CEDIA Expo 2009 Wrapup
Oct 9, 2009 4:56 PM,
By Bennett Liles
CEDIA Expo 2009 took the stage at Atlanta’s Georgia World Congress Center during a critical moment for the organization and the industry. There was no shortage of speculation on the turnout and the level of interest that the crowd would show. On day one, by the time the exhibit floor opened at 10 a.m., the place was a wall-to-wall sea of humanity.
The floor held a surprising array of new products including loudspeaker lines, signal conversion units, video displays, and signal transmission devices. Wireless AV conveyance was strong this year with Wi-Fi in wireless control and ultrawideband in 720p high-def video distribution for the home. Even with all the new devices and the technology behind them, however, it appears that the anticipated wave of IP-based AV devices that have established a strong beachhead in the commercial sector has yet to break strongly into the residential industry. But it’s coming. On that subject, CEDIA CEO Utz Baldwin says he sees a grand landscape.
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Price erosion is hardly new to the front-projection industry and neither is the less-than-$1,000 level. We’ve seen a variety of projector classes and types–first SVGA business units, then XGA models, then 720p video projectors, etc….
“The home of the future will have technology embedded everywhere,” Baldwin says. “I don’t see it being too far-fetched to say that we’ll even have intelligent building materials that are recognized on the network and can report information back to homeowners.”
Another AV development that holds great promise for the future of many of the products on the show floor this time is DisplayPort technology. Already well-established in the commercial AV sector, DisplayPort is rapidly making its way into the home AV market and will bring change with it. Gefen Director of Business Development Robert Lemer advises consumers to get up to speed on it.
“There is going to be more education needed to move it into home theater,” he says, “and the manufacturers who are putting DisplayPort on their displays are trying to do that now.”
While the current economy is putting a throttle on new product development and guiding the home electronics industry into more retrofit products and modular systems, it hasn’t dealt the knockout blow that many had feared. The turnout at CEDIA Expo 2009 has proven that.
Listen to podcasts from the show.
