As the audio visual industry gears up for the largest its biggest gathering of the year let’s look at some of the technologies and stories that have caught my ear over the last month or so.
4K/UHD
2014 was to be the “year of 4K.” That didn’t exactly pan out for a number of reasons; the distribution infrastructure never solidified, the content delivery still isn’t settled on, and the content itself is not quite there yet. However, the display manufacturers continue to push on toward the bleeding edge. CES presented the industry with a glimpse into what this year will be as far as display technology, and it looks like it is another “year of 4K.” We will see this in full effect during ISE. The only difference is now a number of video distribution companies do have solutions, and the content playback is getting there.
Nanocrystals
Another display item we should see at ISE is the new-ish nanocrystals. This was touted as the next generation in light generation for displays. It was reportedly better at color reproduction than OLED with a more stable production system.
Configuration Systems
Crestron made a splash at CEDIA Expo 2014 with its Pyng app system. It is an app-based configurable control system. There are rumors that there is something in the works for the pro market not only from the New Jersey control manufacturer, but also from other control companies. In addition to streamlining the programming side of AV systems, there are a number of products coming out that make it faster and easier to set up simple, small conference—or huddle—spaces. This is an incredible time saver, and money maker, for integrators. We will look to see who else has these quick and easy audio visual setups in Amsterdam.
International AV
One thing that I am looking forward to is learning from the audio visual community outside of the U.S. There are seven billion people on this planet, and only about 330 million of those live in the States. That means there are great resources out there from integrators, consultants, programmers and others that do this AV thing in environments those of us in America have never experienced. How do you do distributed audio in a thousand year-old castle? What are the challenges of working in ultra-arid environments? When dealing with regional IPs, what are the tricks you have learned? This will be a great resource that those of us going to ISE will bring back to share with our community here.
As big of an undertaking attending a show of this size and scope is, it is also great fun. I’ll have a recap of the technology, trends and people I encounter after the show. Tot ziens in Amsterdam.
