InfoComm 2005 Show Report

Remember John Guare's play and movie adaptation - Six Degrees of Separation?

CES used to be consumer toys. NAB used to be broadcaster toys. InfoComm used to be AV folks toys. They are now in each other's toy box.

InfoComm is still about projection systems and viewing solutions (see bar chart). But increasingly the best home theaters are projector-based, not big black box sets.

Most of the products displayed at InfoComm are targeted for business, education, government and religious institution applications. Most are still sold through professional AV dealers and AV specialists but the market potential hasn't gone unnoticed by CE resellers.

With home solutions now available starting below $1,000 the CEDIA dealers/installers will get increasing pressure from the Best Buys, Comp USAs, Fryes and J & Rs of the world. The professional side still represents the greatest profit for the individual participants (Fig 5) but with the lower priced products available even the pros will look long and hard at the "home" products for the office. On the other hand, the consumer segment represents both volume and brand recognition for the manufacturers…that's important to all of us today.

The big players in this area are the same firms that are producing the plasma and LCD sets - Mitsubishi, Panasonic, Sony, Toshiba, Hitachi and Sanyo. Of course they are getting competitive pressure from Dell, HP, BenQ, NEC and Epson who see a whole new world of sales potential. They ranged from Hitachi's high Lumen projector to Dell's pocket-sized projector.

There were some breathtaking LCD and Plasma screens shown (see photos) but we some really exciting DLP projectors. They sorely tempted us to find someone who wanted a really good "big black box" so we could have an automated screen and one of the new DLP projectors. The idea of being able to tuck away your TV viewing when not in use is going to be appealing to lots of people in the years to come!

With the increasing pressure around the globe for TV signals to be sent digitally so HighDef can be everywhere will rejuvenate sales across the entertainment spectrum. According to In-Stat there will be about 15.5 million sets installed this year and that by 2009 the number will increase to a very respectable 52 million. These numbers sound credible when you see the STB and DTV semiconductor projections (see chart).

The only thing that can slow this growth down will be price.

While both the HD and BD blue laser teams were at the show promoting their solutions as the way ahead leaders in HighDef content, no one said a word about what agreement had been reached with Hollywood and broadcasters about the broadcast flag issue. If you are unable to time shift your shows, will DVD recorders or set-top boxes make a lot of sense to the consumer?

JVC created a lot of stir with their announcement of a 3/1 video recorder/player and HighDef player. Both used today's red laser technology. Their spokesperson said the player would support IP network streams, HDV's MPEG-2, Windows' Media Video (WMV9) and content from today's HD video camcorders. Both solutions are a little expensive initially but if some of the Taiwan burner, recorder and player manufacturers take notice and JVC ramps production those prices could come down very rapidly.

We agree that there are several HighDef MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 codec standards being talked about right now. But the cost to an OEM of adding 2-3 of them to their units will be significantly less than paying the royalties for either HD or BD (or both) plus the cost of the blue laser read/write mechanisms. Especially if they can store that content on today's low-cost single and double layer DVDs.

Maybe there's a viable solution to the blue laser discussions after all…Column C!!!