AV Technology - August 2008 - (Page 69)

INFOCOMM 08 HIGHLIGHTS According to InfoComm’s numbers, there were nearly 35,000 attendees at this year’s event, a 9.5 percent increase over the 2007 event. The number of exhibitors increased, too, by about 15 percent to a total of 988 companies showing their AV/IT products and system. Plus, registrations for InfoComm Academy educational courses totaled 8,606 for 2008. One group was less well represented though. Despite the colocation with the NXTcomm, we didn’t see many visitors from the “ecosystem of voice, video, and data” in the South Hall. This wasn’t totally unexpected though, since even before the show, the idea behind the co-location seemed to make more sense to the AV-types than it did to the IT/telecom types. In keeping with the maturing of the AV industry, most of the new products on display were really feature enhancements and functional improvements. There were, however, some exciting things happening in the exhibits halls, and AV Technology editors and collaborators compared notes to highlight some of them. BREAKTHROUGHS IN PROJECTION AND IMAGING If three is good, then four must be better, right? SANYO introduced its new PLC-XP200L 4LCD projector, and judging by its demo, a noticeable improvement in color is the result. According to Sanyo, as brightness levels increase on 3LCD projectors, there is a reverse effect in color reproduction. Colors become noticeably washed out, lacking vibrancy and realism. By adding a fourth LCD panel for color control of yellow, they claim to be able to automatically control the amount of yellow light in the image, producing higher luminosity with improved color accuracy and clarity. And because this fourth panel is able to take advantage of the yellow light produced by UHP lamps (rather than filtering it out and letting the RGB components create yellow), they are able to get a brighter image with high contrast. The PLCXP200L, the first projector to benefit from this new technology, is rated at 7,000 lumens. Coupled with the impressive high contrast ratio of 2200:1, the company claims that the PLC-XP200L is capable of generating clearer, richer, and more beautiful images than was ever possible with high brightness 3LCD projectors. One of the most innovative collaborations at InfoComm was related to the current industry obsession with digital signage. Digital signage is a product application that could be used in virtually every vertical market. For many potential customers, one of the impediments to its mass acceptance has been the lack of a clear way to quantify and verify the investment. That may be changing. CAPITAL NETWORKS and COGNOVISION have teamed up to offer a complete tracking platform that includes Capital Vision’s Audience content creation, scheduling, and management software and CognoVision’s AIM (Anonymous Impression Metric) audience measurement system. AIM has been www.avtechnologyonline.com optimized for use in digital signage networks, and it uses proprietary face detection and tracking technology to find viewers’ faces captured by digital optic devices. The company claims that AIM can provide business intelligence that allows you to track the number and duration of impressions and certain demographics of a digital signage installation’s audience (gender and age bracket). Sounds a little scary, but CognoVision insists that the AIM system is designed to ensure that the data detected and aggregated cannot be associated or otherwise linked with any specific individual. What’s the number one complaint among projector owners and users? The lamps burn out and are expensive to replace. With new technologies on the horizon like LED and laser light sources, a solution may finally be near. TEXAS INSTRUMENTS demonstrated a prototype of the industry’s first “lamp-free” projector that utilizes a PhlatLight LED light source and TI’s BrilliantColor chipset. The result is a bright (700 lumens) 1080p image that eliminates maintenance costs such as lamp replacements and filter changes. PhlatLight LED-based projectors have been previously developed and commercialized, but until today brightness has limited their use to lower brightness ultra-portable pocket projectors. The significance of this breakthrough is that it creates the first lamp-free projector for mainstream applications that delivers all the color and performance advantages without compromising brightness. The solid-state, lamp-free innovation will first be incorporated into home theater units and proliferate through corporate and education product lines thereafter. Speaking of new projection light sources, EVANS & SUTHERLAND debuted a new laser projection system featuring NanoPixel technology, called ESLP. It’s claimed to be the world’s highest resolution laser projector, targeted at digital cinemas, planetariums, control rooms, and other indoor venues. The ESLP takes advantage of the nanopixel light modulator, which is a MEMS (microelectromechanical system) device fabricated on a silicon microchip. On this chip are thousands of moving reflective elements arranged in a line array. This array corresponds to an entire column of pixels on the display (up to 4,096), and thereby allows all of those pixels to be drawn simultaneously. By sweeping an entire column of light across all pixel rows of the image, the system can achieve unprecedented levels of resolution. The only moving mechanical part in the optical path is a horizontal scan mirror that operates at a very stable 60 to 120 Hz refresh frequency. It is powered by a set of laser light sources that yield a much wider useable color spectrum (200 percent of NTSC/HDTV) than is available in conventional LCoS, DLP, LCD, or other lamp-illuminated projectors, according to the company. A trend that we saw last year at InfoComm was more in eviaugust 2008 | AV TECHNOLOGY | 69 http://www.avtechnologyonline.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of AV Technology - August 2008

AV Technology - August 2008 Contents Precedent Corporate: The Project’s Over...Now What? Government: Generational Diversity and the Rise of the Millennials Education: DIY ISP.EDU HD Videoconferencing On a Budget Using Automatic Mic Mixers The Way I See It: The Standards Dilemma in AV Something for Everybody AV Adds the Magic to Microsoft’s Hat Trick Simple Control for Smarter Classrooms Product Review: VeEX VePAL MX100 Product Spotlight: Amps; Touchpanels New Products Ad Index AV MO: Dealing with Ambient Light

AV Technology - August 2008

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