Fowler went to Infocomm last week, and the show floor was pretty exciting this year. I saw quite a few very innovative products. Here’s a

quick recap of what we did and saw, and a few of the more exciting new products:

After a few less than exciting stops, we made our way to the Volante booth. They feature the DiVAS Controller, which streams several channels of HD video through a gigabit network to any number of displays. They also have a DVR unit which allows you to time-shift your broadcast. Very cool stuff. Several booths later we found ourselves in the Elite Screens booth. They make a very wide variety of video screens. The one we found most interesting was the EZ Cinema, which is a “portable” manual ascender type screen. I say “portable” because they come in sizes up to 12’ wide.

At Panasonic’s dealer meeting room, we saw some really nice professional LCD displays, the new

20 series plasmas, and some great new projectors. After that, we somehow found an integration company that was dressed up like the Pirates of the Caribbean. Weird...

We wrapped up the day with Elmo, who introduced a new cool writing tablet with software, that will also control their document cameras.

We started our second day with an appointment with Mitsubishi.  They are rolling out a brand new series of dual lamp DLP projectors. The WD8200U has 6500 lumens and the XD8100U has 7000 lumens, and they have a new extra long-throw lens as well. Their booth also featured a new 65” LCD (MDT651S) at a great price point.

I am also very excited by a product from Magenta Research called the Voyager VG-RX. They are doing amazing things with signal extenders. The Voyager VG-RX is a high performance receiver for short or long haul transmission of uncompressed hi-definition video and audio signals.  It also carries USB, IR and RS-232 control signals, and it does it all over fiber optic cabling. Additionally, they have found a way to capture and store HDCP protocol. This will make it possible to display sources that have HDCP imbedded without a limitation on the number of displays. (For more on HDCP, check out our podcast.)

 At the Panasonic booth, I finally got to put my hands on the new AG-H100 and AW-H550 video mixers; both little brothers to the AV-HS450N. The AG-H100 is a fantastic small format HD video mixer with the highly sought-after multiview. It is housed in the same chassis as the old AG-MX70, which means that it carries and switches audio in addition to the video signals. This unit will be a perfect fit for the budget-conscious church that  wants to get into more advanced video mixing and IMAG. There was no way we could get out of the booth without seeing the new 152” plasma monitor (TH-152UX1). I’m already drawing up blueprints to remove a wall in my living room and replace it with this plasma. 

There was quite a bit more live sound and stage equipment this year than in the past. Soundcraft had a truck there as well as Yamaha. Martin Lighting has a brand new truck featuring all of their new luminaires.

I stopped by Shure to check out their new SE-115M earbuds (yeah, I missed them last year), and the rep actually put them in my ears. Although the experience was a little creepy, the fantastic sound was worth the very uncomfortable 30 seconds of close proximity to a complete stranger. I checked out both the SE115M and the SE425, and both were superb.

In summary, this was the best Infocomm in 3 years. We saw a lot of things that made our trip worthwhile. Manufacturers in the industry continue to put out products that put the most advanced media ideas within reach of most churches. Make sure you ask your Fowler Church Consultant about how these products will help you accomplish your mission. And when we come to visit, we promise we won’t be in pirate costumes.