Welcome to another edition of rAVe!

Welcome to the annual rAVe InfoComm Awards. Here, we acknowledge the good, the bad and the ugly, as well as those products and companies that stood out because of their ingenuity, or lack thereof.

Also, our own Alex Gibson gives us a rundown on the Manufacturers Forum, of which I had the pleasure of hosting again this year. As always, it was full of insights from some of the industry's most significant movers. Be sure to attend next year! Now, enjoy the issue!

-Gary Kayye, CTS

Manufacturers Forum Addresses Exporting Labor, Standards and Survival of the Dealer By Alex Gibson Kayye Consulting

Moderated for the second year in a row by rAVe Columnist Gary Kayye, the panel consisted of Rashid Skaf, President and CEO of AMX Corporation, Mike Jones, VP and General Manager of Barco, Andrew Edwards,President of Extron Electronics Inc., Scott Gledhill, Director of Global Strategy for Meyer Sound Laboratories Inc., and Rick Snyder, President, Americas of TANDBERG.

The event is an opportunity for InfoComm attendees to gain insight into the industry from some of its most influential figures. During the panelists' opening remarks, they appeared to agree that the simplicity and ease-of-use of products would be of major importance in the market in the next few years. From all of the market niches represented came the same basic idea: the more simple your products and services are to understand, utilize, and execute, the more of those products and services you will be able to sell in the years to come.

A topic of interest to this audience was that of the state of the ProAV dealers five years from now. Rashid Skaf began by explaining his view that there currently are two types of dealers in the industry – those focusing generally on the price point of the products they sell and those focusing on the engineering and design of those products. Skaf made it clear that he believes that dealers must choose their focus and become better educated themselves in order to continue to survive. Scott Gledhill took this point a step further by explaining that dealers generally must choose between high-end and low-end, and that those that attempt to do both will not be able to remain solid.

On the topic of survival, Gary Kayye introduced the idea of China, Inc. to the discussion, asking panelists to comment on the value of companies offshoring jobs to other nations. This often angers and alienates Americans who see the practice as detrimental to themselves, their coworkers, or the American economy. In response to this criticism, Andrew Edwards simply stated to the moderator, "Well Gary, we've got to survive."

The final topic on the agenda was that of standards in the ProAV industry. Sparked by a question from an audience member, the topic was one on which the panelists did not agree. From the start, Edwards expressed his lack of desire to embrace the creation of new standards, explaining that Extron has been built in order to take all of the competing and complicated standards and allow customers to adapt them to their situation. Scott Gledhill expressed the difficulties facing the professional audio market by explaining how there are no real standards to which everyone adheres.

Overall, the forum was an informative and entertaining event that all InfoComm attendees should make a point to attend next year. It will be interesting to see what changes twelve months makes to the thoughts of the industry leaders.

Best Booth: Da-Lite's new booth was modern and creative

It’s hard to make screen’s exciting, but Da-Lite’s new booth did that!
Congratulations to whomever designed it.

For more information, go to

http://www.dalite.com

Best Seminar Presenter: Bill Sharer, President of Exxel Management

His professional style and presentation was incredible!

Best New Product InfoComm 2006: Christie's new DS+65, 6500 ANSI lumen, single-chip, SXGA+ DLP projector for the ProAV market

About three years ago, I was paid by a top-5 projector manufacturer (not Christie) to design the "perfect projector" for them. I wrote a specification that is almost identical to the Christie DS+65 projector. But, to make it even more perfect, Christie added Faroudja DCDi video processing.

http://www.christiedigital.com/products/DS65/DS65Overview.asp

Best New Flat-Panel Display: Sharp’s new PN-655

A 65" LCD that's native 1920 x 1080 resolution. It was stunning. I want one, badly.

http://www.sharpusa.com/about/AboutPressRelease/0,1130,C597,00.html

Best New Projector: (tie) Toshiba’s new ET20 and ProjectionDesign’s Action! 3 projector

Toshiba’s new ET20, all-in-one projector with a built-in DVD player - finally a nice design in an all-purpose DLP projector aimed at the Home Theater AND Educational markets. ProjectionDesign’s Action! 3 projector - a 1920 x 1080 3-chip DLP projector garnering over 2500 ANSI lumens and a $25,000 price tag.

Here is a press release for the ET20:

http://www.audioholics.com/news/pressreleases/toshibaET20projectorDVD.php

For the Action! 3, go to

http://www.projectiondesign.com/Default.asp?CatID=1178

Click above for more information

Overall Most Creative New Product: SoundTube’s new RS400i Open Ceiling pendent mount speaker.

This is super-cool as it’s small, hangs from a tiny wire and can be hidden in lighting systems that hang from a ceiling.

For the RS Series, go to:

http://www.soundtube.com/cgi-bin/main.cgi?Speakers=start&series=1

THE 2006 Company to Watch: NetStreams

With Mike Weems there and their move into ProAV signals via Ethernet networks, this is the "up-and-comer" to watch for the year!

http://www.netstreams.com/default.aspx

Best New Audio Product: Altec Lansing’s CommStar

This is a Cat5-based digital sound processor/system.

http://www.altecpro.com/commstar/index.htm

Best New Video Product: Coolux Media System’s Pandoras Box

This is edge-blending for the masses - affordably. I was blown away by what this little company was showing.

http://www.coolux.de/

Best New Conferencing Product: Polycom’s RPX system

Polycom has created the standard that other manufacturers will, no doubt, try to copy or certainly emulate.

http://www.polycom.com/solutions/0,1694,pw-15772-15773,00.html?trackID=15773&=pwHome/

Best New ProAV Networking Product: TIE -- Amimon and Avocent

A little-known company called Amimon demonstrated wireless HD-video transmission and display called WHDI - I was shocked seeing wireless 720p content from an HD-DVD player to a projector. The other winner is the Avocent wireless boxes (LV3500W). They looked awesome.

http://www.amimon.com/index.html

and

http://connectivity.avocent.com/products/longview%2Dwireless/

Click above for more information

Worst Show Uniforms: Tei’s red-headed models (the eGirls)

Tei’s red-headed models (the eGirls) with orange wigs and purple dresses. Don’t get it - not even fun to look at.

http://www.techelec.com/news/images/van_promo.jpg

Best Booth Giveaway: iPod’s

Worst Booth Giveaway: BoxLight’s foam bees

But, I have to admit, I did see a lot of people walking the floor with them. I wonder if they made it out of the hotel room after each attendee packed their bags to head home? But, hey, BumbleBee is the name of Boxlight's new projector so there was a reason behind it.

http://www.boxlight.com/projectors/projector_details.asp?PartNumber=BUMBLEBEE-000& =PROJECTORS

Best In-booth Presentation: The InfoComm press conference inside the PolyVision Thunder booth (VTC'ing in the Mayo Clinic)

Seamless VTC integration within PolyVision’s Collaborative market-killer product, Thunder.

http://www.ravepro.com/issues/2006/06/vol4iss12/index.html#d16

Worst Display of a Product on the InfoComm Show floor: 3LCD’s booth

What the heck is going on there? You’ve got TI’s DLP booth: very professional, very impressive and logical. Then, you’ve got the 3LCD booth: an illogical display of last-year’s technology that was literally manned by NO ONE. Are they clueless? Here you have some of the largest LCD manufacturers in the world supporting the 3LCD campaign and no one cares. They need to make us care or we’re all going to go buy DLP just to spite them...

http://www.3lcd.com/eg/psr/2006/psr_060616_e.html

Click above for more information

No Starbucks? No Seattle’s Best? What’s the deal - the breakfast options all sucked - Hey, Crestron: PLEASE BRING BACK BREAKFAST!

B-Line Diner at the Peabody Hotel across the street from the Convention Center.

Classy, well choreographed and great food!

(Tie) Again a tie between last year’s winners, Crestron (this year with Earth, Wind & Fire) and Texas Instruments (with Pat Benatar).

THE InfoComm Party - the best part of this was, InfoComm VP Jason McGraw singing on the stage with the Smithereens, but the rest of it was BORING. The sound quality was bad, the group was unimpressive and the food was blah.

In this case, the product looked fairly impressive (running DVI over a kilometer of fiber and then 600-feet of Cat6 cable), but the demo of it looked as if Magenta literally decided the day before the show to display this product. The Infinea DVI has sales potential, however. Not perfect, but it doesn't have to be.

Well, that's it for this edition of rAVe! Thank you for spending time with me as we muse the industry's happenings. To continue getting my newsletter, or to sign up a friend, click the link below. To send me feedback, don't reply to this newsletter - instead, write to me at gkayye@kayye.com or for editorial: Denise Harrison at dharrison@kayye.com

A little about me: Gary Kayye, CTS, founder of Kayye Consulting. Gary Kayye, an audiovisual veteran and columnist, began the widely-read KNews, a premier industry newsletter, in the late 1990s, and created the model for and was co-founder of AV Avenue - which later became InfoComm IQ. Kayye Consulting is a company that is committed to furthering the interests and success of dealers, manufacturers, and other companies within the professional audiovisual industry.

Gary Kayye's rAVe was launched in February 2003. The new rAVe Home Edition, co-sponsored by CEDIA, launched in February, 2004.

To read more about my background, our staff, and what we do, go to http://www.kayye.com

Copyright 2006 - Kayye Consulting - All rights reserved. For reprint policies, contact Kayye Consulting, 400 Meadowmont Village Circle, Suite 425 - Chapel Hill, NC 27517 - 919/969-7501. Email: dharrison@kayye.com

Gary Kayye's rAVe contains the opinions of the author only and does not necessarily reflect the opinions of other persons or companies or its sponsors.