There were a bevy of personnel moves, personnel moves, and new spaces opening last week in the world of Pro AV. In case you missed any of the news, we got you covered below.
SCN's Top 3 Storylines from last week
People News
James Oliver Joins ACT Entertainment
ACT Entertainment has appointed James Oliver to the position of VP of strategic partnerships. An experienced sales and marketing professional, Oliver has a demonstrated history of working in the professional audio industry. In his new role, Oliver has been tasked with developing a live sound division that mirrors the success ACT has created for its other partners in the entertainment space.
Oliver previously served as partner and chief strategy officer at PK Sound, following his role as director of marketing and sales for Adamson Systems Engineering.
Brompton Technology Welcomes Hassan Abu Minshar
Brompton Technology appointed Hassan Abu Minshar as technical sales manager for the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region. He brings to his new role over two decades of experience in the Pro AV industry and in live events.
Prior to joining Brompton, Abu Minshar worked with image processing manufacturer Analog Way where he successfully managed sales and operations in the Middle East, and built strong relationships with rental and staging companies, AV system integrators and LED manufacturers. His proven track record makes him an excellent addition to Brompton's team.
Morten Lave Joins JOYNED as CTO
Morten Lave, former CEO of TC Applied Technologies and most recently principal of All Access Consulting, is joining the JOYNED as chief technology officer (CTO). Lave is tasked with spearheading JOYNED’s R&D efforts, using his AVB/Milan software expertise to elevate the company’s audio networking solutions and drive innovation.
Lave’s' AVB/Milan software will now be integrated into JOYNED’s suite of offerings, providing a complete end-to-end solution—from endpoints to AVB switches—while remaining true to JOYNED’s commitment to open standards. This is a significant step in JOYNED’s mission to democratize network technology for the audio industry, ensuring that cutting-edge solutions are accessible to everyone, from engineers to musicians.
With the integration of Lave’s AVB/Milan software, JOYNED is now able to offer a fully unified solution that supports the industry's growing focus on standardization. As audio networks become more sophisticated, the demand for reliable, open, and scalable solutions increases, and JOYNED is well-positioned to meet that need.
Planar Adds Regional Account Managers
Planar expanded its U.S. sales team with the hires of Todd Miller and Luke Bailey.
Todd Miller joins the company as regional account manager for the Southwest, leading sales initiatives across Arizona and Nevada. He is an industry veteran bringing more than 25 years of experience in the ProAV industry, including leadership roles at Unilumin USA, Visual Sound, and Electrosonic. His expertise in business development and the control room market, in addition to his background in AV integration and display technology, will be an asset to Planar reseller partners and customers in the region.
As a regional account manager for New England, Luke Bailey will be responsible for Planar's sales initiatives across Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, upstate New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. Bailey joins with more than 15 years of experience in the Pro AV industry, including roles at AVI-SPL and Adtech Systems. His background in account management, sales operations, technical sales and as an integration technician will be an asset to Planar partners and customers in the region.
Mitch Rauch Joins Powersoft
Powersoft has appointed Mitch Rauch as its new sales director for the U.S. market. With more than 20 years Pro AV channel management experience, Rauch’s expertise will be a major asset as Powersoft continues its growth in the United States.
In his new role, he will expand Powersoft’s U.S. footprint. Rauch, formerly of Opticis, Vivitek, and BenQ, among other AV industry names, will be based in Powersoft’s U.S. headquarters in Flanders, New Jersey. There, he will focus on driving growth in existing verticals while also exploring new opportunities for Powersoft’s patented, high-end audio technologies.
Riedel Communications Welcomes Jason Barden
Riedel Communications appointed Jason Barden as its new regional sales director for the Central America, Caribbean, and Latin America (CALA/LATAM) market. Barden brings an impressive track record of over 20 years of experience in broadcast technology, with roles ranging from technical specialist to sales, including over a decade focused on live production in Latin America. Locally based in Mexico City, Barden is responsible for expanding Riedel's presence in the region, developing key customer relationships, and driving sales of the company's innovative communications, networking, and live production solutions.
Barden's extensive experience, prior to joining Riedel, stems from almost 12 years at Ross Video, where he was director of sales for the entire Latin American region, and over 12 years at Miranda Technologies, where he gained valuable experience in various technical specialist and support roles, product management, and strategic account management. Barden initially got his start in the industry as an AV technician for Encore and was most recently with Synamedia, where he was head of sales for Latin America.
Quam Appoints Industry Veteran Todd Eddy as VP of Sales and Marketing
Quam Nichols welcomed Todd Eddy as VP of sales and marketing. In this role, Eddy is responsible for driving Quam’s sales and marketing initiatives, with a focus on building strong relationships with integrators, distributors and consultants expanding the company’s reach within the commercial sound, emergency communication, and fire signaling sectors.
Eddy brings a wealth of industry knowledge, with over two decades of experience in selling to and managing large territories and teams in the integration and manufacturing space. His recent leadership in the Pro AV, IT, and mass notification communication manufacturing fields has been instrumental in driving growth and innovation. Eddy’s deep understanding of the market and his hands-on approach will play a key role in positioning Quam for continued success and growth.
Company News
New ADI and Snap One Store Opens in Omaha
ADI and Snap One announced the soft opening launch of a new store in Omaha, Nebraska, marking a significant milestone in its integration. The new store opening serves as a pilot for the company's combined vision by showcasing the best offerings across ADI and Snap One—all under one roof.
This store replaces the previous ADI location that had been serving local customers, and provides Snap One customers with a convenient shopping option that was not available to them before. The new and modernized space combines a retail storefront with a warehouse, fully stocked with products across all key categories including security, AV, smart home, and more. The new store design is a result of a strong collaboration between the legacy ADI and Snap One teams.
Additional store highlights include:
- 15,000+ square foot space: 2.5 times larger than the previous Omaha location
- Expanded product assortment featuring more than 500 Snap One SKUs
- New brands introduced to legacy ADI and Snap One customers
- Increased inventory including more than 100 consumer TVs
- 24-hour pick up room, plus delivery and shipping options
- Dedicated training space for in-store and virtual sessions
- Customer coffee and comfort hub
- Partner reward benefits
Chyron Selected as Live Graphics Provider for Victory+
Chyron has partnered with VICTORY+ to provide creative services and live graphics production capabilities utilizing Chyron PRIME, a solution that provides live graphics content creation, data integration, and customizable playout capabilities. Launched on October 12, VICTORY+ provides free, over-the-top streams of games as well as pre- and post-game content.
The network, owned by A Parent Media, a Canadian streaming solutions provider, was conceived and launched in only six months. With requirements of a professional broadcast look, robust sports data integration capabilities, along with a tight turnaround time for both graphics package creative services and graphics system implementation, Victory+ selected Chyron PRIME.
To date, Victory+ carries local Dallas Stars hockey games and recently signed the Anaheim Ducks, just weeks before the NHL pre-season started. As the service grows to cover other teams, the Victory+ production team can rely on Chyron PRIME for flexible, scalable content, easily adapting colors, logos and team roster data.
Genelec Opens New Seoul Experience Center
Genelec has added Seoul to its growing global network of experience centers. Visitors to the new Seoul Experience Centre will receive expert advice on Genelec technology, and enjoy an exceptionally high quality critical listening environment, from stereo to immersive. The Seoul location joins other existing Genelec Experience Centres across Europe, The Americas, and Asia—all of which share the same mission of helping customers to understand and experience the finest in sound reproduction.
Located in the city’s Jongro area, the Seoul Experience Centre is a collaboration between Genelec and its local distribution partner SAMA Sound. Offering a wide selection of solutions from Genelec’s Professional Audio, Installed Sound and Home Audio ranges, the Centre is hosted by SAMA Sound’s Genelec Product Manager Wonjoo Lee and tech specialist Jaehyuk Han, who are on hand to offer personal demonstrations and advice to customers who pre-book appointments.
The Seoul location is divided into three distinct zones. The Immersive Room is designed to allow visitors to experience Genelec’s UNIO monitoring ecosystem, with a 9320A Reference Controller acting as a hub for both 7.1.4 in-room loudspeaker and personal headphone monitoring. The Demonstration Room offers a range of stereo systems for both professionals and audiophiles. Lastly, the Smart IP Zone allows integrators, consultants and users alike to evaluate Genelec’s Smart IP family of PoE installation loudspeakers.
Jetbuilt Forms Vendor Advisory Council
Jetbuilt has formed its Vendor Advisory Council. This select group of advisors, composed of influential figures from Pro AV manufacturers, distributors, consultants, and the broader audiovisual industry, will provide valuable insights into how Jetbuilt can better serve its user base and the industry at large.
Led by Steve Samson, director of vendor partnerships for Jetbuilt, the council will act as an ongoing forum to gather feedback from Jetbuilt’s vendor partners. The council, with membership rotating periodically to ensure a diverse range of perspectives, is composed of distinguished industry professionals, including Bill Nattress, Bryan Boehme, Dave Silberstein, Gary Kayye, Jason Tirado, Rick Woida, and Stéphane Ecalle, among others. Together, this group will help shape Jetbuilt’s future by providing insights and feedback that align with the latest trends and technologies in AV. The goal of this collaboration is to spark innovation and enhance efficiencies through Jetbuilt's proposal generation and project management platform, specifically empowering integrators to streamline their workflows, with a particular focus on optimizing processes related to the products they integrate daily.
The Vendor Advisory Council is tasked with validating existing features within Jetbuilt while proposing new ones based on real-world vendor experiences. These discussions will provide insight into how the platform can further streamline workflows and improve its ability to serve the AV community. A prime example of this type of innovation is new enhancements to Jetbot, an AI-driven service desk, for enhanced device discovery and monitoring those devices across networks.
Major Custom Cable (MCC) Has a New Website
Major Custom Cable, a Neutrik Group Company, has a new website. This new website not only showcases MCC’s extensive capabilities, but also highlights the company’s strategic alignment with the Neutrik Group. As a member of the Neutrik Group, Major Custom Cable’s customers benefit from access to innovation and global expertise.
Major Custom Cable’s new website reinforces the company’s identity within the Neutrik Group. This is more than just a visual upgrade—it reflects Neutrik’s shared mission to provide world-class, future-ready solutions to meet the growing demands of its customers. The new website provides streamlined and user-friendly navigation, making it easy for customers to quickly find the products, services, and solutions they seek—resulting in a more efficient online experience. As part of this, the new website features a fully responsive design with faster load times for all devices, including desktop computers, tablets, and mobile devices—ensuring customers can access the products and services they seek anytime and from anywhere.
The new MCC website is equally adept at providing comprehensive product information. Customers can explore detailed product pages with high-quality images, thorough descriptions, plus all relevant specifications—providing them the information they need to make confident purchasing decisions. In addition to making content easier to access, there is also a new and simplified custom order process. The new, easy-to-use contact options provide a direct line for customers to engage with company team members for custom orders, thus eliminating complexities all while offering a more personalized approach.
Sony Sports Business Acquires KinaTrax to Expand Player Performance Accuracy
Sony welcomed KinaTrax through a recent acquisition. KinaTrax is known for its research-grade markerless motion capture technology for sports that collects in-game biomechanical performance data on athletes.
Joining forces with Hawk-Eye Innovations, a Sony group company that forms an integral part of Sony’s sports businesses, KinaTrax will bring its trusted biomechanical and analytical expertise, as well as its markerless motion capture technology to Sony’s portfolio and is expected to further create synergy to maximize the use of sports data for athletes, teams, leagues and fans alike.
Hawk-Eye, Beyond Sports, and Pulselive form the core foundation of Sony's sports businesses, with a shared commitment to deliver best-in-class officiating, broadcast and digital solutions to the sports world around sports data technologies. Welcoming KinaTrax bolsters Sony’s capability to serve important use cases for sports data, such as analysis and biomechanics for coaching, scouting and athletes’ performance.
AES70-2024 Was Released by OCA Alliance
The latest revision of the AES70 standard for Open Control Architecture, AES70-2024, is now available from the OCA Alliance. The update introduces several valuable additions. Along with new classes, the update features new methods, a new specification for using the OCP.1 protocol, and several documentation updates.
Fully backwards compatible with existing implementations, AES70-2024 continues to expand the technical foundations of the growing and evolving OCA ecosystem.
New features in the AES70-2024 Core Specification (AES70-1, -2, & -3):
- Protocol specification for using AES70 over point-to-point links: AES70-3 has been rearranged and expanded to include a specification for using the OCP.1 protocol over point-to-point links.
- New control class OcaGroup: simplified and more flexible control-aggregation class.
- Simplified OcaMatrix control class: simpler and more flexible matrix control class.
- New class OcaCommandSetAgent: easy-to-use class for immediate execution of a set of AES70 commands with one call.
- New OcaSubscriptionManager methods for registering multiple subscriptions: new methods that allow a controller to set up multiple subscriptions with a single call. All types of subscriptions are supported.
- Small corrections: fixes to various typographical errors and cross-reference issues.
Christie to Deliver Masterclass on Virtual Production Process
Christie will present a masterclass at HUB Montréal, a three-day event for digital creative industries in the entertainment, cultural, and experiential sectors, from October 21-23, 2024.
The masterclass, titled “Virtual projection: Unlocking creative freedom and maximizing the transmedia potential” will explore the virtual production process, and speakers Joseph Conover and Chris Barnett will introduce an innovative new solution that will help to shape the future of broadcast and cinematic storytelling.
Attendees of HUB Montréal are invited to attend the class, which takes place on October 22 from 4:00-5:00 p.m. local time.
