’s clear that they are laser-focused on the UCC market. In fact, they have moved their stand, for the ISE 2019 show, to the UCC Hall — Hall 11 stand B150. CTOUCH already has a comprehensive lineup of 55” to 84” 1080p and 4K resolution collaboration and interactive touch displays, but if you listen to podcast, you’ll hear a clear signal that a Windows’ partnership will be launched at ISE. So, make sure you listen to this AND you plan to check them out in Hall 11.
Matrox is well known for their graphic cards as well as their streaming video technology. But, starting with ISE 2019, they want you to know them for their AV-over-IP technology — especially in the 1G AV-over-IP space. Gary was joined by Matrox’s Vice President of R&D, David Chiappini today to talk about where Matrox stands and where they intend to go with AV-over-IP. They will be at ISE in Hall 11 in stand D120 — listen to this podcast and please put them on your tour schedule for 2019!
Gary was joined by both Birgit Jackson, Commercial Director of Visual Solutions and Jason Cort Director of Product Planning and Marketing, at Sharp Europe to talk about their unique Windows Collaboration Display While the rest of the collaboration board manufacturers are making stand-alone interactive boards for meeting rooms, Sharp’s been innovating a unique way to allow the their Windows Collaboration Display to integrate room and environment sensors to allow it to become an AV system – not just a collaboration board. listen to this podcast to hear all it’s different than everything else out there and why you should check out the 70” version at the stand at ISE in Amsterdam, Feb 5-8, in Hall 12 stand number E100!
Gary was joined by Kramer’s VP of Marketing, David Margolin on today’s pre-ISE podcast to detail their plans at ISE — exhibiting in Hall 1 Stand F20. Kramer will debut an entire AV-over-IP product line including 1G and 10G distribution as well as an AVaaS platform — all while offering both control and AV-over-IP certification classes on the show floor. This podcast covers all of their ISE plans and, as we get closer to the show — February 5-8 in Amsterdam — you will want to check out Kramer’s ISE Microsite at https://ise.kramerav.com — this is where you’ll see all the product releases posted, too.
What do these four things have in common? Well it’s the subject of Gary’s first podcast of 2019. Big news, big news, big news. Listen, listen, listen!
Not only has Penny Sitler paved the way for many women in the ProAV market by being one of the first females to do marketing for an AV manufacturer, but she just spent the last year as chair of the AVIXA Women’s Council. Penny has not only spent her entire professional career in Draper‘s hometown of Spiceland, Indiana, but she has spent her whole life there. Her journey into AV not only interesting but also pioneering. I hope you enjoy our conversation!
At one time, TASCAM (under the TEAC name) was a prolific manufacturer of mixing consoles — remember the Model 15? In the late 1970’s it was the standard. TASCAM re-entered the mixing console business with the Model 24 earlier this year and now they’ve launched the MZ-223 (three output) and the MZ-372 (dual output) rack-mountable zone mixers. TASCAM’s Joe Stopka, Vice President of Sales and Business Development, joined Gary on today’s podcast to talk about the applications of each of these new mixers – aimed at bars, restaurants, churches, retail and school applications. The A is still a big (and more profitable) part of AV and this is worth listening to as it’s highly likely you have applications for these mixers — and these are simple to use. Oh, and listen to the end as Joe talks about a new program TASCAM has aimed directly at contractors — including a new 2-year warranty.
Among Lainie Mataras’s many talents is the ability to fold a t-shirt, perfectly, while blindfolded. No, seriously, she can do that. Lainie has some unique talents and that, along with the ability to make fiends with 5000 people in 25-years, have made her an invaluable resource to both Crestron and Sapphire. Lainie’s been in AV for over 26-years and wants to help mentor young women coming into AV now – and, on this AV People podcast, she shares her experience growing-up-in-AV and what the most impressive, game-changing product was for her during her AV life. Enjoy!
nobox is a suite of services launched this summer from Almo ProAV — nobox is designed to make integrators more profitable, augment their services and give them a more national reach — when they need it. If you aren’t aware of the set of nobox series available for integrators, you should check out this podcast with Almo’s SVP and COO Sam Taylor. My favorites? Content creation services for digital signage design (which integrators would sell to their clients as a recurring revenue opportunity) and their bandwidth services — but, there are four others – so listen!
If you’ve ever spec’d an audio media server, imagine one that served up EVERY kind of content in a restaurant, bar, coffee-shop, retail store or school install. Well, the TASCAM CD-400U does just that — and more. Yes, it’s a CD-player — think 80’s. But, it’s one that is network and RS232 controllable and includes a USB-stick for playing any content via USB. It has integrated audio storage via a built-in media player that plays WAV, MP3, AAC and WMA format files, it has an AM/FM tuner and is integrated with Bluetooth for any wireless audio source. SO, you think you don’t need a CD player — think again. It’s the topic of today’s podcast, too!
Gary was joined on today’s podcast to talk 2019 and Synnex‘s outlook for the ProAV market. Synnex’s Vice President of Product Management, Sandi Stambaugh, has an aggressive strategy for 2019 and it includes a lot more educational initiatives. We hope you enjoy!
If you’ve ever met Zee Hakimoglu you’d remember. After graduating from Drexel University with a Masters in Physics, she entered the world of tech and has never looked back. Since declaring physics as her major in college, she’s been mostly surrounded by men and has some straight-up advice on how it shaped her and every decisions she’s made – and especially in her role now as President, CEO, and Chairman at ClearOne. You’ll love her honesty and enjoy this interview!
NEC has been in the collaboration board marketing since the market category’s inception two years ago. But now, NEC has a much better product in the new Infinity Board — distributed by Almo ProAV. With the Infinity Board, NEC partnered with the top third party companies in each category aggregated those parts and pieces to build a 4-product mix native 4K resolution product line — ranging from 55” to 84” and even size in-between. So, integrating FlatFrog touch, Huddly cameras and Sennheiser audio, NEC has one of the best collaboration boards on the market. Gary was joined with NEC’s Infinity Board Product Manager, Chris Feldman, on today’s podcast to talk about NEC’s product line and the market for collaboration. Enjoy!
Did you know that Smart Technologies accidentally entered the K-12 Education market? Well, it’s true. Nancy explains how a chance meeting with the wife of an AV professional at a late 80’s helped make Smart successful and how she got in to technology, itself. Nancy is, undoubtedly, a pioneer in AV and one of the top-10 women in AV, of all time. Meet Nancy Knowlton on today’s AV People podcast.
Synnex wraps up their 2018 Roadshow series next week, December 4th and 5th, in New York City. It caps off a big year for Synnex Corporation, which saw a big acquisition and some new partnerships. Gary was joined by Synnex’s Vice President of Product Management, Sandi Stambaugh, who details some of their new initiatives launched in 2018 and wraps up how the year went for her division, VISUALSolv.
As an avid fan (and user & evangelist) of the Nureva Span Workspace I think everyone should be using it. Why? Well, I asked Nureva’s Director of Customer Experience, Rick Kennedy to do a live Zoom Video based demo with me to explain the use-case and show my listeners (and viewers) how it works. This is an unedited, real-time demo of the system done between North Carolina and Calgary, Canada. If, after watching this, you still don’t see the need to sell or use the Nureva Span, then I’ll be shocked. (This is a VIDEOCAST, visit ravepubs.com to watch)
Most people dream of living at Disney World, but Absen’s Alison Maxson actually did. After graduating from college, she took a year off to dance in Disney parades and shows where she got a taste for AV. A dozen years later, she’s running marketing at one of the top three LED companies in the world. How’d she do that? Well, listen to this episode of Gary’s AV People series and find out!
As a 20+ year veteran of the AV market, Inge Govaerts — Barco’s Corporate Public Relations Manager, has perfected the art of taking all the technical jargon that engineers throw at her and converting it into something we can all understand. And, in some ways, this was her dream job — having gown up in Kortrijk, Flanders, Belgium, the same town as Barco’s headquarters. Inge is a role model for many in AV — not just women. Men and kids too. What’s her favorite all-time product or technology and how does she promote AV tech to kids? Listen.
Oh, and here’s a link to that Women in Tech piece we spoke about in the podcast we well as the time-lapse of their new HQ building being built.
Theresa Hahn’s first day on the job was at InfoComm. She didn’t know anything about the commercial AV market. But, the day after Verrex hired her, they put her on a plane to Orlando and told her to go to the convention center and find the Verrex team walking the InfoComm show floor and learn about AV. She was wow’ed and has been hooked on AV ever since. In the 12-years since, she’s become the VP of Marketing of one of the biggest AV integration firms in the world. She’s a mentor to other women in AV and a member of the AVIXA Women’s Council — a committee she hopes to disband, sooner rather than later. Why? Well, listen to my podcast with Theresa as she’s one of the top-10 most powerful women in AV — all of whom I’m featuring in my my first 10 AV People podcast series.
Next week, on Thursday, November 15th at 2pm EST, Gary will deliver the Top-10 Products from Almo’s E4 AV Tour (register here) and one of them will be the product talked about in this podcast. No other company makes this product and it’s one of the only products in AV to have ZERO competition. What is it? Listen!
And, sign up for this webinar here.
Kimberly Lancaster has been running one of the most successful PR agencies in AV for over 20-years and her clients have included the top control system company in residential AV, Control4, a display company that’s basically the Kleenex of projectors, InFocus, and a company who was actually sued by Hollywood! Yep, ALL of Hollywood. And, it was one of her all-time-favorite clients. What did she do? And, who was it? Listen and you’ll see. Oh, and Kimberly is one of the top-10 most powerful women in AV – all of whom I’m featuring in my first 10 AV People podcast series.
Melissa Ross P.E., of Whitlock, may very well be the most-certified woman in AV and in the world, too. For starters, only 3 percent of engineers in the world are women. Melissa is a P.E. (Professional Engineer). She’s a member of the Audio Engineering Society and has both Soundweb and Syn Aud Con certifications. She was certified by DigitalProjection in Blending and Warping and has a 4K projection implementation certification, as well. Of course she has her AVIXA CTS but take a look at her list of certifications from the ProAV industry: HDBT Master Installer, Networked AV Design and Commissioning certified, Induction Loop Master, Dante Levels 2 & 3 certified, Crestron DMC-D-4K certified, Harman Design Professional, Shure MXA Certification, Q-SYS Programmer Level 1, Iconix Certified, Tesira Server Certified DSP Programmer, Tesira Forte Certified Progammer, AutoCAD 3D certified and Revit certified and AVIXA Networking Architecture and Acoustical Mass Notification certified. Whew.
Oh, and she’s the Leader of the southeast Women’s Council for AVIXA. Need any more reasons to listed to this podcast? We didn’t think so.
If you don’t know who Heather Sidorowicz is, you should. Heather is an AV pioneer — she’s the president and owner of Southtown Audio Video in Buffalo, NY, she’s on the CEDIA board even though her company is nearly 80% commercial AV and she wanted nothing to do with AV whence was growing up. Oh, and she’s a she; one of a small minority women who own AV companies and has some advice to help change that. We hope you enjoy this new feature of Gary’s Rants and rAVe podcasts called #AVpeople.
The tables were turned in this podcast (sort-of hosted by Nureva’s own Adrian Doughty). Gary recently worked with the University of North Carolina’s AV and IT teams to build the ultimate collaborative classroom and in addition to picking a Nureva Wall for visual collaboration, UNC decided to use one of Nureva’s HDL300 over a plethora of distributed microphone options to capture the audio from everywhere in the 38’ x 32’ classroom. It’s all explained in Gary’s podcast, today – or, should we say Adrian’s podcast today. Listen and you’ll see what we mean. Maybe we should get rid of Gary (lithium teach full-time) and hire Adrian?
Nureva will demo’ing both the Wall and the HDL300 at the annual EDUCAUSE educational-baed show from October 30-November 1, 2018, at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver in booth 165.
How can you go wrong with a try-then-buy program? AVer is so confident that you’ll like their new USB-C based 4K resolution conferencing PTZ camera that they will allow you to order it and not pay for it unless you like it. Gary was joined on today’s podcast with AVer’s director of product marketing, Carl Harvell, who explains details for the $1299 UCC camera, its 10-presets and how they’ve embedded a new facial-recognition technology that automatically ensure that everyone’s framed properly in a video call. Here are the details on the new CAM540 from AVer.
This Thursday I will be leading a webinar that is all about LED technology. It will give you a good overview of where the industry is right now and where is likely headed – details are in this podcast!
Yesterday, Extron officially launched their NAV Series of AV-over-IP products — with claims of not only better performance than everyone else but also claiming they use much less bandwidth, too. If you missed the announcement, here it is.
Gary wanted more questions answered than were on there press release or the Extron website. So, he asked Extron’s Manager of Product Marketing, Andrew Evans to join him for some straight talk about the claims. Why does Extron think their AV-over-IP line is better than the others and how are they differentiating themselves? This podcast answers all of those questions along with the one’s you’d likely want answered, too, including, when will it ship, how does it work, what about network security and many others. Andrew is candid in his responses — even when not answering the question of how much NAV costs. You’ll enjoy this one-on-one deep-dive into NAV and it should answer all the questions you may have. Oh, and he even gets Andrew to answer the biggie — will Extron participate in an industry-wide AV-over-IP shoot-out? Listen!
If you need some FREE AVIXA CTS RU’s, there’s no faster way to get them in September than to head over to the Boston Almo ProAV E4 AV Tour at the Newton, MA, Marriott. Here are the details and registration link. Gary was joined on his podcast today with Almo’s VP of Marketing and Communications, Melody Craigmyle, who talks about the key new products you’ll see at the E4 AV Tour and which Super Bowl MVP will be there to sign autographs, too! The entire thing kicks off with Gary’s Everything You Need to Know About AV-over-IP Keynote Address at 9am after a free breakfast. Listen to this podcast and then head over to https://e4avtour.com to register!
Gary was joined by SYNNEX’s VP of Design and Support Services, Kirk Nesbit, on today’s podcast to talk about how SYNNEX is uniquely positioned to provide the ProAV integrator IT and IP services that can be great add-on additions for ProAV systems. What are the services and how do you engage? Listen to this podcast to hear how and head over to VISUALSolv’s website to get engaged.
For the past three years, Barco Residential has had one of the best home cinema demos on the CEDIA show floor — literally, award winning. And, this year, they are upping-the-ante by showing how the entire home can be outfitted with Barco technology — not just a theater. Gary was joined on today’s podcast with Barco’s General Manager, Tim Sinnaeve, who explains the philosophy behind the booth and how you can get a personal tour. Barco basically owns the high-end digital cinema market and they’ve focused on bringing that technology to the home the past few years. And, this year, they’ll add LED to the mix. Listen and plan to drop by their booth #2127 next week!
TASCAM picked rAVe RDIO for the debut of there retro-designed Model 24 – 24 tracks of 24-bit, 48 kHz audio capture (22 channels and a stereo main mix) and 22 playback tracks via either USB 2.0 or to the unit’s onboard SD Card recorder. But, this mixer has one bad-a** feature that no other has. Watch this videocast and see!
PS. Here’s the full story on the new mixer.
The A part of AV is more profitable that the V part but the V, for video, get’s all the attention. However, Almo’s new Sound Options team, led by Almo’s own Steve Alexander, are trying to change that by offering up a team of audio experts and 20+ companies that they’ve partnered with to help AV integrators build better audio systems.
I caught up with Steve and we talked Dante vs AVB the state of networked audio and all about Sound Options. Sound Options has their own website here: https://www.almoproav.com/soundoptions
And, if you’re in the Boston area, you should register to attend the new E4 AV Tour on September 21st by going here: https://e4avtour.com
The Sydney, Australia-based Integrate Expo didn’t disappoint. It was held int the brand-new Sydney International Convention Center and included three products never shown anywhere else in the world. Ever. Listen to today’s podcast so you’ll know what they were and then go watch the video on each one as we shot over 400 videos on the show floor there at Integrate and all of them are here: http://www.ravepubs.com/integrate2018
Don’t think that just because we are in Sydney, Australia, for a audiovisual trade show that something major won’t come out of the show. I can promise you that a brand new AV-over-IP product line will make a debut here through a private showing and brand new LED technology will be shown this week!
We hope you will follow all our coverage: rAVePubs.com/integrate2018
On this special edition of Rants and rAVes, Joel Rollins is joined by Jim Nista and Jay Saret of Almo Pro AV to talk about Almo’s recent acquisition of Insteo. Listen to this podcast for all the details!
Gary was joined on today’s podcast with Synnex‘s Crystal Hale and Tim Acker today to talk about both their Cloud and Mobility options for the ProAV market. How can a distributor help ProAV integrators make money with cloud-based serves? Well, listen and find out! Check out all the InfoComm 2018 videos here.
Insteo started as an ad agency and transitioned into a digital signage content creation company over the last 10-years or so. And, now, they will be part of Almo’s nobox services for the ProAV integrator community.
Insteo was gobbled-up by Almo ProAV earlier this week to be the content creation arm of Almo ProAV’s signage services providing turn-key creative to everyone in AV. Here’s an exclusive videocast I had with Almo’s executive VP and COO, Sam Taylor and Insteo’s founder (and now creative director) Jim Nista.
If you’re not doing digital signage, there’s no excuse now!
InFocus used InfoComm to launch a totally new wireless point-to-point HDMI device called SimpleShare as well as new Mondopads — including one aimed at higher-ed. Gary was joined by InFocus’ VP of Marketing, Loren Shaw, today to talk about their InfoComm launches and how popular the SimpleShare really was. Listen!
Gary was joined by IDK’s CEO, Ryohei Iwasaki, and CIO, Chris Miller, on today’s podcast to talk about their InfoComm presence. IDK was one off two dozen or so companies showing new AV-over-IP solutions. In addition, IDK had their entire commercial AV product line. You can see it all here: http://www.idkav.com
In addition to one of the coolest tech-demos on the show floor with ERO (Extended Ruggedness and Optics), Leyard and Planar launched the new DirectLight X LED, the 4K Clarity Matrix G3 and a new Versalight Series of LED Walls. We shot videos on all these, here.
ERO is a new micro-LED coming from Leyard and you’ll have to wait to see that in the coming months, in the meantime, however, you can listen to Leyard and Planar’s VP of Product Marketing, Steven Seminario, talk about what was hot at InfoComm. Listen as he even hints about their future direction in development.
SiliconCore may be best known for being the first LED company to show CoB (Chip-on-Board) technology. And, according to Jim Wickenhiser, their Senior Vice President, Strategic Initiatives, they won’t ship it until they perfect it. How significant is this to the future of LED, watch this videocast to see how small the form-factor is for CoB. But, their development of CoB led to a more durable LISA LED – as you will see in this video demo. Watch this and then head over here to watch the three videos we shot from their booth at InfoComm 2018 – including one on LISA-D and one on their new Camellia 0.95mm LED LED Display.
Aurora’s founder, Paul Harris, joined Gary on this post-InfoComm 2018 podcast to talk AV-over-IP standards — which one he would recommend for each application in ProAV — as well as their new ope-standard, Javascript-based ReAX control platform. We shot seven videos at the Aurora booth at InfoComm and you can see them all here.
Interestingly enough, one of the most popular products at InfoComm this year was in the back left corner of Epson’s booth — it’s called the LightScene and it’s basically a 3LCD laser projector built into an Accent Track Lighting system. But, certainly the most significant launch for them had to be the native 4K (3840 x 2160) resolution Pro L12000 — a 12K lumen large venue projector. Gary was joined by Epson’s Product Manager, Ramzi Shakra, to talk about their clear focus on laser including adding laser to both heir BrightLink Pro and their PowerLite series of projectors. We actually shot eight videos from the Epson booth at InfoComm and all of them are here.
Put to bed every rumor you’ve hard about the InfoComm show leaving Vegas, leaving Orlando, stopping the rotation between the two cities and everything else you may have heard, in the rumor mill, as this post-InfoComm videocast with AVIXA‘s CEO, David Labuskes, answers all these questions and more. AVIXA’s first, ever InfoComm show set a Vegas attendance record, hosted more ProAV square-footage than any other North American-based show, ever, and likely saw a rise in end-user attendance. Each year, Gary talks with Dave at the end of the show to gauge his reaction to the event, what he noticed, the direction of the industry and where he sees trends like AV-over-IP heading. This is an easy videocast to watch (or podcast to listen to) as Dave and Gary have known each other for years and Dave is remarkably candid about it all. We hope you enjoy it!
Gary was joined by Kramer CEO, Clint Hoffman, today to talk all about InfoComm. Gary and Clint talked about their booth traffic which was focused on three specific areas — Kramer Network, their wireless collaboration system VIA and a new 6×2 4K60 switcher that’s a hybrid digital and HDBaseT. Gary also asked Clint about when he thought AV-over-IP would be more than their traditional routing solutions, today. He’s brutally honest in his outlook — quicker than later. Listen and see when he thinks this will all happen.
Over the past year, I’ve enjoyed developing a relationship with Laurent Masia, NETGEAR‘s Global Senior Product Line Manager for Switches. Why? Well, there’s no doubt that the future of our market is via the network. We’re already running a lot AV control, most of our audio and all of VTC’ing over the network. Next comes Video — and even up to 4K and 8K video. 1080p is easy via the network — but higher resolutions provide some interesting dilemmas and decision making — mostly, how much compression can our application allow. The SDVoE 10G standards is the least compression AV-over-IP system out there, so far. More is coming, however. And, 1G is all over the place now. So, we’re at the beginning of a — dare I say it — revolution?
Listen to this podcast with Laurent and hear NETGEAR’s predictions — based on data they’ve collected and sales data of their own, new M4300 Series and the newest of the family, the M4300-96X modular switcher.
Gary was joined on his podcast today with Sharp’s Product Marketing Manager, Gary Bailer, to talk all about InfoCom and what they debuted. Their Microsoft partnership on a new line of collaboration displays was one of two hot-topics in and around the Sharp booth – the other was 8K. Listen to this podcast with Gary and Gary and then go watch the eight videos shot inside the Sharp booth during the show so you see why people left saying WOW!
And, of course, you can find all of Sharp’s ProAV line here.
LG’s VP of Business Development, Dan Smith, joined me today on my daily podcast to talk about their InfoComm booth. Greeting attendees into the booth was a set of transparent OLEDs and giant transparent LEDs — using their new transparent LED film. But, the breadth of their product line was super-impressive and they set a record for leads, visitors and new product launches — all at InfoComm 2018. All the LG product videos we shot are here, and LG’s website is here.
Gary just got a sneak-peek of a new feature launching from Altia Systems – makers of the Panacast camera system – that will debut at InfoComm next week (in booth N1668). Called Intelligence Sensing technology, a new software update from Panacast will allow users to detect who, or even what, is in a meeting. There’s no better way to understand how this works than watching this videocast between Gary and Panacast founder, Aurangzeb Khan. There are all sorts of creative applications for this technology for integrators to explore with their clients – just watch this and you’ll see light-bulbs of ideas turning on in your head!
Gary was joined by NorthVision America Director of Sales Walter Person. Before going to InfoComm, you might want to listen to this podcast – this company you’ve probably never heard of is about to launch something cool (and something we have all been asking for). True, wireless, uncompressed, HDMI-based wireless transmission of 4K @60Hz 4:4:4 up to 16-bit color. Called VisionShare, it’s a point-to-point wireless system that connects directly to an HDMI port on the course and then sends the 4K video totally through the air — with zero compression. How are they doing it, listen and you’ll hear!
Gary was joined by Casio‘s Senior Director Marketing, Joe Gillio, to talk about their 8th InfoComm with LampFree projectors and what we can expect from them in booth C3757. Casio has LampFree projectors in both normal and short-throw projectors and in all brightness levels. You should listen to this podcast as Joe tells you why you need to stop by the Casio booth. You can see the entire LampFree line here.
Gary was joined by PRYSM‘s VP of Marketing, Hannah Grap, to talk about their newest 5616 × 1872 resolution LPD 6K Series wall system. PRYSM will do something unique in that they will actually have customers (users) of their LPD systems in their booth during the show talking about how they use their systems now – it’s like having living case studies. And, you can ask them any question you want. Listen to this podcast and you’ll hear when AND what else PRYSM will show at InfoComm (booth N1245). And, if you haven’t seen the LPD yet, go! It’s a giant (190” or 135”) digital canvas.
The 600 Series of SDVoE AV-over-IP on-ramps and off-ramps will be a big focus of WyreStorm‘s booth at InfoComm (North Hall 1564) next week at InfoComm. The 600 Series includes some unique features like MultiScreen, MultiView and QSC control – and all will be demo’d at InfoComm. WyreStorm’s VP of Technology, David Silberstein, joined Gary on today’s podcast to talk H.264 vs 1G vs 10G AV-over-IP applications (and they make both – the 100, 200 and 400 Series are all 1G), the future of AV distribution and when he thinks all AV will be over IP.
WolfVision will, again, focus on CYNAP – their all-in-on AV/IT appliance – and, athough it’s actually 4-years old, it’s totally new. You’ll see and hear why. In addition they’ll launch GUI 2.0, show the vSolution MATRIX and their VZ-8Neo/VZ-8Neo+ (which have been redesigned too) in booth N1506 at InfoComm. Gary was joined on this videocast with WolfVision, Regional Sales Manager, Michael Lisi, today who not only discusses their product portfolio but also their philosophy behind how they see their place in the AV-over-IP ecosystem.
Clint Hoffman joined Gary on his podcast this afternoon to talk about their InfoComm plans. Kramer is a glue-company in ProAV in that all the industry on-ramps and off-ramps of video, audio, control and networking touches them. So, they’re a good indicator of how the industry is doing. At InfoComm, Kramer will debut a line of 10G SDVoE AV-over-IP products to add to their 1G and H.264 line and more Kramer Control options for recurring revenue for integrators. They’re in booth C2919 at InfoComm so plan to stop by!
If you have (or connect to people using) Apple MacBook, MacBook or iMac computers using USB-C connectors for video, power and USB signals, you’ll want to go by the Icron Technologies booth at InfoComm (Central Hall booth 2014). Icron is a 20+ year manufacturer of USB extender products and was an original adopter of the SDVoE Alliance 10G AV-over-IP standard, too. They will show a new line of AV-over-IP products and both of these are reasons to stop by their booth. Liston to this short podcast with Icron’s Director of Business Management, Glenn Antonelli, who explains what they do and their unique position in the market.
ProAV Distributor Starin’s VP of Marketing, Bobby Swartz, said that they’ve played a low-profile intentionally over the past year – and they’ll use InfoComm to launch something totally new: ProAV Outfitters. What is ProAV Outfitters? It’s sort-of a pre-packaged service for AV integrators – but, not exactly. It’s sort of Zoom Rooms but not exactly. It’s sort of business intelligence, but not exactly. Listen to this podcast as, although the official launch isn’t until next week, they gave Gary the scoop on ProAV Outfitters. Starin will be in booth C4120!
In our market, Broadata is not as known as they are in the movie theater and operating room markets where they manage sending high-bandwidth video and audio around at up to 18G. Well, they’ll be at InfoComm with both SDVoE and HDBaseT offerings as well as a new fiber-based 18G 4K distribution system for HDMI. Gary was joined by Broadata’s Joshua Susa, Solutions Engineer Manager, who reviews their InfoComm plans and you can check them out at: http://www.broadatacom.com. At InfoComm, they’ll be in booth C3870.
Visix was the first digital signage provider that targeted helping get the AV integrator community into digital signage. That was more than a decade and a half ago. Now they provide signage players, room signs, creative signage software and signage management systems. And, at InfoComm 2018, they’ll launch a new Enterprise version of their AxisTV software for facility-wide signage management and deployment (as well as creative). Visix CEO and President, Sean Matthews, joined Gary for a demo of the new software — it’s simple and powerful; watch!
Gary was joined by Polycom’s Product Marketing Manager, Kerri Whelan, today who joined the videocast on a Polycom Trio — their Voice and Video Conferencing solution. RealPresence Trio has redefined the conference phone category by serving as the smart hub for your group collaboration and bringing easy-to-use, no-compromise visual collaboration to spaces that were previously cost prohibitive. Watch this and see for yourself! Polycom will be both in the SYNNEX booth in N828 as well as in their own space in N154 at InfoComm!
The Epson LightScene won a Best of DSE Award when it was launched and once you see it, you’ll know why. It’s a tiny laser projector hidden inside a track lighting system that can be used for everything from signage to image mapping. No one looks a this projector and doesn’t see ideas pop into their head for where they can integrate it. Gary was joined by Epson’s Senior Product Manager, Gavin Downey, today to talk about the LightScene and all the new products that will be shown at InfoComm in booth C2220 including a new 12K laser, a 20K laser and some cool applications for AR (augmented reality) using their MOVERIO glasses. Listen and you’ll want to stop by!
DVIGear’s CEO, Steven Barlow, joined Gary on today’s podcast to talk about their partnership with the SDVoE Alliance in AV-over-IP 4K signal routing. DVIGear was one of the first adopters of SDVoE the 10G AV-over-IP standard, and his insight into their application of it is always interesting(now the DisplayNet 200) – and, Gary asked him the equation everyone wants to know: can all SDVoE gear work together! In addition, Steve introduced us to their new HyperLight fiber cables that can send 4K and 8K signals long distances. They are in booth C2809 at InfoComm and please make plans to go by and support them!
Gary was joined on today’s podcast by Steve Seminario, Product Marketing at Planar Systems Inc, a Leyard Company, to talk about heir launch, today, of the new DirectLightX 0.7mm-2.5mm LED walls and WallSync, a family of technologies integrated into the Clarity Matrix G3 Video Wall System. Leyard Planar will be in the Central Hall in booth C2520 and they ALWAYS impress with their huge imaging via LED. But, what we really want you to see is their 0.7mm LEDs — they look like flat-panel LCDs!
NEC Display is heading to InfoComm with a new booth, a 35K lumen projector, 75, 86” and 98” 4K displays and a few surprises! Keith Yanke, NEC’s Senior Director of Product Marketing, joined Gary on his podcast today to talk all about their plans. NEC is in the Central Hall in booth 1864 and will show projection from 5K lumens to 35K lumens, every possible resolution LCD, new LED technology and even a new family of signage player options. Make sure you plan to stop by and note that they are sponsoring The Park’s happy hour from 4-5pm each day!
In addition to launching their new Series 4 digital signage players, BrightSign will demo 4K H.265 streaming of DS content (with security), show their HS-123 system-on-a-chip, show the benefits of HDR10+ & Dolby Vision and a few other surprises at InfoComm in booth N2846 this week. BrightSign is the market leader in digital sing players and if you stop by there, you’ll see why – and CEO, Jeff Hastings, joined Gary on his podcast today to talk all-things-InfoComm! Please make sure you go by there as they set DS standards.
This is my third discussion, in less than a year, with NETGEAR’s Senior Product Line Manager for Managed Switches, Laurent Masia, to talk about the state of AV-over-IP in the Commercial AV market. Laurent is in a unique position to know what’s going on as NETGEAR, as you likely know, makes network switching and routing gear and that’s the backbone of a network. So, he sees (and talks to) every AV-over-IP company there is including those sending video via H.264, H.265, 1G and 10G. Listen to hear what he thinks the upgrade path will be, how we will likely deal with the forthcoming 8K resolution AV gear and what we’re going to see in AV-over-IP at InfoComm. Also, they have six AV-over-IP capable switches right now – they are all here: http://www.netgear.com/landings/proavm4300/
NETGEAR will be in booth N720 with the SDVoE Alliance at InfoComm.
Have you ever needed to hire AV talent, part-time? Or, are you an AV freelancer and want to work? Can’t figure out where to go? Well, a new company, AV Junction, can help you. AV Junction launched just 6 months ago and already has 1000 AV freelancers registered on their website — including their talent level, expertise and locale. AV Junction was the brainchild of CEO, Paul Weatherhead, and they will be at InfoComm in booth C4024 and if you need freelance talent or are a freelancer, you NEED to stop by there! In the meantime, listed to this podcast and Paul’s vision for the future of AV Junction.
Put FSR on your InfoComm booth list (Central Hall booth 2128) as they will be using VR (virtual reality) to allow you to see the product your looking at, in their booth, in a real-life install — using VR headsets. Gary was joined by FSR’s director of global sales, Chaz Porter, who talked about the FSR Experience VR project, a new Dr EDID (yes, an EDID tester for HDMI routing) product and an expanded HDMI 2.0 product line — all to launch at InfoComm. Listen and plan to stop by their booth!
Almo ProAV has offered a host of services to add-value to the 40+ manufacturer partners — things like content creation for digital signage networks, installation service, control programming services and internet bandwidth. All offer integrators recurring revenue opportunities for any AV gear they buy and integrate. Well, Almo ProAV has rebranded them AND is offered a few NEW services under their new NoBox initiative. What are the new one’s? Listen and watch as Almo ProAV’s Executive VP, Sam Taylor, debuts them right here on today’s videocast and plan to stop by their booth at InfoComm in the Central Hall booth 3484.
Aurora Multimedia founder, Paul Harris, is using InfoComm to announce and release a new JavaScript-based control platform for the ProAV market. Dubbed ReAX his intention is to make it freely available, via a non-profit alliance at www.reax.org, to any and all AV manufacturers that need to have their gear controlled. His reason? He thinks the market is ripe for an open-source, simpler control protocol. This hasn’t been announced or spoken about anywhere else - prior to today’s podcast - so, if you want to know all the details on how it works, who’s adopting it and why he did it, watch and listen to this interview with Paul. Oh, in case you we wondering, yes, he is heading to InfoComm with a bunch of new AV-over-IP products including a 10G wall plate based on SDVoE and a new set of 1G products, too. All of it is covered here!
Gary was joined by Semtech Corproation‘s Gareth Heywood, Video Products Market Manager — the company that designed and makes the reference chips for all the SDVoE Alliance members. As you likely know, the SDVoE AV-over-IP standard is a 10G standard with the least compression of 4K over IP. But, I posed the question that everyone has wanted to ask them — could Semtech make a 1G or 5G AV-over-IP options, too? Well, listen to his response as we could see different flavors of AV-over-IP form SDVoE, eventually. Semtech will be at InfoComm in booth N720.
Gary had Christie’s Senior Product Manager, Karl Johnson, actually demo their Terra AV-over-IP system on today’s video version of his podcast. Christie’s Terra solution is unique in that it includes a controller — and a really neat software interface. You can see how easy it is to design AV systems, switch them and stage and moderate routing using the Terra software during a LIVE demo by watching this. Christie will be in booth N706 at InfoComm with Terra as well as a host of new Laser projectors, LEDs and Image Mapping systems.
IDK Corporation will head to InfoComm (Booth C4051) with both their SDVoE-capable 10G AV-over-IP gear as well as their legacy HDMI and RGB routing and swinging systems. Because they do both, they will be able to provide you with a unique perspective on signal routing today vs. what we’re likely to see in the future via the network. Gary was joined by IDK’s Executive Director, Ryohei Iwasaki, and their CTO, Chris Miller, to talk about how they’ll demo this and what the see looking forward. Go by and visit them!
This is a VIDEO demo visit http://www.ravepubs.com/rants-and-raves-episode-722/ to watch!!!
Peerless-AV’s VP of North American and APAC, Brian McClimans, just delivered the best videocast we’ve ever recorded, seriously. So, he set up a working Xtreme 2500nit outdoor LCD outside in the mid-day sun and then proceeded to shoot it with a paint ball gun to show it’s durability. But, he didn’t stop there. He then took a high-pressure water hose and doused the front and back of the monitor to clear it of the 50+ paint balls and after he was done, the Xtreme monitor was still working! Yes, this was all done, LIVE, on today’s video edition of Gary’s podcast. Peerless-AV will be demo’ing their Xtreme outdoor displays, at InfoComm in booth C2947, as well as the entire Peerless-AV line – including a host of new products.
If you’re shooting, managing, or editing video — especially 4K video — you need to stop by the Atomos booth C3478 at InfoComm. Atomos is the first recorder company that uses Apple’s new ProRes RAW format and if you need to record, play, monitor or edit high-res video on-the-fly without having to sit in a production suite, Atomos is it. Atomos’ Senior Vice President, Matt Ivey, joined Gary on his podcast today to talk about the breadth of their line and what the three new product launches at next month’s InfoComm includes. Listen!
TASCAM will be at InfoComm in booth C915 and they’ll have everything from cassette recorders (yes, I typed cassette) to Dante Audio on-ramps and adapters. So, why do they still have cassette recorders? What about mixers – what, TASCAM does mixers? And, what can we expect from the industry’s only audio-only company? Listen (or watch) this podcast/videocast with TASCAM’s VP of Sales and Business Development, Joe Stopka, and you’ll hear why you should make sure they’re on your InfoComm tour stop list. Oh, and by the way, this (and every) podcast we do is done on 100% TASCAM gear (except for the Internet connection – which, as we all know, is the wildcard in the digital-audio world). We LOVE TASCAM! Show them some #AVisLIFE love.
Sharp will not only debut a brighter display line in the PNM Series, but they will have new 4K AQUOS Boards, a new 80” collaboration board and even an entire area dedicated to 8K. Gary was joined by Sharp’s Director of Pro AV Product Marketing, Gary Bailer, today who detailed what they will be doing at infoComm in booth C2334. Listen for details on the new partner, their products lineup and how you can join them for free drinks each night at a reception.
InFocus’ new button-based wireless HDMI transmission system for simple connectivity of laptops to to displays is dubbed SimpleShare And, Gary asked InFocus VP of Marketing Loren Shaw and SimpleShare Product Manager, Michael Liggett, to demo it for him on today’s videocast — and they agreed. No tricks — they connected, paired and displayed an entire system in minutes. InFocus will be in booth N1306 at InfoComm and in addition to showing SimpleShare for the first time, they will have new laser and LED-based projectors, a new Mondopad and the entire Jupiter line of video wall systems, too. In the meantime, watch this live demo of SimpleShare!
Oh, and here’s our story on the new Simple Share line of products – there are three versions and all will ship by the end of June.
There are 20+ manufacturers of displays and projectors at InfoComm this year. But, few leaders. Barco not only invented a number of the segments of the projection market but they’ve always innovated. I asked Barco’s Peter Pauwels to join me and talk all about InfoComm. In booth C2536 this year (and in meeting room 257), Barco will show one giant digital canvas display via projection, video walls and LEDs all as one system using their Event Master and all controlled by their Overture control system. And, in their private suite, we will likely see 8K projection and auto-calibration as well as more collaboration products.
The world’s largest exporter of LEDs is Absen. InfoComm 2017 was their coming-out party and InfoComm 2018 their booth (N1618) will be a giant launch of all-new LEDs. Everything will be new, according to Absen’s Senior Marketing & Communications Manager, Alison Maxson. Every pixel-pitch, every size, every form-factor (including a new system-on-a-chip) and every application from Install to Staging will be represented in their booth. Listen to this podcast with Alison as she explains how Absen is different than any other LED company out there and what to expect when you go there.
Anchor Audio’s Nick Craig joined Gary on his podcast today to detail their Series 2 launch in two weeks at InfoComm that includes a new 1.9 GHz Mic system using AnchorLink, new Lithium Ion battery technology and a mic line with both mute and volume control of the speakers — wirelessly located up to 300-feet away. Anchor will be in booth C1257 and demo’ing, loudly, its new wireless, and portable, audio systems.
Nureva will be at InfoComm with an all-new Nureva SPAN Wall system, the recently launched Dual HDL300 audio conferencing system and a software update that includes a Follow-me feature for meeting leaders. What’s Follow-me and why should you put Nureva’s booth N1276 (inside the UC Pavilion) on your booth tour at InfoComm? Listen (or watch) to today’s videocast/podcast with Nureva President and CEO, Nancy Knowlton and learn all about it and what else they have planned for North America’s biggest ProAV tradeshow. To watch today's video cast visit: http://www.ravepubs.com/rants-and-raves-episode-714/
Originally thought of just as a digital signage solution, Panasonic’s LinkRay technology has become more of a platform for the company since launching it at last year’s InfoComm show. Gary was joined on today’s podcast by Panasonic Business Development Manager, Brent Sanders, we explained how LinkRay can be used for access control, control, interactivity in meeting rooms and classrooms as well as for digital signage. LinkRay is compatible with Panasonic projectors, displays and even standard DC-powered LED lights – listen to see how and what the different applications are. And, plan to visit Panasonic in the Central Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center in booth C3185. Enjoy this podcast as you’ll learn something you didn’t know and then go see LinkRay here: https://info.panasonic.com/solutions-linkray.html
Brawn Consulting has worked with Samsung for over 15 years. And, Jonathan Brawn joined Gary on his podcast today to talk all about LED — including the new MICRO LED, called ONYX, that Samsung wants to use to replace projection in movie theaters. Almo ProAV is a distributor and arranged for us to bring this educational podcast to you!!
The SDVoE Alliance (for 10G AV-over-IP network-based signal routing) is up to 39 adopter companies making products that send AV signals (up to and including 4K) over the network. And, all of them are cross compatible. For example, you can use iMAG transmitters with Christie Digital receivers while using VuWall software to run the system. And, at InfoComm the SDVoE will have over 40 educational sessions in their booth (N720) and have a host of freebies if you attend. In the meantime, consider heading over to the SDVoE Design Partner Program to get certified before the show!
EloTouch’s Kristin Roubie joined Gary on a pre-InfoComm Videocast to show some of their new collaborative solutions, including a new touch-based Collaboration Board integrated with DisplayNote’s Montage software – including a one-year license for free. EloTouch is unique in that all their touch systems can be mounted in portrait, landscape of flat and they have collaboration boards up to 70” now – including a 55” 4K version. They’ll be at InfoComm next month in booth C1800 or you can see the entire line here: https://www.elotouch.com to watch the video cast please visit: http://www.ravepubs.com/rants-and-raves-episode-710/
Gary was joined by NEC’s Mark Weniger and Almo ProAV‘s John Wills to talk about how NEC’s open-source Raspberry-Pi-based System-on-a-chip allows Almo to provide integrators with a turn-key option to not only sell the signage solutions from NEC (including the P and V Series; and, in the future, the C Series), but provide their customers with both creative content solitons and digital signage network management, too. Listen to this podcast to hear how you an take advantage of this!
In today’s podcast, Gary’s goes is none other than Gary Mandle, the co-inventor (with Peter Jurgensen) and patent-holder) of the turntable used inside every microwave oven — you can see his original patent here Gary spent is 30+ years at Sony working in the display division and attending countless InfoComm Shows and consulting on large projector installs in everything from theaters to Fortune 500 companies. And, in is spare time? He invents stuff and flies.
Charity Hardwick is the newly minted president of Soundcast — the company that launched the industry’s first high-end outdoor wireless speakers in 2015. Charity served as VP of Sales and Marketing for three years before talking over leadership and she talks about why Soundcast is better than off-the-shelf Bluetooth audio systems and how they work. Listen and visit http://www.gosoundcast.com to see the entire line.
A little-known fact about Mike Weems is that he’s inadvertently the father of the CTS program. How? Listen to this podcast to find out. Mike’s being honored with the Mackey Barron Distinguished Achievement Award for his 40+ years of industry service that includes thousands of volunteer hours teaching at InfoComm shows and PETC Institutes, a storied career at companies like Sony, InFocus, NetStreams, Sanyo and Harman and one of the few people to win a trifecta of industry award including the Educator of the Year, the Fred Dixon Service in Education Award and now the Mackey Barron Distinguished Achievement Award. He joined Gary on this very personal, funny and informative podcast today. Please listen to his stories, his advice and for what product he thinks changed AV forever.
Today’s podcast is all about how End Users of ANY projector can send NEC their old projectors and have them recycled, responsibly, and get cash-credits for new NEC gear. The program was launched last month and it’s called Trade In & Trade Up and is available to both educational, healthcare, government and corporate end users as well as integrators. Gary spoke to both NEC’s Senior Director of Channel Marketing, Richard Hutton, and NEC’s new Industry Marketing Manager, Kristin Spiewak, who explain how the program works and where the idea came from. Listen!
InfoComm 2018 will, no doubt, be the largest InfoComm show ever. Not only is the industry on a giant growth curve, but the Las Vegas locale always breaks records. But, we’ll see a lot of new technology and some product category shifts at the early-June show. Listen to what Gary thinks are the must-sees, as of right now, for the show. And, he welcomes TASCAM as the flagship sponsor of rAVe RADIO and all our podcasts leading up to the show and at the show! In fact, TASCAM will being a top-notch podcast station in our booth that you can try out, yourself — more on that in a later podcast. But, we hope you enjoy this preview — as of a month before the biggest ProAV show, ever.
AVIXA’s Educator of the Year, Hope Roth, joined Gary on his podcast to talk about her AVIXA Educator of the Year award her life in the AV industry, the future of programming (she’s a Crestron Certified Programmer) and her favorite movie. We hope you’ll listen!
Did you know that the future of our industry could be determined by how well Jeff Bezos’ AV guy is? Listen.
NEC snagged two awards at DSE and demo’d projection-based signage, traditional display signage and a total System-on-a-chip (SoC) approach with their Raspberry-Pi solutions at the Digital Signage Expo last month. NEC is in a unique position as they are one of only two display companies that makes every kind of display technology so they have signage of any type. So, they are typically a bellwether company that helps shape the future of signage. NEC’s Senior Director Product Marketing, Keith Yanke, joined me on my podcast today to talk about just that. I hope you’ll listen and check out their new signage solutions at http://www.necdisplay.com
A year or so ago, Almo ProAV launched their Hospitality group led my their Director of Business Development, Apryl Lamberti. Since then, they’ve helped more AV integrators enter the hospitality market – a market that’s experienced double-digit growth in the last 12 months – than any other entity in AV. And, it’s not just hotel room TV’s anymore. Sure, hospitality includes in-room tech but it’s spreading to the lobby areas with huddle spaces, the meeting rooms with automation and well beyond the hotel. Take a look at today’s videocast and learn how you can take advantage of Almo’s Hospitality team and grow your market reach, too.
I asked Epson’s Senior Product Manager of Visual Display Solutions, Remi Del Mar, to join me today on my podcast totally about their amazing LightScene projector – in a track-lighting form-factor. Using sealed optics, it’s designed as both a light aesthetic as well as a content device for signage and traditional projection. You can power multiple LightScenes from one track and, since it’s a 1280 x 800 resolution laser-based 3LCD projector, it lasts well over 20,000 hours and the colorimetry is amazing. I hope you listed to this podcast and it sparks all kinds of ideas for creative uses of projection int both signage as well as in traditional corporate or educational AV.
We just opened nominations for our annual Readers’ Choice Awards this week. Hurry, you only have a few more days to enter. But, in the meantime, please listen to my podcast about why nearly every other industry awards program is a big fat scam!
Gary caught up with LG’s Director of Sales, Dan Smith, less than a week after the Digital Signage Expo show and they talked about which technology excited the signage crowds the most and how their unique position with OLED has upped their offerings. You can see all the videos we shot at DSE in the LG booth by going here and we hope you enjoy this short DSE wrap-up discussion with Dan. And, of course, all the LG Commercial products are here.
Laser projection is to the projector market as OLED is to the flat-panel display market — it’s truly a revolution in colorimetry and form-factor. So, Epson, known as the industry’s projector-only display company leading the market with 3LCD technology, will be at DSE with not only a family of laser projectors aimed at digital signage, but with a truly-revolutionary form-factor. Gary was joined on today’s podcast with Epson’s Senior Product Manager, Remi Del Mar, to talk about how Epson will create projection-based digital signage experiences at DSE and a hint about what launches Wednesday! Epson will be in booth 2336 at DSE or you can see everything here
LG will head to next week’s DSE with a line of Touch-enabled monitors in sizes from 55” – 86”. In addition, LG will highlight embedded integration of both the Cisco Spark platform and Crestron control right into a line of monitors aimed at simplifying AV meeting room design. Gary was joined on today’s podcast by LG’s head of marketing, Garry Wicka who also hinted about a brand-new narrow-bezel video wall product that they’ll have at DSE. Listen to learn more!
InFocus was at ISE with two giant launches — a new line of laser projector as well as a 4K resolution, and fiber-capable, version of their AV-over-IP-based PixelNet system dubbed PixelNet 2.0 The projector line include both short-throw and standard lensing and the 4K version of PixelNet added audio to the popular wall system. Please listen to my podcast today with InFocus’ CMO Brady Bruce!
Gary was joined on today’s podcast by Peerless-AV VP of Sales Brian McClimans, who not only talked about the company’s DSE launches but also gave us some great insight to the digital signage industry and where it’s heading. Obviously, the big-growth area is in LED, but the all-in-one kiosk market for digital signage is also huge and, Brian says, is the easiest way to ease into the signage market. Peerless-AV is in booth 1917 at DSE in Las Vegas next week so you’ll want to put them on your show plans. Peerless-AV is here: http://www.peerless-av.com and, if you’re not already, you should call your Peerless-AV rep to sign up for their DSE reception.
Smart Building Technology (SBT) has been around for over a dozen years now but AV hasn’t been part of it until recently. And, the advantage of being a Smart Building integrator is that you get to spec the AV gear BEFORE the building is built. But, although this isn’t a simple process, it is a profitable one. My Smart Building Webinar, delivered in partnership with Almo ProAV and sponsored by Sharp, will tell you, in 45-minutes, everything you need to know to get into the Smart Building segment of construction, who to establish relationships with and what systems you need to have in place to accomplish it!
You can register here for free HERE or, if you want to see a full description of the webinar, go here. This webinar is sponsored by Sharp and earns you 1 AVIXA CTS RU! Sign up today!
On today’s podcast, Almo Pro AV debuted a new partnership with Samsung that bring four pre-packaged Huddle Room solutions to the AV integration channel. Each package includes either an HD or UHD (4K) Samsung commercial-grade LCD and an AMX huddle room camera system and range from small spaces to larger conference room packages that add products like the AMX Acendo Vibe SoundBar the AMX Acendo Core and one package even include the new Samsung PMF-BC Series Touch Display. Each package is here.
Gary was joined on his podcast today by Paul Johnston of ABSEN following their double-win of our 2018 Best of ISE Awards. ABSEN has gone from nowhere to everywhere in just a few years and their new CoB (chip-on-board) technology will allow for 0.25 (eventually) pixel-pitch LEDs. Yep, 0.25! Listen and see how.
We’ve got the scoop and all the details on the 2018 edition of the Almo ProAV E4 AV Tour — its 9th year! This year’s tour includes two educational tracks — all AVIXA CTS RU approved — and a GAME you can play right there on the show floor. Today’s podcast is with Almo’s VP of Marketing, Melody Craigmyle, why gives Gary the details including how you can meet Joe Theismann in DC and Randy White in Dallas!
At ISE, Crestron did a head-to-head shoot-out between their 1G NVX system and the 10G SDVoE systems out there. Paul Harris, founder of Aurora Multimedia, says his company was called out either at the ISE shoot-out or on a pre-ISE video shared by Crestron on LinkedIn as under-performing. In today’s podcast, he’s clearly on a mission to set the record straight – even giving kudos to Crestron for having the best 1G product out there. But, he says comparing 1G to 10G is wrong. Listen to his logic on this podcast and then watch his own shoot-out (referred to in this podcast) here. On that page, he also offers up what he calls a Challenge Test Kit so you can do your own AV-over-IP shoot-outs in-house.
At ISE, Aurora launched a new IPX Series of 10G AV-over-IP products including the industry’s first wall-plate AV-over-IP solution. The entire line is here.
Nureva used ISE 2018 as an opportunity to launch three product updates as well as solidify their channel relationships. But, one surprising aspect of ISE for Nureva was how many channel partners bought their clients to see the new products and talk about how their using SPAN and the HDL-300. Gary sat down with Nureva’s founder, Nancy Knowlton, to reflect on ISE and what the three new products mean to Nureva and the AV channel.
We hope you’ll listen and then go watch his live ISE interview with Nancy here as well as see the new Nureva Wall System demo here. All you can also watch the Nureva ISE videos we shot at ISE are here.
NEC’s stand was awarded the best XL both at ISE because it was applications focused – and looked stunning! Gary was joined by NEC Europe’s Strategic Product Marketing, Thomas Walter, on today’s podcast to not only talk about their award but how the applications-focused booth was a stand-out at ISE and made a difference in record traffic. In addition to showing new LED’s, thanks to their recent acquisition of German-based S[quadrat], a new line of V and P series LCDs that included a 98” one, a 40K lumen laser projector, a native 4K projector and retail signage that included every display technology on earth, NEC Europe showed everything in applications-form — including dedicating 1/3rd of their stand to a retail experience center. In fact, you can watch my LIVE booth tour from the NEC stand at ISE here (and you can see everything that way) — it even includes us running into people as, for some reason, we decided to do it at the busiest time of the day for NEC. And, you can see all 12 of the videos we shot at the NEC stand here.
But, first, listen to today’s podcast with Gary and Thomas!
Gary was, again, joined by NETGEAR’s Laurent Masia, NETGEAR’s Senior Product Line Manager for Smart & Managed Switches, on today’s podcast to understand NETGEAR’s vision of AV-over-IP. They feel that if you’re aiming for perfect-imaging, you need to focus on SDVoE and their new M4300-96X is a 96-port (approx. $100 per port) switch is 100% AV-over-IP ready for both copper and fiber applications. Here’s a video we shot of it at ISE.
Masia also shares how you can get more education on AV-over-IP from both the SDVoE Alliance as well as from NETGEAR and he even delivered an AV-over-IP educational session at ISE that you can watch here. That session is sort-of a 1-hour crash course in sending AV signals over IP.
We hope you’ll listen to the podcast first and then go watch his educational session!
Certainly a debrief about how IDK felt about exhibiting at their first ISE Show in Amsterdam — with their SDVoE-based AV-over-IP solution NINJAR — was required on this podcast with IDK’s Chris Miller and Ryohei Iwasaki, but the best part wasn’t even podcast-related. While preparing for the podcast, they let me see a top-secret IDK Japan-made video of a 128 input by 128 output AV-over-IP system running in real-time over video. I begged them to allow me to make that video public and they relented – this is exactly what people want to see: proof-of-concept. You can watch it here. We did shoot a video on their NINJAR product (the product running that 128 x 128 system) while we were at ISE and you can see that video here.
So, after watching it, tell me what you think? I want to hear from he AV-over-IP naysayers out there. How can you not believe this is on the horizon after watching that proof-of-concept video? Listen to this podcast with IDK below!
Wyrestorm’s EMEA Sales Manager, James Meredith, joined Gary on today’s edition of his podcast to talk all about ISE and their new product launches from last week’s show. Their AV-over-IP line was popular but so were their new fiber optic distribution systems. You can hear about all the new products on this podcast and you can watch all the Wyrestorm ISE videos here.
Epson had a huge ISE last week – both in size and product portfolio. As you’ll see from the videos we shot at ISE – including the booth tour video – visitors to the Epson stand were greeted with a giant 25’ wide curved ceiling to floor screen built by mapping six laser projectors together. And, inside the booth it was all, well, laser – including a new NATIVE 4K resolution (3840 x 2160) projector that’s spec’d at; well, listen to this podcast with Epson’s Gavin Downey as he’ll give you the lowdown! And, afterwards, go watch all the EPSON videos we shot at ISE here.
In addition to their obvious array of new display gear – and the first time most AV people will see UniSee – Barco will use Hall 12 Stand F100 at the ISE Show to demo their new ClickShare products, software vision 1.5 and the family of WePresent products – now branded as Barco. Version 1.5 includes new audio lip-syncing timing, 30fps video for any connected device and new levels of security. And, the newest ClickShare, the CSE-800, as well as all of the existing ClickShare line can use it now. Gary was joined by Barco’s Lieven Bertier, ClickShare Global Marketing Manager, and Michaël Vanderheeren, Product Manager for ClickShare, who explained their ISE stand, their integration fo the WePresent K-12 and Higher-Ed BYOD line as well as how attendees can with Gold (yes, gold) and a free room upgrade. Listen to hear how.
Gary was joined by BrightSign‘s CEO, Jeff Hastings, today who explained what they will show in their booth in Hall 8 Stand G240 at next week’s ISE Show in Amsterdam. There are two focuses (new 4K players and software compatibility) — so listen to today’s podcast and check them out at http://www.brightsign.biz
Most AV-over-IP companies have embraced one technology over the others. But, ZeeVee can send AV over an IP network in all three flavors – H.264, over a 1Gig and over a 10Gig network. So, depending on the application, the client chooses — the NFL, for example, chose H.264 for the Super Bowl. Listen to today’s podcast with ZeeVee’s CEO, Bob Michaels explain their differentiation and what they plan to demo in Hall 10, Stand H195 next week at the ISE Show in Amsterdam.
InFocus will not only focus their ISE stand on the family of Mondopad collaboration boards but they’ll use the annual mega-AV-show to highlight they new Jupiter PixelNet 2.0 distributed display wall system – an AV-over-IP video wall system including 4K, audio and fiber support. And, InFocus’ CMO, Brady Bruce, joined Gary on today’s podcast and hinted at new projectors for InFocus at ISE as well. Listen to see what he said and make sure you go by their stand in Hall 2 Booth B60.
In case you haven’t heard, the HDMI Alliance’s new 2.1 standard passed and it means that, unless you take HDMI over the network, you’ll likely be distributing it via fiber. Cleerline Fiber not only has a family of fiber cable, but also a test kit designed specifically for AV integrators, the SSF-TKITE-100 and a new super-thin, fishing-line-like fiber (SSF-CLEER900UM) cable that you can run along the wall that you can’t even see. Gary was joined by Cleerline’s Rick Sant, a managing partner of Cleerline Fiber and he explained the impact of HDMI 2.1 and why you should care. Cleerline is in Hall 15-P280 in the ETECHA stand at the ISE Show in Amsterdam. Listen!
IDK was one of the first SDVoE Alliance members and has a 10Gig AV-over-IP solution that not only includes a transmitter and receiver but also a separate external controller – allowing both legacy AV products and AV-over-IP products to be controlled simultaneously. Gary was joined by IDK’s Executive Director, Ryohei Iwasaki, and their CTO, Chris Miller, to talk about their vision for AV-over-IP and how they are differentiating themselves from the other companies out there making AV-over-IP solutions. They will be at ISE in Amsterdam next month in Hall 10 Stand R180.
Absen’s Polaris 1.9mm COBALT (Chip-on-Board Advanced Light Technology) is Absen’s first Chip-On-Board solution. Everyone’s been talking about this technology for years and now Absen plans to make it mainstream. What is Chip-on-Board and why does it matter? Listen to today’s podcast with Absen Europe’s Product Director, Liam Winter, as he explains that as well as what they have planned for their ISE Show booth in Hall 12 Stand C50.
Last year, Christie Digital announced their intention to develop SDVoE AV-over-IP products and they debuted at InfoComm in the form of the Terra Series including a transmitter, receiver and controller. At ISE 2018, according to Christie’s Senior Product Manager, Karl Johnson, we will see SDVoE inputs on both the BOXER and CRIMSON series of projectors — furthering their alliance with the SDVoE standard as well as designed to simplify an AV-over-IP infrastructure. Christie will be in Hall 1 in Stand H70 during ISE and this podcast explains their plans!
In today’s podcast with Crestron Director of Enterprise Technology Dan Jackson, Dan wanted to talk about Crestron’s new XiO Cloud and XiO EdgeControl services. But when he mentioned that “a large portion of their ISE booth” will be taken up with a side-by-side demo of their NVX (1Gig AV-over-IP solution) alongside the AMX SVSi and SDVoE solutions, shootout-style, I realized that was actually the big news. Crestron, arguably, has the best booth space at the ISE show in Amsterdam next month and if they have this in the booth, everyone will likely hear about it and want to go see it. Of course, Dan wants you to know about their XiO Cloud offering so you can listen to today’s ISE podcast and hear all about it, but make sure you also listen to find out what they have planned for their shootout.
Gary was joined by NEC Display Europe’s Strategic Product Marketing Manager, Thomas Walter, who explains what it will be like tour through Hall 5 Stand R20 at ISE Europe next month. NEC’s theme at the show is Create Endless Impressions and they’ll do that with three sections in the stand: Digital Signage, Corporate Meeting and Collaboration and Large Venue. In addition to 10 new V, C and P series displays and a 40,000 lumen RB Laser projector, NEC will demonstrate their collaborative approach to creating experiences. Listen to today’s ISE podcast and make sure you add Hall 5, Stand R20 on to your ISE plans — and plan to stay at least a few hours as you’ll be glad you did!
Gary was joined on today’s Rants and rAVe podcast by Kramer Electronic‘s David Margolin who explained how the ISE Show will be used to further their AV-over-IT product strategy as well as to debut dozens of new products in their stand — Hall 1 Stand F20. Kramer used last year’s ISE to debut Kramer Control and their Enterprise Management solutions that allow you to virtually switch and control both AV-over-IT and legacy AV gear on the same controller. Listen and please add Kramer to your ISE stop schedule.
Vivitek used rAVe RADIO to talk about their brand-new LED lineup of fine-pixel-pitch displays from 1.2mm to 2.5mm. Of course, they’ll have their new laser-phosphor projection displays there, too — including a new 18K lumens projector and new laser-based rear-screen projection cubes. Vivitek’s General Manager EMEA for Vivitek, Holger Graeff, explained how Vivitek has leveraged their parent company, Delta Displays to make displays in every possible category including direct-view LCD, LED, pocket, front and rear projection and even a family of collaboration solutions in the NovoConnect. They’ll be in Hall 5 Stand R60 at the ISE Show in Amsterdam next month with everything!
You may not have heard about Multitaction but Guinness Book or World Records has as they own the award for the world’s largest multi-touch display. Multitaction will be at ISE to demo two new software apps — SHOWCASE and CANVUS that help make collaboration simple and sharable worldwide. This is the kind of product that every AV integrator around the world should be integrating as it creates a virtual digital canvas out of any display — so make sure you schedule a stop in Hall 11 and Stand F170 at next month’s ISE show in Amsterdam as they’ll not only be demoing both their hardware and software solutions, but they’ll be giving away GoPros! Multitaction’s CEO, Pete Malcolm, joined Gary today on his podcast to talk about their ISE plans as well as how easy it is to get into the collaborative canvas market with CANVUS and SHOWCASE.
Gary used today’s Rants and rAVe’s to talk about his upcoming webinar — next Tuesday at 2pm EST. The webinar, part of the rAVe Almo ProAV webinar partnership, is based on his popular annual Krystal Ball predictions article — the 2018 edition was published here. The webinar will go in a bit more depth than he can in a 2000-word editorial and he’ll not only explore the technology that will drive 2018 but also the tech and service brands that will change our market. The 2018 sponsor of the Krystal Ball webinar is LG Business Solutions — makers of one of the most popular technologies of 2017: OLED.
Last year at this time Justin Kennington, the SDVoE Alliance‘s President, was making ISE Show preparation in hopes that he’d have enough 10Gig AV-over-IP gear to show in his stand this year, he’s got over 30 Alliance members and over 60 products that all send AV over a 10Gig IP network and a new switch, from NETGEAR that’s specifically designed to handle up to 96 inputs or outputs – a veritable virtual (or network-based) matrix switch. The SDVoE Alliance will be in Hall 3 in stand B150 with two live demos – one will be a 1Gig vs 10Gig shoot-out and the other will be a technology demo with AV running over an IP network where the AV content has zero effect on the IT content. In addition, they’ll hold over 10 educational classes (including some with AVIXA CTS RUs) at ISE. Justin explained all this as well as his vision for the future of AV-over-IP on today’s podcast! Listen as he talks about his competition, his partners and how he thinks this will all develop in the future.
Semtech acquired the core technology company that invented the AV-over-IP 10Gig system and standard that was once known as AptoVision. Gary was joined by Semtech’s Vice President & General Manager, Kamran Ahmed, of the AptoVision products, on today’s podcast to give Gary an update on how the acquisition is going and how Semtech sees the future of AV-over-IP. Semtech will be part of the SDVoE Alliance stand at the ISE Show next month in Amsterdam and you see their technology in Hall 3 in stand B150. In the meantime, listen to Kamran vision of it all on today’s podcast!
NETGEAR, a founding member of the SDVoE Alliance and best known for they networking products, is heading to the ISE Show in Amsterdam with a new network switch specifically aimed at making AV-over-IP easier. Their new 2U high M4300-96X is a scalable and modular network switch with 48 ports of built-in 10Gig fiber (or 24 post of 40Gig fiber) and modular ports for up to 96 10Gig ports. Debuting int ISE in stand 3-B150, NETGEAR’s Senior Product Line Manager for Switches, Laurant Masia, used rAVe RADIO to explain how it works, what NETGEAR’s plans are and how they see the future of AV-over-IP.
Listen to today’s podcast and make plans to go by and see the M4300-96X at ISE in the SDVoE Alliance stand (3-B150) so you’ll understand where AV-over-IP is headed and how to spec it.
Gary was joined today by Wyrestorm‘s EMEA Director of Sales, James Meredith. Wyrestorm’s one of the few companies in the AV industry that has AV-over-IP at all data rates – from H.264 to 10Gig (SDVioE). And, they’ll be at ISE in stand 5-S60 demoing it all. Wyrestorm actually debuted their first AV-over-IP system almost five years ago and are a member of the SDVoE Alliance.
Gary was joined by Nureva‘s CEO, Nancy Knowlton, today who used rAVe RADIO to announce some exciting plans for ISE 2018. At this year’s show, Nureva will announce a new software release as well as a new version of their SPAN system. In addition, Nureva will use ISE 2018, next month in Amsterdam, to launch new dual HDL300 system powered by their Microphone Mist technology. But, there’s more. Listen to today’s podcast and make sure you mark Hall 13 stand D110 on your ISE map as their digital canvas-based SPAN system and audio system has formed a collaboration ecosystem that every integrator and AV tech manager will appreciate.
Please listen and, afterwards, take a look at Nureva’s product line here.
Almo’s Audio Business Manager, Steve Alexander, joined Gary on his podcast today to talk about the A part of AV. Why is it? What’s the future of audio? And, who are the leading companies? This podcast answers all of that and why Dante is dominating networking audio everything.
NEC Display’s, Rich Ventura, was just re-elected as Chair of the DSF – Digital Signage Foundation. The DSF is the only not-for-profit independent voice of the digital signage industry and they have helped the DS market explode. Gary speaks to Rich about their 2018 plans, where the digital signage market opportunities are and how you can get involve in one of the fastest growing segments of AV.
Few projector companies have both types of SSD lighting technologies – Laser and LED and have both LCD and DLP technology. But, Hitachi does. Gary’s joined by Almo ProAV’s Business Development Manager, Todd Heberlein, who explains the Hitachi projector philosophy and lineup.
Most agree that, eventually, AV will be over IP. But, it will take time. However, some manufacturers already have AV-over-IP solutions and products and Gary was joined on today’s podcast by Almo ProAV’s, Eric Olson, to discuss who is doing what and how much AV you can send over IP.
Yesterday, Gary’s podcast was all about NEC’s ThinkHub – today, Gary talks to Almo ProAV’s Brian Rhatigan about the trend of Collaboration Board replacing both flat-panel LCDs and projectors in small meeting rooms. What’s next? Listen and see what Brian thinks…
NEC’s ThinkHub has quietly become one of, if not THE hottest collaboration boards on the market. While Microsoft’s Surface HUB and Google’s Jamboard have gotten all the press, NEC’s partnership with T1V has recently become the AV industry’s favorite collaboration system. Gary was joined by Almo Pro A/V’s John Wills today to talk ThinkHub.
With their new product UniSee, Barco is doing something that no company’s ever done in the video wall market – launching a turn-key product that includes a completely bezel-less 55” LCD monitor integrated with a purpose-built mount (specifically for UniSee) and integrated with a modular electronics design. Yes, it’s three things in one: a native 1080p panel with NO BEZEL, a mount that’s specifically made for the 55” UniSee panel that’s designed so that ONE PERSON can install an entire video wall without ANY previous video wall integration experience and, by the way, the power and input electronics are integrated into the mount.
Yes, it sounds like a lot but it’s built this way to simplify video wall integration. And, when we say bezel-less, it’s literally bezel-less – not virtually bezel-less. When integrated as a video wall, the separation between UniSee pixels, from one display to the next, is 1.09mm – right now, the LCD with the smallest bezel is nearly 3mm separation between pixels.
Want to hear more? Listen to today’s podcast with Barco’s VP Sales Enterprise, Hans Dekeyser, as he explains how they make it (where the LCD factory is – no, they don’t OEM this monitor, they make it -and the mount- themselves) and how the modular design simplifies installation. And, afterwards, check out the PDF brochure on UniSee here. And, the UniSee lineup is all here.
When was the last time you installed a system in a room or facility without high-speed internet service? 1998? Well, that was the impetus for Almo ProAV’s CONNECT service — you’re selling AV systems that are connected to the network – and soon, they’ll be AV-over-IP; so, why not sell the network bandwidth too?
Gary was joined by Almo’s Rob Voorhees who talks CONNECT — which includes high-speed internet and even IP-phone service, too. And, of course, it allows integrators to have a recurring revenue stream from the service they resell to their clients. Listen here!
The biggest buzz in direct-view display technology right now in the market is coming from people fawning over LG Commercial’s OLED technology. OLED is finally ready for primetime and LG’s lineup is the world’s largest including their most famous: the Wallpaper display. They also have traditional OLED displays for digital signage, dual-sided OLED and more coming. Gary caught up with Almo ProAV‘s LG expert, Corinne O’Rawe and talks all-OLED! Listen to this podcast to find out how Almo ProAV can help you!
Back with flat-panel TV’s first started being sold, you’d never consider a consumer TV for a proAV application. But, now, the consumer displays and commercial TVs are made in the same faculty and, in some cases, on the same assembly line. Sure, if you’ve got a mission-critical display, a digital signage application or a 24/7 monitor need, you’d be crazy to specify a consumer TV, but for just about everything else, TV’s work!
In fact, the most popular consumer display in ProAV is probably the Samsung line of LCDs and now their new line of QLEDs. Gary caught up with Almo ProAV’s Maureen Mead on today’s podcast to talk about this trend and when to (and when not to) use a consumer TV in meeting rooms, classroom and boardrooms. Almo ProAV sells both the Samsung consumer and professional monitor line and you can see them here: http://www.almoproav.com
Prysm today announced two new native apps for its digital workplace platform: one for Microsoft Windows 10-based devices using the Universal Windows Platform (UWP) and the other for iPhones. The new apps can be used with Prysm’s existing room and web-access solutions to provide a single user experience tailored to how connected teams and individuals visualize and work with their preferred devices, applications and content.
The company also announced its Autumn ’17 software release, featuring integration with six key identity providers to offer enterprises more control when issuing Prysm user licenses to employees.
Gary caught up with Prysm’s director of product marketing, David Schweer, and he explained how this is an opportunity for the AV integration community. We agree! And, we intend to adopt it here at rAVePubs and dump Slack.
Today, we reported that Harman Professional laid-off about 650 people. This includes over 60 people from AMX. Let’s work together to help these people find new jobs. The industry is growing so you must want to hire great people. Let’s make it happen! Listen to this podcast and then comment below if you’re wanting to hire somebody.
In today’s podcast, Gary ponders the question, “IF” Crestron were for sale – who could afford them and who would be interested in buying them? Listen for his opinion and then give us yours by commenting!
Peerless-AV will use CEDIA 2017 to debut some new outdoor TV’s, a new addition to their Peer-Air family of products and to raise a little money for charity. Gary was joined by Peerless-AV’s Managing Director, Earl Naegele today on his podcast who not only talked about their participation in their Queen of Hearts fundraiser, but also their new UV492 49” 4K resolution outdoor display. Peerless-AV is in booth 5008 this year at CEDIA which takes place September 5-9 at the San Diego Convention Center.
In today’s podcast, Gary offers a complete solution to Microsoft woes in the Collaboration Board space. What’s his opinion? He thinks they should get out of the hardware business – listen and hear what he thinks the solution is…
How does the new sound masking system from Plantronics work? Listen to today’s podcast and you’ll understand.
InfoComm 2017 saw well over 400 new products launched in Orlando last month. But, Gary’s got his top 11. Here’s sneak peek at what he’ll unveil during next week’s webinar with AlmoProAV!
You can register for the Almo webinar here.
You may not have been able to attend InfoComm, but you can still learn what the top-11 things that Gary Kayye, founder of rAVe [Publications] and 25-year AV-veteran, saw there this year. The InfoComm show has been the bellwether for the AV market for years. Every new technology launches there and virtually every major manufacturer exhibits there. Want to know what Gary thinks will be the next big thing — or next big 11 things — in the ProAV market? This webinar will review the hottest things from InfoComm 2017 — products and technologies.
Gary was joined by Vivitek’s Director Global Product Marketing, James Hsu, who took the time to review their InfoComm presence. Vivitek is only nine years old and already has one of the largest lines of displays in the market. Their InfoComm launches included an interactive NovoTouch monitor line, 18,000 lumen projectors, a new 4K resolution line or projectors for the both HomeAV and ProAV markets and a lot more. Listen as James reviews it on on today’s podcast and, if you want to be a dealer for Vivitek, go to: https://www.vivitekusa.com for North America or to http://www.vivitek.eu if you are in the EMEA.
Leyard’s Jennifer Davis joined Gary on his Rants and rAVe’s podcast today for a bit of an InfoComm wrap-up podcast. Their PLTS (Pliable LED Touch Surface) LED surface was the most popular use of LED at InfoComm and because they had a 16-foot wide LED wall in their booth (with 32-point touch) it was interesting to see so many people touching it simultaneously. It’s available on their 0.9mm and 1.2mm pixel pitches and its patent pending.
In addition to using InfoComm for the North American debut of their new HDL-300 audio system, Nureva had a secret suite there to talk about (and demo) both new products and features. Nancy Knowlton, Nureva’s co-founder and CEO, joined Gary today on his Rants and rAVe’s podcast to discuss both — and how you can become a dealer!
Get ready for the industry’s one and only ultra short-throw laser projector in the form of two new versions of the Epson BrightLink line. BrightLink is their Interactive line of short-throw projectors and Epson, this morning, rolled out one aimed at education and one aimed at corporate applications in the form of the BrightLink 710Ui and BrightLink Pro 1470Ui, respectively.
The BrightLink 1470Ui is a WUXGA (1920 x 1200) resolution, 4000 Lumen projector with white boarding, Miracast and enterprise-level encryption. The BrightLink 710Ui is 4000 lumens, also WUXGA and has a 20K hour lamp life.
Both of these were discussed – as well as some 4K surprises at InfoComm – including a new 15,000 lumen 4K projector that runs on 120 volt power! Listen to Gary’s interview with Epson’s Jason Meyer who talks about their InfoComm booth #1642.
Epson’s new BrightLink line is here.
The new 4K 15K lumen projector is here.
Last week, in an acquisition that was barely mentioned by the AV trades, Econocom Group purchased 100 percent of BIS Group, an AV and Smart Buildings integrator mostly focused in the Netherlands and Belgium. And, Econocomm also purchased a 40 percent stake in JTRS, an Apple and Google partner focused in the education market in the UK, as well as 100 percent of LP Digital in France, a digital strategy consulting firm.
I had a podcast today with both BIS CEO Overbeek, as well as BIS Marketing Director Erwin Hout today to discuss — as, like I said, this acquisition signals the future is now.
InFocus will be at InfoComm re-launching their new cloud-based VC service called ConX Cloud. InFocus’ Director of Product Marketing, Glynn Jystad was on this podcast and explained that ConX Cloud is free for a 3-seat license and a 10-seat option is only $8 per month and a 50-seat license is less than $10 per month. They’ll be demonstrating ConX Cloud at InfoComm in booth 1343. Because it’s SIP-based and Cloud-based, each user gets their private, dedicated room number and it will connect any device that’s SIP-capable.
InFocus’ most popular product, the Mondopad, sort-of invented the Collaboration Board market with its debut, nearly a half-dozen years ago, at InfoComm and they’ll be on display – both in 1080p and 4K form-factors – at their booth #1343 this week. A new Mondopad called Flex will debut at InfoComm and it has dual-40” screens and can be mounted in various flexible (hence the name, Flex) configurations. You’ll want to go by the InFocus booth and see this! Of course, InFocus is here.
Gary caught up with BrightSign founder, Jeff Hastings today, as he literally heading out the door to fly to Orlando for InfoComm. BrightSign is in booth 443 at InfoComm and they’ll be highlighting their embedded signage options, their OPS signage capabilities and the most complete lineup of digital signage players in the universe. I asked Jeff what the difference is between what they do and how the industry is moving to AV-over-IP and his answer is interesting and telling – maybe even foreshadowing their future. I hope you’ll listen!
BrightSign is here: http://www.brightsign.biz
Dataton is best known for WATCHOUT. WATCHOUT is, by far, the easiest, fastest and most reliable way to create giant, live presentations – from the smallest conference gig all the way to image mapping the most famous buildings in the world or the court at the NCAA Final-4 Basketball tournament, WATCHOUT can do it. Gary was joined on today’s Rants and rAVe’s podcast by Marty Karp of Dataton’s master distributor here in the USA, Show Sage who talked about WATCHOUT and why it’s not just for large live events — many multi-imaging digital signage retail applications and museum shows are managed via WATCHOUT. At InfoComm, Dataton will debut the WATCHPAX 20 – a dual-4K output player version of WATCHOUT. You can see Dataton here. Listen to my podcast with Marty below!
Gary was joined by Sony’s Rick Perkins this morning on his Rants and rAVe’s podcast to rAVe about the new Sony Vision Exchange. Vision Exchange is one of those products you have to see it demo’d to really see all the features. It basically turns any lecture hall or classroom in a college into a wireless multi-collaboration system. It’s wired and wireless (there’s a two input or four input version) and up to 60 total sources can be connected with as many as six displayed simultaneously on one or two displays in the room (projectors or monitors). In addition, Vision Exchange includes white boarding, annotation, control and even multi-site collaboration (between rooms or from remote locations). Vision Exchange will be at InfoComm in Sony’s booth (#2200) and i you do higher education, you’ll want to sit through a demo at the show. Here’s a link to a PDF brochure on Vision Exchange.
At the ISE show in Amsterdam earlier this year, Kramer launched Kramer Control – their cloud-based control system that they say is easier to program (or is pre-programmed) than traditional control systems. I asked Itai Ben Gal of Kramer’s control group to join me on today’s Rants and rAVe’s podcast to talk about what makes Kramer’s control solution different from the big-3 in control today. Kramer will have their control solutions in booth 2930 this year at InfoComm as well as 30+ other new products. In the meantime, you can check out Kramer Control here: http://control.kramerav.com
WolfVision will use booth 3801 at InfoComm to launch Microsoft 365 integration with their Cynap line — calling the new version, appropriately, Cynap 365. The Linux-based Cynap can play, display, record, and stream all commonly used media simultaneously during meetings, lectures, and collaborative sessions. WolfVision’s RSM, Jason Dovel, was on this edition of Gary’s Rants and rAVe’s podcast and he not only explains the new Cynap 365 but also their dealer certification program. If you aren’t a dealer for Cynap, you should definitely check it out as the product has won two Best of InfoComm awards from rAVe!
Gary was joined on this edition of his Rants and rAVe’s podcast by Anchor Audio‘s Cy Bates who talks about a very cool NBC Studios live demo Anchor did (you can watch that demo here) as well as their plans for InfoComm 2017 — including an in-booth game as well as a happy-hour that takes place both Wednesday and Thursday afternoon in booth 6061.
Sharp is in booth 3401 and is heading to InfoComm with a plethora of new products the year. But, specifically, their focus on digital signage will obvious this year. They are one of the first companies to integrate the Mini OPS standard but also have a system on a chip (SoC) option, too. Gary Bailer, Sharp’s Director of Product Planning and Marketing joined Gary on his Rants and rAVe podcast to talk about all the new gear that will debut at InfoComm — including the world’s largest video wall monitor.
In this edition of Gary’s Rants and rAVe’s podcast, Altia Systems the PanaCast camera people, hints at a big addition at InfoComm. Gary talks to Aurangzeb Khan, President and CEO, of Altia Systems (exhibiting in booth 3770) and after a big ISE, they are coming to InfoComm with the PanaCast 2 – 180-degree, panoramic USB 4K camera with auto-switching – and the new product, clearly hinted here in this podcast – listen and see if you can figure it out?!?
Absen is known in the Rental and Staging market but not yet in installs. But, as Gary Fuller their senior advisor, tells Gary on today’s Rants and rAVe’s podcast, they intend to change that at InfoComm later this month. Absen has beefed up their US support staff – more than doubling in size, hired a few well-known Barco and Christie alumnus and has launched a new M Series in preparation of an all-new Absen roll-out at InfoComm. Listen o today’s podcast and make plans to stop by their booth, 931, at InfoComm.
Media Solutions, founded by two Valens alumni, has the best HDBaseT test tool ever – it’s called the MS-TestPro and it is specifically designed for AV integrators to help them identify and solve HDBaseT connectivity and compatibility issues. The company, started by Eliran Toren & Ariel Marcus is all about HDBaseT. And, the tester is a godsend for AV integrators – every single integrator needs one of these in their install kits. On today’s Rants and rAVe’s podcast, Gary is raving about their product as they give a real-time demo of how the $1395 US product works. They will be at InfoComm in booth 3761. Watch the videocast interview below!
Gary was joined on today’s podcast by Justin Kennington — the president of the SDVoE (Software Defined Video Over Ethernet) Alliance. There are nearly 20 members of the alliance that (sort of) is trying to standardize the way that AV is sent via IP. Most of the companies are network-based AV signal distribution companies using the AptoVision chip technology for providing 10G AV-over-IP systems to the market. But, not all members are – some are display manufacturers (e.g. Sony), some are network switch companies (e.g. Netgear) and some are chip manufacturers (e.g. XILINX). Justin explains what the Alliance is doing now and when/where he sees the future of AV-over-IP in the future. SDVoE is at InfoCom in booth 3729.
Very few AV-over-IP system manufacturers have products that send video and audio over a network using both the the major compression technologies – JPEG 2000 and AptoVision BlueRiver NT. But, iMAGsystems is one of them. iMAGsystems, exhibiting in booth 3987 at InfoComm this year, doesn’t just sell you AV-over-IP systems but educated you on what the different wats there are to do it and let’s you choose the right compression for your application. I was joined on my special InfoComm 2017 lead-up podcast today by iMAGsystems founder, Gerry Raffaut who explains why they aren’t set on only one way to deliver video across a network. iMAGsystems is a good place to stop on your AV-over-IP InfoComm tour this year as, since they sell both JPEG 2000 compression-based systems as well as AptoVision 10Gbps over IP systems, you’ll get an honest evaluation of both compression technologies and your can see the compression for yourself as they always do side-by-side demos.
All touch screen display have glass overlays — except a display using PLTS (Pliable LED Touch Surface). PLTS is the surface that Leyard Planar actually invented to make LED multi-touch (using 32-point touch) work. Jennifer Davis, Leyard Planar’s CMO, joined Gary on his podcast today to explain exactly how PLTS works, as well as talk about what the company will be showing in booth 3200 at InfoComm in Orlando in June. That includes a totally new control room display and a showcase of Planar Leyard’s extreme narrow bezel displays. Jennifer also hinted of an InfoComm launch of a creative architectural display — listen and see if you can figure it out!
Gary was joined on today’s podcast by FSR Senior Sales Engineer, George Fournier, today who talked about their InfoComm presence in booth 3843. As you will hear, it’s all about power – and HDBaseT, Huddle Room Furniture, and their Huddle BLOX solutions. We got a sneak peek at some of their InfoComm launches earlier in the week and posted that story here but if you listen to today’s podcast, George tells you about what’s being featured this year. And, of course, you can see all of their AV gear at http://www.fsrinc.com