David Rodgers, Marketing Manager for Elite Screens, has seen the Pro AV channel adopt Elite’s highest end home theater products. “I’m getting a growing number of requests from the corporate executive level,” Rodgers explains, saying that integrators will come to him looking to outfit CEO office and boardrooms in lux style with premium grade screens. “They want it to be the kind of place where Robert de Niro would in a chair getting things done. It’s theater. They see their offices as part of the diplomatic experience of their company.” As a result, the Cinetension 2 and Home 2 series lines (released end of last year) are moving through the commercial channels as well as the home theater channels. (Might be time to come up with some new names to suit the corporate channel). more…

At NAB, Broadcast Pix introduced three key upgrades to their line—in some ways these upgrades are even more pertinent to the InfoComm market, which sees them for the first time this week.

First: The introduction of an intermediate 2ME control surface. So now you can configure the system with either a soft touch screen, a compact 1ME, or the more expansive 2ME. Russell Whittaker, VP of Sales says the key difference between the 1ME and 2ME is not so much processing features and ease of use. There is more room to spread out the channels and subroutines. Also of course the 2ME config allows presentation users to dedicate 1ME to projectors and the other to broadcast (whether satellite or web). more…

The other day, I wrote about the start of the proliferation of Panasonic’s giant 103-in. Plasma displays. Today, I learned how they mount those suckers. It’s hard to miss, actually, if you visit the Premier Mounts booth (C2411). They have a huge suspended ceiling mount (the SCM-103 model) hanging over the booth from the Convention Center’s rafters, and they have a huge wall mount (the TWM-103 model) on the side of the booth labeled, to no one’s surprise, “the world’s largest tilt wall mount.”

Both are used to hang Panasonic jumbos, including the mall space examples in New Jersey and New York that I mentioned the other day. Considering those giant mounts are a niche application usable currently with only one kind of giant screen, though, I was curious how and why the product might be profitable for a company like Premier. more…

I kidded George Tsintzouras, Senior Product Manager for Business Products at Christie, today that he should make infommercials for a living. That joke was based on George’s incredible enthusiasm for Christie’s new M Series line of dual-lamp, 3-chip DLP projectors, directed at the AV market. Manufacturer representatives, after all, are supposed to be enthusiastic and I’ve heard some great sells over the years. But George was positively mesmerizing while discussing what Christie views as major breakthroughs with the M Series. George’s point is that the innovation inside the M Series units revolves around impressive advances in optics, allowing two lamps to produce 10,000 lumens out of a single projector.

But he also loves the weight (just 55-lbs.), swappable lamps, intelligent lens system with encoder-based motors, and much more. He was particularly jazzed, for instance, about the filter-free, dust-sealed engine design on the system. more…

Bryan Hinckley, Business Manager for US Products at Electrosonic, was tooting the video/graphics over IP horn during our visit today. He calls the notion of moving video great distance in IP fashion “the future,” in fact. The demo at the Electrosonic booth, conferencing in with a colleague giving out jelly beans at the Winsted booth across the Central Hall was, in fact, crystal clear. (And amusing–the system caught several of you purloining fistfuls of jellybeans when you thought no one was looking–no one, that is, but the Electrosonic system, of course.)

Hinckley’s point is that Electrosonic’s Wavelet-based VN-Matrix compression scheme, set up to transmit HD imagery with negligible latency at modest bandwidth through Electrosonic encoders and decoders, represents an approach growing in popularity for those interested in an affordable, easy-to-use method of communicating in real-time. Hinckley listed several applications for the technology, many of them already underway over the last few months, and promises more news about the technology in the near future.

–MG

At the FiberPlex booth I was taken on a tour into the LightViper Shadow system by Sam Spennachio. With a 19-inch rack hardware base, the LightViper Shadow system can send up to 128 separate channels of audio, video and intercom on a bi-directional fiber link with two fiber lines. Each channel’s activity is displayed with LED activity the brightness of which adjusts itself automatically to deal with the ambient light level. The Shadow system can also adjust the sampling rate of its audio transmission to match that of any system with which it happens to be working. Hot swappable redundant power supplies give the hardware a seemingly rock solid base for reliability and the mic preamps can be remotely adjusted in 1dB steps. This was an impressive demo. Stay tuned for the audio segment with Sam in the Infocomm edition of the AV over Fiber podcast.

Auralex Acoustics, an industry leader in innovative sound control solutions, introduces new Ceiling Tiles at this year’s InfoComm show (Booth C4984). Auralex’s premium acoustic Ceiling Tiles can easily be installed into new and existing drop and suspending ceiling grids, and are ideal for upgrading in-room sound quality by controlling ambient noise and reducing noise transmission. Read on at The Briefing Room

More InfoComm 08 news from The Briefing Room

I don’t think I’ve visited a small booth with as wide a range of products as Samson’s. The company makes field digital audio recorders that double as USB audio interfaces for laptop project studios. It makes an all-in-one, optionally battery powered portable 250W amp with an iPod dock. For, you know, street performers, outdoor festivals, radio station promotions, etc. There are affordable zoned audio systems for retail stores and dentists’ offices. S-Zone has a four-in, four-out analog matrix. This year that system gets a companion power amp ($350), a 120W/70V model called the S2480.

Also new in zoned audio for Samson is the ZM125 ($499). That’s a six-channel input, five-zone system that uses one monoblock amp (125W/70V). There’s a telephone output for music on hold. A very simple solution for many businesses that want a zoned system.

Finally, there’s a new tiny transmitter with a mic integrated into the unit. The idea is that for many applications, a lavalier with a cord is just too cumbersome. The Samson guys mentioned aerobics instructors who need voice amplification and ultimate mobility. The AirLine Synth is a frequency-agile model ($449) that operates at 800MHz. Check the picture for the size. The Samson reps also noted that AirLine is the microphone of choice for the carnival barkers on the Jersey Shore.

SoundTube Entertainment, a leading manufacturer of high-performance commercial sound systems, has adopted manufacturing techniques that meet the RoHS directive. RoHS is a European standard for manufacturing that includes “the restriction of the use of certain hazardous substances in electrical and electronic equipment”. In detail, the RoHS bans any new electrical equipment that contains more than the agreed to levels of lead, cadmium, mercury, hexavalent chromium, polybrominated biphenyl (PBB) and polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE). The RoHS directive and regulations came into force on July 1, 2006. Read on at The Briefing Room

More InfoComm 08 news from The Briefing Room

I just met with Wayne Alonzo of Azden, who’s showing a relatively new all-in-one assistive listening system that’s designed mainly for K-12 classrooms.

It’s not completely new - Alonzo says Azden has been OEM’ing all the components to other manufacturers for a few years, but this is a newly branded package from the company. The IR-CS Infrared system includes everything you’d need for a classroom: A pendant mic with an emitter, a handheld mic, a dual-channel receiver, an infrared sensor, and four 6.5in. ceiling speakers. (This assistive-listening system does not use individual receivers, as do those designed for the hearing impaired.) There’s also an IR-WS system that employs wall-mounted speakers. The cost for the systems are $1,200 and $1,100, respectively. more…