Info Trends – Top Takeaways from InfoComm 2019
In mid-June, a record number of attendees from around the world – audiovisual (AV) professionals, end-users, and manufacturers – gathered in Orlando, Florida for a week of AV innovation and learning. Mechdyne employees attended Infocomm19 to learn about emerging innovations and upgrades in control systems, displays, signage, AV support, and more.
To ensure we are providing the right solutions for our clients, we also had teammates talking with our technology partners and scouring the booths for new technologies. Much of what was seen was technology and feature evolution. The benefits of this will be the positive impacts this can have on user experience and reliability. For example, LED displays are now being ‘bundled’ into configurations that mimic the size of traditional LCD flat panels, making it easier to compare image quality, features, and installed pricing. 8K resolution systems were being shown, but this future-forward technology won’t be in typical boardrooms for quite some time (though specialized applications may realize tremendous value).
The truly new technologies that we found will mostly be ‘under the hood’ of solutions, that improve connectivity and are in areas that users won’t directly see. Some examples are new cabling systems, evolved video over IP, expanding audio over IP products, and installation enhancement products that we believe are noteworthy. Our Quality Assurance Lead, who walked the show for three days, compiled a list of top five product takeaways.
5 Top Takeaways
DIGITAL PROJECTION’S INSIGHT 4K HFR 360 HIGH FRAME RATE PROJECTOR WITH MULTIVIEWER CAPABILITY
- With an incredible 360 Hz refresh rate, this is the next step in VR; enabling three to six people to have their own viewpoint in a shared, large scale VR environment. This creates a more comfortable and longer experience compared to offering multiple viewpoints using head-mounted displays.
- Can also display different images to individual viewers simultaneously.
REMOTE LIGHT SOURCE PROJECTION
- Also, from Digital Projection, this system has the projection unit separated from the projection lens, which are connected by fiber cables. The projector’s power and light source can be remoted to another room, in a rack with dedicated power and cooling. When only the lens heads have to be mounted in a room, this removes the majority of heat and projection noise from the space.
ATLAS SOUND SHS ARCHITECTURAL SPEAKERS
- These innovative ceiling speakers have architectural requirements taken into consideration. Only a small part of the speaker is visible in the ceiling; about a 3” circle. Even then, the speaker housing can be custom painted to match the décor so they will blend to near invisibility.
ASSISTED LISTENING SYSTEMS WITH WIFI
- Assisted listening is becoming more important in large venues and with an aging population. Users can now connect to the audio source via an app, which allows them to use either their own headphones or a Bluetooth connection to a hearing aid.
- Eliminating cabling and enabling personal devices to be used creates better quality and user experiences.
DANTE DOMAIN MANAGER FOR AV/IT ENABLEMENT OF AUDIO SYSTEMS
- This network management software enables user authentication, role-based security, and audit capabilities while allowing expansion over any network infrastructure. AV and IT are now closer together, improving security, scalability, and control of audio networking.
- Audio systems can now be managed where they couldn’t before, because of security concerns.
- This type of system management can be included in a managed services contract.
There were, of course, a myriad of technologies in the 1,000 exhibitor booths, surrounded by 50,000 visitors, so some items may have been missed, albeit unintentionally. This show is valuable for continually monitoring the technology landscape to gain insight into the innovations that will benefit end-user experience, system longevity, cost of ownership, or other goals an organization may have.