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A View From The Road – Volume 1, Number 7
Observations on technology trends from the latest conferences
and seminars.
 In
This Edition:
• The Meaning Of
Life
• It’s Good To Get
Along
• Notable Products From The Show Floor
• The End Of The
Season
• A Personal
Milestone
I went to Denver to look for the
latest in electronics and I found the meaning of life.
Well, not exactly…
It wasn’t so much
“life” but rather what the major electronics manufacturers think your life
should be like. And it wasn’t so
much “the meaning” as a whole bunch of speculation and questions. That for the most part was the big story
of CEDIA, the just concluded conference for home theater and media
equipment, supplies and services.
I attend CEDIA for many
of the same reasons as I do the CES show – in these times the consumer is
fully in charge of driving the world of technology. If a device is wanted in the home or as
part of someone’s personal electronics it will inevitably seep into the
enterprise regardless of what the corporate gatekeepers want. Clearly a lot of manufacturers know this,
thus all of the focus on the “life” stuff.
Meaning of life #1 – our DNA: Sony launched their new pitch,
“HDNA. High Definition, It’s In Our
DNA.” They had all their HD
innovations on display (SXRD, CIneAlta, Bravia, etc.)
The Bravia line of displays now comes with
a built-in XMB browser for viewing media files available over the internet
without a PC. (Also, on a happy note
for Sony, Blue Ray was everywhere at the show. I only saw HD-DVD in the Toshiba booth.)
Meaning of life #2 – Living the HD: Not to be outdone Panasonic had their new
slogan - “LIFI HDTV – Living In High Definition.” LIFI being a new light source for
displays (made by a company called Luxim) that
delivers high brightness, very long stable performance, fast turn-on time
and brilliant colors. The
illumination in these displays is said to last so long that “it may never
need to be changed.” Panasonic is
still heavily advocating their plasma display line however, while most
other manufacturers are moving rapidly past it.
Meaning of life #3 – What you Ware: The Exceptional Innovations company
in conjunction with Microsoft trumpeted their entire suite of “Lifeware 2.0” products for the ‘…seamless merging of
home control and digital entertainment...’ These include products called Lifemedia, Lifestorage, Lifecontroller, Lifelink, Lifepoint – just another
company telling us we need to get a life.
They partnered with Microsoft to showcase the “Lifeware
Village” fully wired (wireless) home, with a little pamphlet showing how to
correctly connect your kitchen, dining room, living room, etc. to the
internet. It reminded me of the
“Microsoft Home” exhibit and all those jokes about IP to the bathrooms at Comdex
so many years ago.
Meaning of life #4 – Credit for the Idea: We have to recognize LG and
their presence at this show, if for no other reason than to credit them for
starting this trend with their “Life’s Good” campaign.
I have to admit
that this years CEDIA did bring the feeling that life was good, especially
in light of the news that the NSCA trade show will merge into the INFOCOMM
exhibition next June. It is very
good to finally see INFOCOMM, CEDIA and NSCA all working together for the
good of our industry. I just can’t
wait to see what the alphabet soup of technician certification will look
like once it is finally put into place: CTS–I–D–EST–EIEIO?
There were a few
products and companies that will not make it into the general coverage of
this event that should also be recognized:
·
Two companies really seemed to make great strides in
soundproofing and sound deflection. Dynamat ( www.dynamat.com ) showed new barrier and
pad technology that can be used to isolate speakers and rooms. Quiet Solution ( www.quietsolution.com ) went a
step further creating soundproof drywall, soundproof plywood and a whole
range of other products to isolate sound in commercial and residential
installations. It is great to
finally see some options in this area.
·
ATON ( www.atonhome.com ) showed what they
said are the worlds first audio routers to work safely with speaker level
signals. They use complex logic
circuitry to actively monitor all room volume levels and protect all gear
involved. This opens a pretty large
range of new possibilities.
·
A number of companies (such as Muxlab
– www.muxlab.com and Intelix – www.intelix.com
) showed some very sophisticated baluns for moving video and data over
cat5/6 structured cabling. This
includes RF broadband, composite, component, HDMI, audio, and other types
of signals. They also showed some
very innovative and inexpensive hubs for point to multipoint distribution.
·
And finally, in this world of UTP and IP everything, it was
wonderful to see George Feldstein, President of Crestron Electronics (who
was awarded the CEDIA Lifetime Achievement Award at this show) proudly demo’ing his latest innovation – a coax CATV / broadband
distribution system called Media Manifold.
As he has for his whole career he saw a need for a product that was
not available and developed it. It
is a great system for automatically balancing multiple outputs from a
single box, supporting bi-directional communications for on-demand or cable
modems, and making this often klugey part of
distribution elegant.
------------------------------------
This brings to a
close the industry trade-show season for 2007 and volume one of A View From
The Road. Thank you very much for
all the kind emails and thoughts in appreciation of this effort. Volume two will kick off in the first week
of January 2008 from the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. That will also bring me to a personal
milestone - the 30 year mark of doing this stuff for a living. In 1978 a naive kid stepped into the
AT&T Corporate Television Studios at 172 Fulton Street in NYC, hoping to
figure out what he wanted to be when he grew-up. I’ll let you know if I ever figure it
out.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A View From The Road is written by
David Danto and contains solely his own opinions. David has spent 30 years
in the audio visual and broadcasting industries. He has designed facilities
for firms such as AT&T, Bloomberg LP, FNN, Morgan Stanley and NYU. He
is currently the Director of Global Multimedia Engineering for Lehman
Brothers and the IMCCA’s Director of Emerging
Technology. Email David at David.Danto.IMCCA@Danto.com
About IMCCA
The Interactive
Multimedia & Collaborative Communications Alliance (IMCCA) is a
not-for-profit user application and industry focused association with
membership comprised of service and product providers, consultants, and
users. Members benefit from the understanding and the use of various
interactive and collaborative communications technologies in their
professional and everyday lives.
For further information please contact Carol Zelkin, IMCCA Executive Director,
at 516-818- 8184 or czelkin@imcca.org. Visit the IMCCA web site at
www.imcca.org
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