Paul Salvini, CTO, Christie Digital delivered this keynote at the Projection Summit

What does the future hold for Pro AV integrators? Dr. Salvini discusses near- and long-term factors that may influence future innovation opportunities, as well as review key influencing factors that could help shape the direction and value proposition of the Pro AV market.

…Today I want to talk about some of the high level trends that are likely to shape our industry in the years to come.

In my talk I'm going to cover the highlights of what Christie is working on.

By the end, I hope you'll see that I characterize our collective future as one that is bigger, brighter, faster, sharper, and smarter.

I couldn't be more excited about what's happening in the pro AV market as there are so many emerging opportunities for our companies to collectively tackle.

High Brightness

My first slide is on higher brightness.

You don't need to work very long in this industry before you get a phone call from someone looking for us to defy the laws of physics.

Perhaps the request is for daytime projection mapping on a building. Or, even more extreme, the desire to project on the surface of the moon.

Some of you might have seen this rolling rock ad from a few years ago. They ran a fantastic campaign that convinced a lot of people that moon-vertising was actually on the way.

If only we could deliver!

But while lighting up the moon might be a bit out of our reach, projectors are moving outdoors and the art of projection mapping is starting to explode.

Projection Mapping

NEC Display Solutions of America names Visix as the winner of the 2012 Best of InfoComm Award. Visix will donate the $10,000 prize to an Atlanta-based organization that meets the educational and developmental needs of children with learning differences.

Visix won the award for its AxisTV Version 8.0 digital signage software, which includes a new user interface, new background library and 64-bit support for Microsoft Server 2008. It finished in the top five after a public voting period.

The other finalists were Actineon, Dataton, Haivision and Revolabs. The winner was picked by a panel of four industry experts, including rAVe founder Gary Kayye. The other judges were Lyle Bunn of BUNN, Co., David Keene of NewBay Media and Chuck Wilson of NSCA.

Past winners of the NEC Best of InfoComm Award include Peerless-AV (2011), SpinetiX (2010) and Da-Lite (2009-- the first year the award was given).

Go NEC Best of InfoComm Award

Go Visix

The 2012 Global AV Market Definition and Strategy Study, conducted by Acclaro Growth Partners for InfoComm International, projects AV products and services will become a $115 billion global industry by 2015.

The growth of conferencing, signal management, AV acquisition, and delivery equipment and streaming media resulted in an 11% CAGR in demand for AV products and services between 2009 and 2012. The study says the industry currently generates $78 billion a year.

More important, for all of us, the industry should continue to grow at a 14% CAGR between 2012 and 2015.

“The AV industry is strong, despite a challenging global business environment, because society relies on AV technology to facilitate essential communications,” says Randal A. Lemke, Executive Director and CEO, InfoComm International. “In order to meet the future needs of our customers, the audiovisual industry will require a well-trained workforce to respond to ever-growing customer needs.”

AV applications such as conferencing, digital signage, signal management and processing, and streaming media and webcasting will drive future growth.

Over time AV systems have become complex and essential to the operation of government, institutions and corporations, resulting in a growing need for service contracts. Contracts for service and maintenance of audiovisual systems are also increasing. The fastest growing services are installation/integration and managed services.

Fueled by more need for communication and collaboration in these environments, the corporate, education and government markets are the three largest consumers of audiovisual products and services. And healthcare is the fastest growing market for AV goods and services.

The findings of The 2012 Global AV Market Definition and Strategy Study, which include a global overview and information by regions including North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia-Pacific and Africa-Middle East, were released at InfoComm 2012.

The study can be purchased in its entirety or by regional section at or at the InfoComm Show Store in the main lobby of the Las Vegas

Go The 2012 Global AV Market Definition and Strategy Study

Trade shows: some people love them; some people hate them. But it sure makes it easier when the industry has a good one.

And for retiring InfoComm Executive Director and CEO Randal A. Lemke, his last InfoComm 2012 was a great one. 933 exhibitors participated at InfoComm this year with more than 487,000 net square feet of exhibit and special events space.

More than 34,268 AV professionals (up 4%) came from more than 90 countries. If +4% doesn’t seem like much, then compare it to the GDP growth of most Western economies…or to the interest your bank will give you on your money these days. In the exhibition business they have a saying: “Up is up.”

And with 34,268 visitors, most exhibitors are extremely happy—plenty of opportunity to sell someone something in AV.

The 2012 Screenmedia Expo showed a slight increase in overall attendance from 2011 with total visitors at 3244.

Overseas visitors held up well despite the economic woes in EMEA but were slightly down as an overall percentage with a total of 26% of visitors from overseas onsite versus 30% in 2011.

The post-event website content wwill include a range of video interviews and all the presentations from four conference tracks.

You can view a digital issue of the 2012 Screenmedia Expo show guide at link below.

Go Digital issue of the 2012 Screenmedia Expo Guide

Every year after DSE, rAVe USA gives out their annual Digital Signage CHAMPS awards. Here's all the products and solutions rAVe USA thought were the best of the best for 2012. Congratulations to all the winners!

Most Innovative New DS Hardware Product (tie)

Winner NEC's v651-T - A 65" with optical multi-touch

Winner Planar Mosaic Architectural Displays

Most Creative Display Technology (tie)

Winner NanoLumens 112-inch flexible, light LED Display

Winner MRI ThruVu Transparent Digital Cooler Display Door

Best DS Software Add-On App

Jennifer J. Deal’s Five Millennial Myths is subtitled: Forget what you think you know about your Gen Y employees.

That part was easy: I didn’t know much.

The conventional wisdom, apparently, is that “…everyone under the age of 30 is needy and narcissistic. They want the corner office and a company car, but they aren’t truly committed to their organization. They don’t take kindly to criticism, but can be easily won over with the next hot gadget.”

Deal asks: “Can companies afford to put their trust in these types of characterizations?”

For the past 12 years, she studied the so-called generation gap through empirical research, and found the stereotypes of millennials in the workplace asinconsistent at best and destructive at worst. With data collected from more than 13,000 participants in for-profit, nonprofit, and government organizations, Deal dentifies five key myths that companies believe about their younger employees.

Myth #1: Millennials don’t want to be told what to do.

The reality: Wrong! Their research shows (unexpectedly, she admits) that millennials currently in the workforce are more willing to defer to authority than either baby boomers or Gen Xers.

Millennials are more likely to thrive if they know the ingredients for success in the workplace, starting with the basics. For example, although it may seem obvious to an older manager, millennials may appreciate being told what time they are expected to arrive at the office, and precisely how quickly they should turn around a project (beyond just “ASAP”).

ADmira, a Barcelona-based provider of digital signage software & services and AOpen, known for its media player, announced a strategic alliance.

Both companies are active in the digital signage/narrowcasting industry; targeting at retailers, advertising agencies, transportation and hospitality. References of the joint solution of AOpen’s media player called Digital Engine and ADmira Suite include: TMB Transports Metropolitans de Barcelona, Gros Mercat cash&carry, Cadiz displays and Eteria Marketing and Communications agency.