Infocomm Wrap-up, Part the Fourth - Hits and Misses

On the theme of Evolution, not Revolution - TVOne
reprises their "windmill" demo. The four displays
in the center still spin.

A week past my return to Infocomm, I'm finally getting to write my  overall reflections on the show and what technology I saw there. For further perspectives, visit my esteemed colleague Alex Mayo who offered his own perspective. Alex is a bright man and a very talented designer with whom I'm quite fortunate to work. I especially agree with him on the growing role of enterprise-wide resource management and analysis as part of our projects. 

Before I start, I'd like to tip my hat to Draper, to Cory Moss, to George Tucker, and to everyone else who added their voice to the discussion of "booth babes" and the larger topic of sexism in the industry. This is a conversation that isn't over by a long-shot, and it's my sincere hope that we keep it up and see some changes next year. Now, on with the show!

Overall, Infocomm this year was fun and informative, but it wasn't a year that felt important in that it would change how we think about AV. Much of it felt evolutionary to me, as existing product lines were refined and expanded upon but few really new and daring changes came. Here are some hits and misses, along with my reflections.

Hit - Network-Centric AV
It's been quite some years since vendors such as SVSI started selling JPEG2000 encoded video as a transport and routing solution. It certainly is feeling to me that the time for this technology has finally come now that we have greater IT/AV convergence, proliferation of higher-bandwidth lower latency networks, and - perhaps most importantly - changes to workflow and overall expectations. SVSI has expanded their uncompressed video over network line to include 4K and has also expanded their control and video-wall processing offerings. ClearOne, Aurora Multimedia, Crestron, AMX, and others have all thrown their collective hats in the ring, with solutions including H.264, JPEG2000, and/or uncompressed video offerings. Crestron's introduction of an H.264 card (not an Infocomm introduction, but new for this year) is an elegant solution for hybrid designs in which in-room transport is handled by more traditional means.

The best part of this is the number of technologies being deployed. Uncompressed video is critical in latency-sensitive environments such as annotation. Compressed video solutions - most of which are configurable for different levels of quality and bandwidth - are excellent for campus-wide distribution, while uncompressed video is still a requirement for highly latency-sensitive control and annotation applications.

Miss - HDBaseT, Other Video Over Structured Cable
This wasn't a miss in that it's bad technology; I still use this kind of solution in nearly every AV system I design. What makes it a miss for me at the show is that the technology seems to have plateaued. Yes, we can now send 4K content over copper and that's a big plus. With relatively little content available, 4K is still a little bit of a niche technology. Does it remain something for which we need to prepare? Absolutely. Does 4K capability offer real utility in 90% of AV systems? Not really.

This is quite cool. It's a shame it's no longer all that
useful. 

For a "near miss" see the demo by TVOne division Magenta Research of 1080p content over an entire spool of category cable. This is quite impressive, especially for those of us who've sometimes struggled with   marginal signal over long cable runs. The problem is that it seems like yesterday's technology; if I have an endpoint an entire cable-spool away from its source I'd far more likely use a network-based solution. The geek in me finds this really cool; the designer in me is not sure I'll ever use it.

Hit - Direct-view LED Displays
Some of the biggest buzz was over direct-view LED displays, especially Christie's Velvet with a 2mm pixel pitch and Silicon Core's Magnolia at 1.5mm. This is very, very impressive and lets viewers get very close to the display before the image appears to break up to a series of dots. Aside from obvious applications in outdoor displays, this technology has finally reached the point at which it's tempting for a boardroom or conference room application - especially if the alternative involves taking apart the side of a building to fly in a piece of rear-projection glass.

Miss - Complicated Hardware Control Appliances
The above-mentioned Mr. Mayo stated his lack of interest in proprietary touchpanels. His argument is that consumer-grade tablets - especially the fruit-flavored ones from Cuppertino - have as much if not more capability at a fraction of the cost. We'll soon reach the point  at which we can extend that to control processors. I got a peek at the new processors from AMX, and found them a bit time-warpy. They have a nice, low-profile 1RU controller with a ton of serial, IR, and relay ports on the back of it. This would be wonderful a few years ago, but today I see more and more IP-based control and less and less RS232. I'll say the same about new touchpanels from Crestron. Are they improving? Yes. Do they match the capability and cost of an iPad? Not at this point.

 

Hit - Web Control and Monitoring
I had a brief chat with departing Vaddio CEO Rob Sheeley who showed off an integrated webserver in Vaddio's new RoboShot line of pan/tilt/zoom robotic cameras.  This removes perhaps the last major use of RS232 from many projects. It also opens the possibility of adjusting camera settings via a remote interface rather than from the rack-mounted camera control unit. Very much a welcome change and improvement. That the camera itself has a slick, modern design doesn't hurt.

Hit - Wireless Collaboration/Video Streaming

Not only are these proliferating, they're getting better. On the simpler end we have the WePresend/Clickshare CSM/Airmedia family. There is also the software-only product from Mersive, which was already impressively responsive before a recent software upgrade. Rounding out the appliance side are the Wowvision/Kramer product and the AMX Enzo. Now that Enzo has added Miracast and Apple screen-mirroring support these are both viable solutions in this space. What makes them more appealing is that each has the ability to run secondary applications - Windows 7 programs in the case of Wowvision and what appears to be a Java-based system for AMX. This is what caught my interest when Enzo was first introduced last Infocomm, but as of that time the only app available was Dropbox. With the introduction of screen mirroring AND the promise of Lync/Skype integration by the end of the year, Enzo has gone from an expensive Dropbox machine to an intriguing solution for small collaborative soft-conferencing oriented spaces. I look forward to seeing more.

Soft hit - Dante

We've seen the 150th Dante licensee - Kramer Electronics, with a set of small (half-rack) amplifiers. ClearOne, after depending solely on its proprietary G-Link, not only is adding Dante to its Converge product line but is also now producing a 512x512 Dante-based DSP. Audinate itself launched Via, a nice expansion on the concept of the existing "Virtual Soundcard". Via recognizes all of the audio I/O capabilities of a computer (including both software options such as music players or soft Codecs AND hardware options including speakers, mics, and embedded audio on HDMI) and will allow them to be explicitly displayed as inputs or outputs on Dante Controller. Having direct access to applications as well as physical I/O is a very interesting change; I look forward to finding ways to take advantage of this new capability.

Miss ? AVB

When I mentioned AVB to one of my colleagues, he had one question for me: "Is it dead yet?" I don't think it quite is, but it is, at best, on life-support. Crown Audio (as well as the rest of the Harman family) supports AVB, as do a handful of other endpoint manufacturers. Biamp now has AEC available in an AVB-enabled expansion box, but that's about it for the exciting AVB news; it has nowhere near the robust ecosystem which has grown around Dante. In fact, I can't think of anything I could do at this point with AVB that I couldn't do more easily in a Dante system. Mark Coxon may see it as the great big promise for Harman; I'm not quite ready to stick a fork in it and declare it "done" but, at least as an audio-transport medium, I'm very, very close. 

Just imagine what could be here next year.

Overall

This was a nice show, but not a dazzling one; I walked away with, as usual, some interesting ideas and thoughts but nothing which radically changed my thinking on anything in the industry. The industry continues to move, yet at a slow pace. Most symbolic of that, perhaps, was the much-discussed Microsoft booth. Microsoft arrived to display.... nothing very much. Some charging stations, displays, and the promise of white space and what may fill it tomorrow.

Infocomm mini update - part the second

The second - and final - day of this year's Infocomm journey is behind me. More when I get home, but here are skew quick impressions:

Vaddio debuted their new line of Roboshot cameras. These have some nice features, including installer-adjustable lens stops to configure the same camera for wide angle or tight zoom shots. Better yet, these cameras have an on-board webserver, finally allowing IP control. The Vaddio team remains playful in a good way, this time dressing in Grateful Dead inspired custom TShirts, one of which I walked our I'd the booth with. Now all I need is a Cadillac.

Smart Tech introduced something different; the Smart Kapp capture board. It's a neat idea: a dry erase board which can, via a web app, capture your sketches and send them to a tablet or smart phone. It's a different way to bridge the digital and analog worlds. I seem to have won one in a Twitter contest by taking an AV selfie with it, so you'll possibly get more impressions of it from me later.

There was also some buzz about the gorgeous direct-view LED video walls, including one from Christie Digital with less than a 2mm pixel pitch. From about five feet back the individual dots just disappear (that is a subjective impression. perhaps I'll check the math on this one when I get home).  It's also a sort of technology which can deliver very high contrast. This could be a very promising solution.

Yesterday I mentioned AVB as a bit of a disappointment. Dante continues to grow into the dominant platform, becoming a defacto standard. There are great options for Dante inputs and outputs, including break-in boxes, amplifiers, wireless Mic systems. Stewart Audio had a nice line of small network-enabled amplifiers using Dante. They are joined by Kramer, the 150th Dante licensee. Kramer quietly debuted a product very similar to Stewart's which, as of this writing, I cannot find in their website. This is the kind of product that gives me ideas for creating distributed systems. It also lead to a great discussion with the Stewart team about both done upcoming products and the plusses and minuses of a potential PoE amp. This is a discussion which will continue.

There's more. What, I'd any big stories did I take away? What did I think of the standards circus? Why did I give the cold shoulder to the VP off marketing from Earthworks, and why was that Purelink's fault? Stay tuned!

Infocomm 2014 - For What I'll be Looking (A Pixel-and-Ink Stained Look Ahead)

Infocomm time is almost here! I'll resume my tradition from last year and  share with you my thoughts on things for which to look on the show floor. Those of you following the discussion online should be aware that my esteemed colleague, AV wunderkind Alex Mayo has already weighed in on this from the cubicle next-door. He has much of it right, and perhaps missed an item or two which I'd have found interesting.

Things for which I'm not looking:

I'll start off taking a step backwards at what I'll not be looking for. If you're looking for me on the show floor, this is where to not find me (and if you're avoiding me, this is where to go):

HDBaseT. Yes, I still use HDBaseT in many, many designs and don't see it going away. It's just reached the point at which it is somewhat commodified and not all that interesting. Without thinking too hard, I'm sure most readers of this blog can think of a half dozen or more companies  with the same product line: modular matrix switcher, all-in-one presentation switcher, 2-gang wallplate transmitter, standalone transmitter, scaling receiver, etc. Nice technology, but the differences have become fine enough that there isn't all that much more to learn. It certainly isn't the future.

Big Manufacturers. I don't like to do "booth tours" with the big players in the industry: the Crestrons and AMXs and such. It's one reason that Extron's disappearance from Infocommland doesn't affect me all that much; I know what Crestron and AMX are up to. I know what QSC and most of the Harman family are up to. Between training classes, social events and the like I'll probably only have about 6 hours or so on the trade floor; I don't want to chew those up visiting things that I'll read a press release about the next day anyway.

So for What Will I Look?
That's the big question: what is the story this Infocomm? Last year part of what caught my attention was the UC pavillion with various hardware, software, and virtualized MCUs and bridging services. Last year also showed us the first Lync room systems, which represented a push for Microsoft to leverage their success in desktop conferencing  to larger spaces. What will we see this year? A few things.

AVB. "The breakout year for AVB" has been predicted every year for at least three years now. In the meantime, Dante has overtaken it as the defacto standard of audio transport over networks (and yes, I know that Dante isn't an open standard. Neither was Cobranet, but that had a very central place for a long time). That said, I've heard some rumblings about finally sending video over AVB, including rumors of some video products in varying stages of development. If we're to move towards a more "converged" world there will need to be some way to synchronize audio and video streams from different network devices. It is my hope that AVB's time synchronization protocol (IEEE 802.1AS) will achieve this. If so, AVB suddenly becomes very interesting. There's been at least one manufacturer teasing a video product, which may or may not see the show floor.

Dante: With AVB dragging its heels, Dante has emerged as the dominant technology for audio transport over networks. Audinate has announced that their 150th partner product will be unveiled at Infocomm AND that they have a new and "disruptive" (their word) software update. Is this a grab for attention, or is there something exciting there? Audinate's track record is such that I'll at least check.

4K, Uncompressed: Like it or not, have skepticism or not, 4K is coming. With the Valens HDBaseT chipset lacking the bandwidth to deliver 4K (or UHD) content at 60 frames per second with a 12-bit color depth the field is wide open. A few manufacturers have teased solutions and strategies, some of which may see the show floor. 

4K, Compressed: 4K content requires quite a bit of bandwidth, and that means some form of compression. Haivision unveiled an HEVC  (aka H.265) encoder at NAB; one other manufacturer has hinted that they might be looking at the open-source VP9 as an alternative. Which of these takes the biggest market share is an interesting 

Something Different
This falls under the "I'll know it when I see it" category. There's a temptation to take the new and treat it as an extension of the familiar. To think of an IP-based AV transcoder, for example, as an endpoint for a virtualized "matrix switch". To think of Dante and AVB as audio transport busses rather than routable protocols adding some freedom. As I said in the HDBaseT category, there are quite a few manufacturers - on the audio and video side - offering near-identical product lines. For an example of thinking differently, I'll look at one product not appearing at Infocomm: Extron's five-mic input Dante expansion box. This isn't a break-in box so much as a complete DSP with no analog outputs. Rather than send audio from a break-in box to a centrally located DSP for processing, Extron chose to apply filters, EQ, and even AEC locally in a little half-rack sized mini-processor box, then send the processed audio (plus dry) via Dante.  It's a fundamentally different approach and, along with Virtual Soundcard, can lead to some interesting design alternatives.

That's where my eyes will be on my whirlwind through the show floor. As I said, I'll also be taking some classes (more on those when I get back), and meeting some AV friends. Socially, you can expect to see me at the AVTweeps Tweetup and, of course, to see the Drunk Unkles at the Hardrock. Fun fact: With my current position at Shen, Milsom and Wilke I've now worked with two of the "Unkles" - Steve Emspak now, and Felix Robinson back in my AVI-SPL days. 

I'll close with some random snapshots from last Infocomm, in no particular order and for no particular reason. I look forward to seeing some of you, my readers, there. If you spot me, feel free to say hello!