SCN: How long have you been with this company, and what are your responsibilities?
Dr. Peru Dharani: I have been at Barco for nearly three years, and I am currently responsible for leading the corporate innovation function of Barco.
[Executive Q&A: A Decade of Innovation]
SCN: How is Barco celebrating its 90th anniversary?
PD: We celebrate by looking back at our legacy with pride and responsibility on how we have contributed to the various technology streams we were part of. At the same time, we look toward the future with equal enthusiasm and aspiration on how we can bring value to our markets and our customers by doubling down on our technology vision.
SCN: The Pro AV industry knows Barco for its extensive display and meeting room solutions, but what other markets do you serve?
PD: At present, Barco serves a wide range of customers across cinemas, immersive experiences, enterprise meeting room solutions, control room solutions, diagnostics, and surgical solutions.
SCN: How is AI impacting Barco’s product line?
PD: AI has obviously a lot of impact in our industry and in our markets. It brings in a lot of possibilities for the products we make today and for the products we are making for tomorrow. It can bring in a lot of efficiency to our compute workflows and in raising the bars in creating more effective insights.
[Barco Control Rooms Gets More Secure—Here's How]
SCN: At InfoComm, I was told Barco’s QDX was the “future of projectors.” What makes this new model so unique?
PD: At the time of its release, the QDX is the world's most compact and lightest projector in its category, with everything at hand to maximize your ROI. Reuse existing gear and TLD+ lenses—and benefit from its integration in Barco’s suite of smart peripherals and software tools. Thanks to our patented, next-generation Pulse electronics with higher bandwidth up to 8K@60Hz or 4K@240Hz and more processing power, you’ll get smoother images and sharper pixels.
SCN: What are some of the important features for projectors that will be used in high-end simulation applications?
PD: For simulator projectors, lifelike images are critical. Trainees typically see their visuals from up close and notice any inaccuracy immediately, which means that the feeling of immersive reality is easily shattered. Resolution, combined with appropriate refresh rate and brightness, needs to be high enough to accurately portray the details of the real world. In multi-projector setups for simulators, badly composed surfaces can quickly lead to negative training experiences. This is where blending and warping technology come in. Edge blending is the alignment of the projectors to remove the visible borders of the overlapping images for a seamless viewing experience. With Barco Pulse, warping and blending capabilities are embedded in the projector software.
SCN: Barco offers several immersive systems, but what is your overall approach to delivering an immersive experience?
PD: Immersive experiences are popping up everywhere. We see breathtaking exhibitions with floor-to-ceiling digital artworks, theme parks with thrilling rides that bring your favorite cartoon figures to life, and planetariums with starry domes that suck you right into the universe. We serve across projection mapping, live events, museums, theme parks, houses of worship, planetariums, and more with our broad portfolio.
At the end, we see that everything around us is a blank canvas. With projection mapping projectors, you can make anything completely change color, texture, and shape. Through the artistic play with light, projection mapping can create the optical illusion of movement on any display surface. It is a visual feast, a new kind of fireworks, an extraordinary form of immersive entertainment with an enormous wow factor.
[What's In Your Conference Room?]
SCN: Is interest in hybrid conference rooms fading or are they becoming more important?
PD: I would say they are getting more important, especially after the pandemic. Hybrid working (in many variants) is becoming the norm now, and it very much benefits both the employee and the employer. This brings even more emphasis on the need for having the right tools and devices within hybrid conference rooms.
SCN: What was the thinking behind ClickShare, and how have customers responded?
Like many other industries, the Pro AV industry is undergoing its own transformation in the face of both digital and AI-related technologies.
PD: Today, less than 15% of all meeting rooms are video-enabled, according to Frost & Sullivan research. With the ClickShare Bar, Barco has introduced a future-proof solution to modernize offices with smaller to medium-sized, video-first meeting spaces that fully cater to the needs of hybrid working. With only one device needed to equip an entire space alongside a display, the deployment for IT managers is significantly simplified, and the installation cost is reduced. Customers have embraced the powerful, all-in-one device that minimizes points of failure, since all collaboration, audio, and video functionalities are consolidated into a single, easy-to-use solution.
SCN: How is Barco addressing sustainability?
PD: Sustainability is a mindset. From producing energy-efficient solutions for different industries to ensuring the ongoing personal development of our teams and the communities they live in, Barco considers sustainability as a key pillar of its work. We aim to:
• lower our own environmental footprint and those of our customers.
• invest in sustainable employability by enabling careers that are engaging, enriching, and healthy.
• build an inclusive workplace that embraces the diversity of our people.
• play an active role in the communities we operate in by upholding the highest ethical and quality standards.
• deliver added value to our customers through our solutions, services, and capabilities. We help ensure more people can participate in and benefit from the innovation society.
[Sustainability: A Pro AV Progress Report]
SCN: What’s next for the Pro AV industry?
PD: Like many other industries, the Pro AV industry is undergoing its own transformation in the face of both digital and AI-related technologies. At the same time, the demands for high quality visualization and collaboration solutions continue to inspire us to bring effective solutions to our customers. We are working on various topics like advanced optical technologies, energy efficiency, and workflow optimization solutions. We are also keeping a close tab on the zeitgeist of today when it comes to customer preferences and cultural choices driven by our society in the face of many changes in the world. All those choices will definitely impact the AV industry directly or indirectly, and we should be ready for those new demands that will be coming our way.
