Kramer‘s Max Kopsho is a dead ringer for Rod Serling, but Kramer’s new gear is definitely not stuck in the Twilight Zone. Several new units have taken the spotlight at the show this morning including the 670T/670R fiber-optic transmitter/receivers for HDMI fiber optic audio and video conveyance. Joining them are the 871T/871R pair for DVI video over fiber. The competition is this field is fierce and Kramer certainly hasn’t backed away from it. It’s also unveiling the 873T/873R pair for carrying four separate video channels in 3G HD-SDI over fiber. Products such as this have generated quite a bit of interest on the show floor already and Max is in the middle of a big crowd right now with these tiny units.

Press release

Sony Electronics is highlighting its full line of LCD projectors at InfoComm 2009 (booth # 4761). The projectors include affordable compact entry-level models; units designed specifically for education; mobile and premium models, basic and advanced installation units and projectors designed for larger venues. Read on at The Briefing Room

More InfoComm 09 news from The Briefing Room

I talked a bit with automatic mic mixer inventor Dan Dugan, and he did a demo of his Model E-1 automatic mic mixer controller. This unit connects to any mixer that has insert patch points and turns it into an eight channel automatic mixer. The operation has gone way past the old mechanical style alogrithms of days gone by. The E-1 shows the gain it’s doing on an LED ladder and keeps a low level background sound constant so there’s no distracting pumping and jumping that you have with lesser auto mixers. Would you expect anything less from the guy who invented the whole concept? The E-1 can be connected in groups of 8 up to 64 channels and no matter if it’s one or several units working, the function is very natural, just like a real, experienced audio guy would handle it.

Aidan Williams and his crew have their own booth at this year’s show, and they expect big thing to be coming up soon for Dante, their audio networking protocol. Yamaha will be marketing mixers with a new Dante card than enables 16 audio channels on one Cat-5 cable, and the price is surprisingly low… very entry level cost. Bosch has included Dante networking, and the list of Audinate partners continues to grow. July’s Networked AV Podcast will feature a conversation with CTO Aidan Williams discussing how Dante works and what’s coming up for their Austrailian company.

Day One at InfoComm…
Despite a less-than-wonderful economic climate, InfoComm 09 opened decently at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Fla. The organization predicted 28,000 attendees visiting 850 exhibitors over three days. Randal Lemke, InfoComm International‘s executive director, estimated that two-thirds of the attendees are systems integrators and the rest are technology managers and end users, following a pattern that’s developed over the last five years.

Some good news came early in the day. At Harman International‘s morning press conference Michael MacDonald, Harman Professional Group executive vice president of sales and marketing, told reporters that the professional products group’s revenues had stabilized and that the end of fiscal year 2009 would show a profit, with the fiscal year 2010 budget on a solid footing. MacDonald also hinted at possible merger and aquisition activity in the near future, but the comment that drew the most notice for this audience was that expectations of increased revenues would increase advertising and marketing budgets. Because of its size and sector diversity, Harman is considered a bellwether on the pro audio side of systems installation and integration, so MacDonald’s comment suggests the industry might see growth returning before the end of the calendar year. more…

Canon has a cool demo going on at its booth (5249) for the next generation of the Realis WUX10 projector. The WUX10 Mark II D prototype (expected to ship in October), in DICOM Simulation mode, is being promoted specifically for medical teaching (not diagnosis, the Canon guys emphasized out of an abundance of caution) applications.

The demo (1920×1200 resolution via Canon’s LCoS and AISYS technologies) is impressive, with gamma adjustable and grayscale detail that medical professionals will probably find even more impressive than I did.

Canon is showing various Realis configurations for all sorts of applications in its various demos—immersive in a dome, 3D, medical, and much more. Worth taking a gander at during your InfoComm wanderings.

—MG

As InfoComm 09 launched this morning, I immediately ran into an old friend, Marc Lopez of Yamaha. Marc pointed out how big a deal digital audio networking is to a manufacturer like Yamaha, and said as of InfoComm 09, that most new Yamaha hardware is now networkable with Audinate‘s Dante protocol. A formal press conference at the Audinate booth (5842) Wednesday will have more details, but Yamaha will start distributing a new Dante nework format card in September. It’s a format Marc says Yamaha “sees a lot of potential in. We are now fluid in the langauge of Dante.”

As is Yamaha with all other legitimate network protocols. And Yamaha has a variety of other software news going on this year, such as its new DME software update (DME v. 3.5). The boys in Yamaha’s labs, he admits, spend much of their time these days on software design and development even though the company will always be known first and foremost as a hardware manufacturer. These days, those two missions are hopelessly, and permanently, intertwined. more…

Press release

Bretford Manufacturing has introduced the first laptop computer carts smart enough to protect and preserve the valuable technology equipment inside of them. Developed primarily for educational environments, Bretford’s new Intelligent Laptop Computer carts incorporate a sophisticated Power Management System (patent pending), or “brain” that decreases heat and electrical stresses while proportionally distributing power to the laptops, thereby lengthening battery life. Production models of the Intelligent Laptop Computer carts will be shown in booth #5281 during InfoComm 09, June 17–19, at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Fla. Read on at The Briefing Room

More InfoComm 09 news from The Briefing Room

Press release

MediaMatrix by Peavey (InfoComm 09 exhibit #5649) proudly announces the new nTouch series control interfaces, consisting of touchscreen interactive controllers designed for remotely controlling audio systems designed in MediaMatrix NWare software for the NION platform. The nTouch 180 and nTouch 60 feature full-color, resistive touchscreen panels that measure approximately 7in. (180mm) and 2.4in. (60mm) diagonally, respectively. The nTouch panels display and control projects hosted on a MediaMatrix NION or nControl processor. Read on at The Briefing Room

More InfoComm 09 news from The Briefing Room

Press release

Christie Digital Systems has announced the launch of two new 1-chip DLP projectors, the Christie DHD700 and the Christie DS+750, at InfoComm 09 in Orlando, Fla. This new generation of single-chip DLP projectors offer an exceptional balance between brightness and superior color, innovative design, and reliability for 24/7 applications. Backed by Christie’s renowned service and support, the Christie DHD700 and the Christie DS+750 are ideal for environments that require flexibility, superior DLP presentation and video-image quality. Read on at The Briefing Room

More InfoComm 09 news from The Briefing Room