33,000 visitors, and me

Try as we might, it’s impossible to get away from numbers when talking about trade shows. This year’s headline figure is 33,001 attendees, from over 90 countries. For the first time in a while, this represents a growth figure compared to the previous Las Vegas show, exceeding 2010’s figure by 999.

Interestingly, despite a recovery in attendance figures, which had been slowly dropping since 2008’s whopping 34,600, uptake in education at InfoComm appears to still be waning. 6,000 registrations were reported this year down from 8,600 in 2007 and 2008. This likely reflects weaker business confidence and a continued tightening of man-hour budgets from AV integration firms in the United States. Despite continuous advice to the contrary, training budgets remain high on the hit list when times are tough.

But enough about facts. As my old maths teacher said (or was it Homer Simpson?) you can prove anything with facts. What you all want to know is, was it any good and was there lots of interesting new equipment to look at? The short answer to both of those is, yes.

There’s no doubt the show was buzzy, people we spoke to were upbeat. There was none of the doom and gloom that pervaded Orlando ’09. The feeling from the online community since the show has also been largely positive. The InfoComm International LinkedIn group is full of positive comments about the event and the twitterverse is alive with optimism. Now, these are clearly not empirical forms of measurement, but they do reflect the views of real people.

My own perception was that it was a successful event. The halls were busy, apart from the predictable Friday tail off. This was particularly evident as someone trying to shoot  video footage of various booths throughout the week. The number of random walk-throughs of shots was definitely high!

So, what of the 3,924 visitors from outside North America who made the trip to the USA for the show? Was it a worthwhile trip? I think so. Before we set of for InfoComm this year, I wrote that the show would continue to set the agenda for the year in technology. I also speculated that the audio vendors might still steal the show. I think I might just about have been right. Midway through day one I distinctly heard someone in the pizza kiosk queue remark that it seemed busier in the audio area of the hall than in the video, more concrete evidence if ever there was!

It makes a pleasant change at an AV show for the audio fraternity to even feel they are of equal importance, let alone edging the contest slightly (see April’s remarks on All Video for further background on this).

But whoever “won”, the lasting impression I was left with of InfoComm 2011 was it was all about the infrastructure. It was a nuts and bolts show. All to often it’s the displays that steal the show. It is easy to make projectors, 3D displays and massive club sound systems look sexy. Conversely it’s tricky to achieve the same impact with signal distribution systems or scalers, but that’s precisely the feat that various vendors managed to pull off this year.

But before I get pelted by display manufacturers, I should point out they had plenty to say. 3D continues to attract considerable development budgets, as display manufacturers push the upgrade path, and come up with killer applications to tempt you.

projectiondesign gave a preview to its F35 AS3D platform, which it claims will be the brightest on the market. Alongside this, we saw Barco introduce three new projector models, and Christie were first to market with a 4K projector NOT intended for cinema use. The massive Christie D4K35  3-chip DLP unit has been engineered specifically for the installation and events market.

The show also saw more new projection launches from Digital Projection, which announced a single-chip 3D solution in the M-Vision Cine 3D, and there were new products in the short throw space from Hitachi, Optoma and Mitsubishi.

On the flat panel front, Panasonic tortured some IP66 devices, showing off their environmental robustness (a video of which can be seen on our InAVate TV site). The company also introduced the HDVC KX-VC600 and KX-VC300 video communications devices for the unified communications market.

Manufacturer of cute little pop-up displays, Element One was showing off a new OEM agreement with Stardraw control. This sees embedded PCs included with its VERSIS displays, running on the AVIT solution created by Comm-Tec in Germany.

Prysm is slowly expanding the offerings based on its now fully matured LPD technology, demonstrating not only its previously seen digital manequins, but also some new wide screen format products. Its maturity was underlined with the announcement that LPD is to be used in the studio set of a major US network programme.

Finally, and probably the most significant display announcement of the show was Eyevis’s OmniSHAPES. A new entrant to the modular tile market place, Eyevis has added a couple of twists to the current offerings, with non-rectangular form factors. The product is still in prototype, but the hexagonal tiles, and accompanying transition shapes make a nice addition to the traditional four sided option. It is also possible to create both convex and concave displays thanks to the company’s flexibly designed chassis. Expect this concept to develop further before the product starts to ship next year. It’s definitely one to watch for those of you seeking some more options in the creative display space.

There were of course a million and one other new products announced at InfoComm, but as I said in the introduction, this show really was all about infrastructure. Here are my picks of that particular product group, launched at InfoComm 2011.

First, a note on Crestron’s Digital Media platform. Whilst the company had a predictably huge number of announcements to make, DM8G+ was the killer as far as I’m concerned. 8G+ is the third generation of the signal transport and matrixing solution that works alongside digital media. As the company’s Jeff Singer succinctly put it in our video interview it has moved from being a one cable solution, to being an any cable solution. It’s a great response to those who have criticised the company for requiring speciality cable to make the system work fully.

One other important new device on the Crestron booth was its DMPS-300, this is the digital version of its MPS presentation switcher. It’s important because it now includes six channels of audio DSP processing, putting it right in the frame for jobs that would have used something like a Biamp Nexia or AudiaFLEX. At present it lacks AEC functionality, which will be important in boardrooms with VC, but I can’t see that missing for too long.

Speaking of Biamp, the booth was packed on all three days with visitors wanting to see Tesira. The company’s new baby brings a fully formed AVB-based audio networking solution to the market, firmly laying down the guantlet to QSC and Peavey in the large scale audio distribution space. For now this technology remains at the high end of their offering but again, and whilst the company is adamant it wont find its way into Audia or Nexia,  I can’t see it not filtering down scale in the coming years.

As one integrator remarked to me it won’t be very long before Biamp and Crestron are competing directly for rack space in your boardroom installations.

AMX had its head in the clouds this year, taking the logical step with its RMS (resource management suite) to announced the Enterprise edition. This large scale software suite can be hosted in the cloud, providing international asset management.

The company also sought to tear up conventional thinking on touch panel design, introducing a wide form-factor 19” panel with multi-touch and Bluetooth support as well as H.264 preview capacity, in the form of its Modero X-9000. It’s a pretty interesting concept for high end boardrooms, and it is nice to see companies escaping from the idea that a control interface always needs to be in 16:9.

Elsewhere in routing and switching land, we saw the first public outing of TV One and Magenta Research on the same booth. Keith Mortensen, chairman of the newly formed Commercial Technology Group spoke at some length about the company’s plans to share technology, and sales channels. The first evidence of the former is TV One’s CorioMaster, which includes option cards that leverage Magenta’s via-fibre extension technology.

Atlona Technologies, which has recently stepped up its European distribution, was making a push on HDBaseT products, including a 16x16 matrix and accompanying receivers, which it is touting for video distribution and in particular digital signage applications.

Kramer Electronics, gave debuts to new 32x32 and 16x16 modular DVI matrixes, as well as the interesting Digital Step-in concept. This is a universal input device, allowing presenters to plug almost any video source into a matrix, for display in a boardroom or presentation setting.

Back on the audio front, Biamp didn’t have AVB all to itself, far from it. The AVnu alliance brought its now-familiar pavillion to the show, where it demonstrated the progress being made in vendor interoperability. The system on show included contributions from Harman, Marvell, UMAN, Meyer Sound, Avid, LabX and Analog Devices.

The Harman group also introduced its first AVB enabled products, including the BSS Audio/NETGEAR GS724T 24-Port Ethernet AVB Switch. It also introduced version 3.0 of System Architect, adding support for AVB-ready devices such as the dbx SC 32 and SC 64 Digital Matrix Processors with the new AVB high-speed option card installed.

The booth also featured a tech demo of the above system, showing “real live” AVB audio networking for the first time from Harman.

Dante creator Audinate had some things to say on the networking front. The announcement of its Netspander software solution, means that digital audio will be able to be routed between Subnets on a layer 3 network, something that hasn’t previously been possible. This will mean making use things like campus wide or company wide networks for audio routing more efficient, as signals can be selectively broadcast to a specific subnet, rather than the whole network.

Also making headlines with Dante was Bosch Security Systems. In a major reveal, the company announced Omneo, its digital networking infrastructure for the foreseeable future. This is a major coup for Dante, which has been selected as the basis for the audio transport element of Omneo.

The other element is the open control architecture (OCA), which is being developed in conjunction with d&b audiotechnik, Duran Audio, Media Technology Systems, PreSonus, Salzbrenner Stagetec Mediagroup and TC Group.

Before we end, I did promise a couple of restaurant recommendations. Orlando often gets the short end of the stick when international visitors consider attending InfoComm. Consistently fewer people attend the show on the East coast than when it’s held in Vegas. For those of you who are left with little choice might I make the following two eating suggestions: Fish Bones on the corner of Sandlake and International Drive, and Napa in the Peabody hotel.

However, the rest of us committed technology nerds need no such encouragement. InfoComm, wherever it’s held, continues to offer up the best in new technology for our business.

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