by Marco Adriaans
Marketing & Communications, PROJECTA BV

Why would a business that invests a small fortune in beamers and laptops (and on people who spend days to create a PowerPoint or video presentation) then project their images onto a surface that would blur and distort viewing?

The answer is that, today, almost every corporate on the FT 500 list owns multiple screens, while many SMEs are still learning…and may (out of ignorance or because they think they are saving money) be trapped in that space known as “Screen-less.”

The “Screen-less” don’t know, don’t recognize that any chain is only as good as its weakest link and-- in an AV chain--a blank wall used as a projection surface easily qualifies as the weakest link. A wall is simply not intended for projection.

Installers of screens must still spend time trying to educate the SME business customers to the fact that a good screen improves communication and enhances presentations. Maybe today, we should call the screen a “high definition fabric display.”

If SMEs weren’t enough of an educational challenge, now comes along a new version of an old problem: the emerging home theater market. Here’s where installers have to ask their customers in Socratic fashion, “Why would you compile a fantastic film collection, buy an expensive high def DVD player-- only to break the chain of quality by adding a dumb wall where a quality fabric component should be?”

More and more people only discover how much more pleasant it is to watch something on a large screen when they visit a sports bar, pub or auditorium where the result of a completed quality chain is so apparent. Exposure to professional solutions is a driving force in the home market where the consumer can inspire to emulate (to his own budget limitation) the video quality that impresses him/her the most.

(In this same manner, (i.e., by exposure to quality systems in pro AV environments), more and more SMEs now also understand that a top-notch presentation calls for a top quality chain of projection components including a screen at least equal to the weakest component.)

The projection screen is an indispensable component of any presentation or Home Cinema set-up, just as important as the source media, player and beamer. A quick look at a screen might be deceptive but the factors that go into a good screen are numerous. The quality of the fabric (which is not a single quality but a multiplicity of qualities to achieve the right formula to build into the screen fabric the many characteristics it needs to display an image), the quality of the black border (which should be there to add to the perceived clarity), the control mechanism (to raise and lower the screen whether manually of electronically), the ease and durability of a mounting mechanism, and even the way to transport the screen to the installer and to the installer’s customers (without tearing or degrading of the screen).

In the home, an image must be projected so several people can see it all at the same time. Each situation is unique and for the best possible projection quality (clarity of the image), the customers need to understand that light output of the projector, size of the projection screen and the reflection value of the screen fabric should be attuned to one another.

Projecta screens use a special black border (or frame) to improve the perceived clarity of the projected image. With certain Home Cinema models, there is even an extra high black border on the top and/or bottom of the screen, allowing the user to choose the ideal viewing height. That makes a difference when placement will be in high rooms and in home cinema viewing rooms.

Dealers, distributors and installers who want to look at the difference a good screen makes can look at web site or contact us.

But any way you look at it… you’re better off looking at it with a good screen!

Go Projecta Screens

by Bob Snyder

Warner Bros. will back Sony's format for storing high def movies and this gave the Blu-Ray camp the urge to declare their rivals HD DVD were “beaten.”

“We’ve heard that before,” insisted executives from HD DVD. But it was scary when the HD-DVD group cancelled their own CES press conference because it followed too close after the Warner Bros. announcement.

If Blu-Ray wins (or HD DVD, for that matter), the question will not be whether or not one group or another had another more thunder or lightning. The real question is whether either camp could ever be a Rainmaker.

With Apple, Amazon, NetFlix, Cisco, Microsoft and others push downloadable content, with cable and phone companies flogging on-demand, all day/all night HD, and with I.T. companies pushing on-line storage and new form factors, the DVD business is looking as promising as the last Dodo bird.

JVC, for one example, showed a flat-screenTV at CES that allows users to simply insert an iPod to watch video content. So any slim media player can become an alternative to digital video discs. And Denon, for another example, is building iPod docks into its AVRs like Altec, third example, is doing for loudspeakers.

IPTV, in fact, was the dominant theme of CES. Sharp, Samsung, and Panasonic all entered content alliances that will let consumers look at headlines or videos from the net on their TVs.

Content will jump full-blown into on-line delivery. Any and every device with an IP connection will be content-ready.

Obviously there will still be customers who ask for high def DVD in their set-up. But more and more you will have to confront customers who will resist in favor of an online content solution. Customers who have already bought and re-bought their favorite music in LP, 8-track, cassette, CD, and then plain ol’DVD may be the first to resist adding any more hardware that requires re-purchasing content.  These same Blu-Ray resistant buyers may be susceptible to sales approaches that incorporate newer ways to access music/movies on line.

In the Old World, we showed households how to hook up Audio and Video in the home in order to play their recorded media. In the New World, we’ll be compelled to help them to throw away DVDs.

Systems LLC brings out the first ever home automation and control platform based on MAC OS X Leopard™. The maker of the ROSIE Coffee Table has created a home control package utilizing a controller called ROSIE and a proprietary configuration tool called RacePoint Blueprint™.

 “For the first time, developers have a control and media platform that enables them to sell their Apple-based applications into the CEDIA marketplace via the Savant product suite,” says Savant president Jim Carroll.

RacePoint Blueprint  provides Apple developers with an application channel into the CEDIA industry. When combined with Quartz Composer and Automator, it provides Apple developers with an automation and control system for many vertical markets. Developers can control flat panel displays, DVD players, AV receivers, set-top boxes, Apple TV® projectors, lighting, window treatments, and other equipment commonly deployed in multi-room residential settings as well as business installations and theatrical productions—without writing a single line of code.

ROSIE has interactive multimedia capabilities such as integration and interaction with many Apple-based applications including iTunes and AirTunes.

Carroll also says, “Developers can now have their applications invoked with the simple push of a button from any of our OS X-based interface technologies that include 5, 7, 9, and 12-inch in-wall touchpanels and a 13.3-inch wireless touchpanel along with Apple’s iPhone and iPod touch.  Savant's touchpanel application takes advantage of the unique user interface of Apple’s iPhone and iPod  touch. The developer’s application can be accessed via Savant’s rich GUI. 

All the Savant user interface can be accessed on the iPhone and iPod touch with one hand.

Go Savant Brings HA to Mac OS X Leopard

Now you may not think “Philips” when you think “Custom Install” but the success of high-end Aurea TVs, Pronto remotes and other products makes a new day for the Dutch brand.

Unheralded in the middle of a trade show… buried beneath the piles of press releases and hundreds of exhibits about the latest boxes, cases and gadgets from Taiwan and China, Philips entered the external NAS market. A media gateway for the home.

The European CE giant Philips, famous for its range of monitors, remotes, and other computer peripherals, announced its first Multimedia Hard Drive. The NAS, of course, provides consumers with a central storage location and instant access to files throughout the home when used with a wireless network.

To understand the significance of this product, you have to imagine you are sitting in front of a very demanding jigsaw puzzle.  You are putting the pieces together without an image of the finished puzzle (in other words, you are acting intelligently but blindly). As you place another piece into the puzzle you notice there is an empty space, a space that requires a piece that would be a keystone to solving the puzzle.  Once the keystone piece is in place, it’s then obvious what the completed picture should be and all the other pieces go in, ever so much more easily.

Now think of the puzzle as digital home. Imagine a giant company with one of the largest ranges of peripherals, a known expertise in monitors and TVs, and a leading inventor in storage (remember it’s the 25th anniversary of the CD, a Philips-patented invention).

And here comes the Philips SPD8020… When coupled with a digital media adapter connected to a TV, it becomes a fully functional media server to stream music or video throughout the home.  Consumers can also access their files from any location in the world, using the NAS drive’s built-in FTP server together with an Internet connection.

And that’s what could make the NAS a keystone piece for the Philips strategy of connected home, a focal point that can bring together an increasing number of Philips peripherals in the home that need to talk to each other.

Delivering 500GB, the SPD8020 lets consumers store more than 500,000 photos, three weeks of uncompressed video or 125,000 songs. Encased in thick aluminium, the Philips drive operates quietly, with an accessible standby mode for low energy consumption.  The SPD8020 has a fast gigabit Ethernet connection, and provides the option to add further capacity via its USB host (with another hard drive or memory stick.)

The NAS finally puts a Philips product in the heart of the home network, finishing off a connected vision of how the TV, computer and all those other peripherals might be connected to the internet and talk to each other as well opening the largest door to media and IP content ever seen, heard or read.
Now you may not think “Philips” when you think “Custom Install” but the success of high-end Aurea TVs, Pronto remotes and other products makes a new day for the Dutch brand. When a customer insists on Aurea, you’ll find Philips NAS or Media Gateway becomes a piece of the puzzle.

Raphael Oberholzer, senior manager at Switzerland’s Smarthome (and CEDIA board member) gave us these top 10 tips for staying on top of complex installations.