Digital Projection officials are understandably proud of the Ultra Contrast Display demo they have running in their booth (N6340). The demo uses contrast enhanced versions of their Titan and Lightning 1080p projectors stacked and configured to offer what looked, to my eye, to be a gorgeous and dynamic presentation. The philosophy of Digital Projection’s booth is to let all the front displays as you enter the booth fully embrace ambient light from the hall and celebrate their capabilities in that fashion. But in the demo theater, the Ultra Contrast displays were cooking up to a 5000:1 contrast range in real pretty ways. Marketing Manager Michael Bridwell was understandably jazzed about the demo, and also the performance of the new Titan Pro 700 series of projectors and their redesigned chassis, designed to permit some pretty radical projector configurations in various types of staging scenarios. 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

Just had a nice tutorial from Soundcraft/Studer exec Keith Watson about the art and science of user ergonomics when it comes to audio console development. Keith was explaining why Soundcraft’s new, free Virtual Vi offline editor software for the company’s Vi Series of consoles is an important tool for audio engineers. The notion is that they can program consoles using software on their laptops even when they are physically apart from the console, and then simply download those settings to the console later on. The software essentially replicates exactly the user interface on the console itself. more…

Pioneer is pushing its plasma KURO brand industrial monitors (50-inch and 60-inch) at its booth (N5661) by demonstrating them side-by-side with the consumer versions of those monitors (not much image difference that I can see, but then, my eyes aren’t that reliable–the differences are more about size, inputs/outputs and what-not).

The company has also placed the newest KUROs in all their glory next to older models of Pioneer Plasmas dating all the way back to 1997. In just barely over 10 years, as the demo and the detailed timeline that accompanies it (which details Pioneer’s innovations in Plasma technology going back to 1991) illustrate, general image quality, particularly in black levels, has dramatically improved, while energy consumption has greatly decreased. I found it an interesting reminder of how rapidly technology in the display arena is evolving.

–MG

AMX (C2902), active as always at InfoComm, offered lots of highlights to think about in keeping with the trends I’ve been watching the last couple of days. In particular, the company’s “Making Technology Green� presentation caught my eye. AMX’s approach to power monitoring and data analysis within a control interface is built on its Meeting Manager technology (version 3.28 debuted at InfoComm this week). It essentially gives administrators the ability to monitor and analyze power consumption, establish rules for power use, and receive notifications when those rules are violated—among other highlights.

AMX executive Robert Noble also emphasized the obvious—that globalization is, indeed, real. He said that AMX’s business currently is almost 50% international at this point, and that number he fully expects to grow. He confided that the Burj Dubai tower, the world’s newest tallest building, has been specked out to include, according to Noble, “hundreds of AMX systems.â€? more…

Avocent is certainly blowing the wireless technology horn when it comes to possibilities for digital signage. The company introduced Wednesday its Emerge MPX 1500T HD multipoint extender transmitter as its latest offering in this category. Basically, it’s a smaller than ever before wireless transmitter for distributing HD content from one source to multiple destinations.

Avocent executive Matt Nelson told me improvements in such technology in recent months have made wireless a much more attractive option in the signage game, largely because of the speed of deployment of such systems and improvements to Avocent’s web interface and system management software, allowing long-range management. more…

Just back from the massive Crestron booth (N5600), where marketing manager Jeff Singer squired me around several new products and initiatives, which wasn’t easy considering Cresetron has something like 70 new products on display at InfoComm. Jeff had some definite thoughts on major industry trends and pointed me to how Crestron is addressing them. In particular, the following caught my attention:

*Jeff filled me in on Crestron’s new Research Center, which opened a few months ago in a new building on 3,000 square feet of land at Crestron’s headquarters in New Jersey, with over 300 fulltime hardware and software engineers working there. The Center was designed to be an AV research center for Crestron as it dives into new products. Singer says manufacturers of other technologies have even made inquiries about renting time in the facility to do their own research. more…

Middle Atlantic‘s new, modular booth (C3403) features, among other things, the prominent introduction of the company’s brand new tagline–”Exceptional Support and Protection Products.” Company executive Kevin Handerson had a chuckle explaining the internal discussions (debates) that go into making such changes in describing the company and what it does. But he used the topic to bend my ear for a few moments on the topic of “the little things” in the pro AV world.

Little things like keyboard racks and foldout screens that don’t need to be angled to fit into a rack, and different length plugs engineered specifically to address typical, annoying problems. And the company’s new Duct Cool Long Pull Ventilation System which, despite its long name, is an interesting ventilation product for cooling equipment in residential scenarios with very little noise. None of the products Kevin showed me were, by his own admission, “headline stuff.” Instead, they were designed to improve on existing technologies, solve specific problems, or improve efficiency in certain situations. He calls this “the little stuff” that typically can give AV pros headaches. He pointed out there is lots of “little stuff” in our industry, much of which is being addressed here at InfoComm this week.

–MG