Integrated Systems Europe (ISE) 2010 – Show Report

The 2nd-4th of February 2010 saw Amsterdam’s RAI Centre hosting Integrated Systems Europe. Despite the ‘Tough’ (!!) economic climate across Europe, the attendance was up 14% on 2009 to 28,489 across the 3 days.

Some of the team from Production:av went along to have a look at the new products and services on offer, with the aim of coming away with some new tools to help us meet our clients needs more effectively.

The Show

ISE spans across multiple halls at the RAI, giving a chance for Systems Integrators and AV specialists to see product ranges from all the major manufacturers such as Extron, Kramer, Barco, NEC, Mitsubishi and many more. With it’s size it’s hard to see everything in 1 day, so I’d recommend going for two days. We spent day 1 going from stand to stand to see what was available before returning to those that we needed to see more of. With the RAI being well connected to the city, it’s easy to get value accommodation away from the show and still not spend too long travelling.

There we several areas we went to look at:

Digital Signage.

This is a market that is continuing to expand, with more vendors entering the market with their products. There isn’t a huge variation – essentially there are media player type units (Onelan being one such manufacturer) which are often network-able, software solutions such as Nexus On Demands solution, and then integrated solutions in to screens such as those from Phillips. There didn’t really appear to be any groundbreaking releases, but more that products were becoming more mature and stable. We certainly liked the feature set of the Onelan products.

Projection

There were a few new projection products. Projectiondesign’s new remote light source projectors have clear benefits for use in meeting rooms where projector noise is not ideal, and also makes changing lamps easier in projectors that might be mounted in inaccessible places.

Christie Digital Launched the Microtile – a 10″x16″ rear projection LED driven DLP projection cube, that works to about a 720×540 resolution, with a very thin bezel, beating the new crop of ‘Seamless’ LCD’s.  Utilising the ‘ECU’ they can be stacked and tiled in a multitude of shapes. It’s great idea, and looks brilliant, with the LED’s giving a great colour range, but I’m unsure that it’s going to take much work from Seamless LCD’s. It takes about 4 tiles to be a simillar size to a 42″ LCD, but each tile is about twice the price of a single LCD…. I’m also not convinced that the rigging has been thought through properly, but once we get an onsite demo, then we may be convinced otherwise.

Multitouch

Is everywhere! Apple have probalby helped to bring this technology to the fore with the iPhone and now the iPad, but many others are working to create large visuals solutions that embrace the technology. I think the two high lights for me were the NEC Multi-Touch ability of it’s 70 Series Projection Cube. The ability to scale google maps on a large screen, and across the seams was impressive.

The other impressive option was the Multi Touch rear projection film that enables Multi Touch for shop fronts and other display scenarios. Although the demonstration unit was a proof of concept rather than finished product it worked well. They hope to have large areas (2m Diagonal and above) available around 2nd quarter 2010.

3D – LED, TV’s and Projection

Again, it looks like 2010 could be the year of 3D- I haven’t even got an HD ready TV at home yet! That said the slab of 3D LED that Video Equipment Rentals were demonstrating was pretty clever. The 3m viewing distance didn’t do it justice, but in an arena sized venue it must work a treat.

There were also a few different 3D systems in evidence. From those that use polarising or shuttered lenses to those that didn’t require glasses. I think there’s still work to be done on the 3D front – being a glasses wearer, I don’t want to have to wear another pair of glasses to watch TV. And when it comes to the systems that require no additional paraphernalia, there’s still work to be done, as I’m not somebody that can sit still for that long.

Other bits.

There were a few other bits that shone out – Yamaha’s Digital Video I/O boards which enable audio from the desk to be embedded/deembedded onto an SDI video feed (useful for sending Video/Audio over a single BNC to a remote room).

Then there is the Neutrik Optical Con Quad – a ruggedised 4 pole fibre connector connector, that combined with the relevant fibre cables will give a very robust system for the deployment of DVI and HDMI (and if you feel the need, Audio!) systems in the events sector.

Overall?

Would we go back? Yes. It’s a great way to see and compare equipment, and a good chance to find those useful bits that you need but didn’t know where to find them. It also gives a chance to catch up with the manufacturers, find out what’s new and potentially save some time compared to taking various hours out to chat with the reps.

Did we find the bits we were after? Yes. Keep an eye on the website for upcoming news about products and services that we’ll be bringing to you.

All in all, a worth while trip. See you at ISE 2011!

InfoComm Round Table Event

Being members of InfoComm  we had the chance to meet other members of InfoComm atone of their round table events being held across the UK.  It was chance to network and meet together with other InfoComm members, InfoComm Staff and chew the fat on the state of the industry.

It also gave a chance for InfoComm to give some updates on what they’re doing, and how it helps the members, and how that in turn helps us help you!

RIBA CPD Sessions

InfoComm is now a member authorised to provide CPD for Architects. At the Round Table Chris Lavelle gave an overview of the presentation that helps give architects an overview of what we do, and how we can help them achieve a more integrated design through involvement of systems integrators earlier in the planning stages. We’re planning to run the session with a free lunch in May and September, dates to be confirmed. So if your an Architect, fancy a free lunch, and want to help towards your CPD, then get in touch.

Standards Creation:

Historically InfoComm has been keen to uphold the quality of AV installations through various means. One route was the creation of  ’Best Practice Standards’. This means that through a rigourous process, of thorough consultation with users, manufacturers, designers and systems integrators, they are able to define what the Best Practice looks like.

But InfoComm have taken this further through becoming an ANSI Accredited body, giving them the strength to define ANSI Standards. This means that we as an industry now have a trade body creating standards for us to work to in the design and implementation of audio visual systems. This in turn means that as a client you have reassurance that we have the best interest of the project at heart, and that we can demonstrate our competence through designing systems that meet these standards. 

AVSP – Audio Visual Service Provider

The round table also gave an overview of the changes in the AVSP scheme. The old ‘Gold’, ‘Silver’ and ‘Bronze’ designations have been replaced with Emerald, Sapphire and Diamond. We’re working towards gaining gaining accreditation with Sam McCrea having completed the Essentials of AV course, with the rest of us not far behind. We’re working to have Emerald Level status by September 2009. Check back to see how we do!

Broadcast Video Expo show report

Broadcast Video Expo ran from the 17th ot 19th of Feb at Earls Court Two. It was the first time that we have been, and with free tickets, we thought it was worth a look!

With it being aimed at Facilities Houses, Broadcasters and program makers, most of the names you’d expect to see were there- Sony, Panasonic, Arri, Apple, Avid, JVC Thomson/Grass Valley and many more. High Definition is very much here now, with pretty much every camera manufacturer offering a multitude of HD cameras recording to both traditional tapes and tapeless formats.

We went with two aims:

• Get some answers on questions regarding the Panasonic AV-HS400 as well as sussing out alternatives,
• Start planning a route to a Engineered HD camera system.

Panasonic AV-HS400

Surprisingly Panasonic didn’t have any kit on their stand. Luckily for us, one of the UK distributors had the HS400 on theirs, combined with a very helpful chap from Panasonic that pounced on us when we started looking at the unit.

Out of the box it comes with 8 HD/SDI inputs, allowing you to work in either SD or HD format, and by adding input cards with built in scalers it’s possible to take an SD-SDI input and scale it to meet other HD-SDI inputs enabling a mixed format system. Additional input cards with DVI slots let you take in computer graphics for use in keying situations. Combined with the SDI outputs, and the ability to have the HS400 generate a multiviewer style preview, means that it’s possible to cut down on the number of monitors required to run a show. All this comes in a unit that fits within a 19″ rack, and is not much larger the the MX70.

With very low latencies, the AV-HS400 looks to be a great peice of kit, ideal for events where lip sync issues are key, and where a small form factor with full HD processing are required. One rental company already has the unit, and I think we’ll join them in adding it to our rental stock at somepoint soon.

Engineered HD Camera Systems

Production:av was one of the first in the UK to recognise the Barco CLM HD8 as a new standard in high brightness Full HD projection. We’ve matched this with scalers capable of processing Full HD and beyond (in the form of the Screen ProII’s and Presentation Pro II), and source equipment such as Apple iMacs and Final Cut Pro Studio.

The current weak link is the camera systems. Engineered (i.e. cameras with Camera Control cabling  (CCZ) and Camera Control units  or CCU’s to enable remote control of Black and White Balances, exposure etc) SD-SDI PPU’s and camera systems are readily available, and our choice of camera system due to the quality of the images from cameras such as the Sony D55. It’s possible to do widescreen with these, and through use of scalers it’s possible to  scale the image to HD resolutions, but as the pixels were never there in the first place your never going to improve the image. 

It is possible to do HD systems using cameras such as the Sony HVR Z1e, but these lack the ability to be remotely engineered, meaning the camera man has to run the exposure as well as framing the shot, and dealing with the focus. Also there are only a few systems out there that have HD/SDI outputs enabling a complete digital workflow.

BVE was good as it gave us a chance to look at the options out there, and start to plot a route through the fog. Hitachi we showing a new camera system with full HD cameras, fibre optic CCZ’s and CCU’s. With camera body and CCU starting at around £25k, it might start to see full HD PPU’s become possible for the corporate and live events market, with out requiring budgets that small african countries would love to have!

So keep an eye on the site, as we will keep you posted with our progress towards a compelte digital workflow.

As for BVE? I definitely think we’ll go again. It’s always useful to be able to see products and their competition in one place, as well as spotting those useful little products that you might have missed otherwise.

Radio Frequencies for Microphones – things are changing!

For a long time the ‘Events’ industry (or PMSE – Programme Making and Special Events as Ofcom call it) have used a small slice of the available frequencies nestling around the Analogue TV frequencies to transmit our speeches and talks on Radio Microphone Systems. But Ofcom, who deal with all this have decided to release various ‘channels’ (frequency ranges) for different uses, such as Digital TV.

This has been on the cards for a while now, with the consultation document hitting the streets on the 2nd of Feb, giving us as an industry until April 2009 to let them know what we think.  

The Ofcom report is here- Digital dividend: clearing the 800 MHz band. Currently it looks like the frequencies mostly used for PMSE is going to be auctioned off for alternative uses, with the plan to move the PMSE spectrum to a new section of frequencies. 

So how will this affect the people on the streets? Well if you have a current UHF radio mic system (Ultra High Frequency – generally considered to be 300MHz to 3GHz see here), it’s likely to work on a series of set frequencies, typically 854 to 865Mhz (with 854-862MHz currently requiring a licence being Channel 69). These frequencies will be sold off to enable their use for alternative purposes, meaning that unless you own the licence, you will be acting illegally. However the proposed new PMSE frequencies, most likely to be channel 38 which is currently used for Radio Astronomy, are lower in the ’spectrum’, with the proposed frequencies being too low for most current radio mic systems to transmit on. 

So it looks like if the proposals are agreed, that we will all need to be looking to replace our radio microphone systems with new equipment that is capable of operating on the existing frequencies while they are still available, and also working on the new frequencies once they become available.

Obviously this impacts us- we sell radio microphones to our customers, and we’ll need to make sure we continue to give them the best possible value for money. Currently if your looking to replace a system that still works, it might be best to hold off until the position on the spectrum us agreed, and the manufacturers start to release equipment that will work on the new channels. That said if you need to replace dead equipment, you don’t really have any other options other than to go with what is currently on offer.

We’ll keep you posted on how things unfold. Sign up to our E-News letter to help keep abreast of the forth coming changes.

Together at Butlin’s Bognor Regis.

We’ve had the pleasure of working at Butlin’s this weekend for the New Frontiers regional ‘Together Event’. And it’s been a pleasure for several reasons, one of them being that the Butlin’s tech crew have been really helpful. You never quite know what it’s going to be like patching into house systems and making it all work, even with site visits. But they have gone out of their way to help us out. So big thanks to Hazel Hatch the main manager, then also to Jason (Head Tech), and the numerous guys in the venues. it really is appreciated, and makes for a much less pressured event. 

We’ll have a full report up soon, so sign up for the eNews alerts to see more!

Laters, Pete.

It’s arrived!!

It’s taken us a while, and still has some way to go, but hopefully it’s better than the old site! Yes the new Production:av website is now live. We hope you like it. 

We’re aiming to keep it more up to date, hence the content management system, we hoping to be able to add useful information as we find it, so not only will it be a good place to keep up with where we are and what we’re doing, but also a useful resource.

The hire catalogue is still under development, so not everything we have is listed, but we will be getting in sorted soon. 

Sign up to our email updates- we’re running a competition for a prize draw for a 4GB iPod Nano, if you sign up before the 1st of March!

All the best,

Pete.

The First blog post

This is a bit odd really, as I’m writing for something that is currently still in development. I’m really excited by he prospect of our new website, as I recognise that the old one has been neglected of late, and really doesn’t show what we do very well. 

I’m also excited because we’ve been out meeting other rental companies and catching up with people we haven’t seen for a while at others. Why’s that exciting? Well because we’ve been doing this for the last four years.

Personally I’ve been trying to push the quality of what we do since I started- things like running DVI Video digitally over Fibre Optic (something we first did in 2006), which others are just starting to do. Then there’s using Apple products due to the fact that 99% of the time they let you get on with what you want to do, not fight the OS to achieve things- again a competitor has just decided to start doing that.

The Barco R10+ – we were one of the first to recognise what has become a great machine, when it ticked the boxes and we sold one to Cheltenham Racecourse in 2007,  with other companies following our lead in 2008.

All in all it leaves me excited, as we’re leading the way, but also making the right decisions in terms of the kit we invest in, and then the knock on for the quality of the presentation for you as the end client. 

So despite the doom and gloom 2009 promises to be an exciting and year for us. I’m certainly looking forward to the year and the challenges it brings, and making sure we meet them head on.

Speak soon,

Pete