What Ever Happened to OLED TV's

The Sony XEL-1 OLED TV is a beautiful display. Its contrast ratio makes pictures pop, it's thinner than a credit card, but with an 11-inch screen, it's too small, and at $2,500, too expensive.

But it's been a year since it was introduced in January 2008, and as of today, it still has no competitors. Where are they?

Though we've been long promised that the era of OLED (organic light-emitting diode) TVs is just around the corner, it appears we're going to have to wait even longer. The major players in electronics who have the resources to build OLED TVs have been whacked by the global financial meltdown along with the rest of us. In other words, the timing to jump-start a brand new TV technology is terrible.

There was some hope that Samsung and Sony would be able to release larger OLED TVs this year. But if they were, they'd have brought them to CES in January in order to stir up excitement for them. That didn't happen. Instead, Sony brought the same 11-inch XEL-1 product that's been available for a year, as well as a 21-inch prototype. Samsung brought out a 40-inch prototype.

It's not that OLED is completely impossible to produce. There are a variety of gadgets sporting OLED screens made by these companies, but they're really small: cell phones, GPS devices, and now portable media players.

360° Panoramic Video Conferencing

I'm not saying that you shouldn't buy this product, but make sure you know the facts before you do so. Setting up a vidcon unit in the centre of a boardroom table is definitely thinking outside the box but it probably won't give you the meeting interaction everyone is looking for when it comes to videoconferencing. This is when the engineering part of a project kicks in. Designing a room system doesn't consist of buying a consumer product at a store and plugging it in, there are quite a few other factors to consider. The object of videoconferencing is to make it feel like you are having a face-to-face conversation with someone who isn't in the room. placement of the display, camera, microphone and speakers is imperative. The better the placement the more immersive your meeting will become.

360° panoramic view of the conference room when used with Microsoft Live Meeting 2007 is not going to do this for you.

iPhone 4

iPhone 4 makes calling with video on a cell phone a reality. With the tap of a button, you can wave hello to your kids, share a smile from across the globe, or watch your best friend laugh at your stories — iPhone 4 to iPhone 4 over Wi-Fi. No other phone makes staying in touch this much fun.

iPhone 4 has two built-in cameras, one on the front above the display and one on the back next to the LED flash. The front camera has been tuned for FaceTime. It has just the right field of view and focal length to focus on your face at arm’s length. So it always presents you in the best possible light.

The Retina display on iPhone 4 is the sharpest, most vibrant, highest-resolution phone screen ever, with four times the pixel count of previous iPhone models. In fact, the pixel density is so high that the human eye is unable to distinguish individual pixels. Which makes text amazingly crisp and images stunningly sharp.

Shoot your own movies in high definition. Capture impressive video even in low-light settings, thanks to the advanced backside illumination sensor and built-in LED light.

Crestron has an ap to control audio visual, HVAC, security and lighting.

Software

I have used all types of software to run an AV business. Some software can run every application to manage a project from start to finish. Others are piece-meal. Be very careful when looking at software packages. Quite typically software is oversold by the rep and doesn't follow-though with all the promises made. I have seen many software packages customized to meet AV integration requirements. Changes, revisions and add-ons' cost a lot of money. Even software that claims it can do everything often requires custom programming. I have seen companies spend anywhere from $100,000.00 - $500,000.00 for software and even after spending that much money more often than not systems and processes related to the software are very clunky. At this point in time you would think that we would have figured everything out. It possibly could be because AV is such a niche industry that you can't quite fit a "square" software peg into a "round" requirement.

Streaming

The Polycom RSS 4000 recording and streaming server is a network-based video conferencing solution that gives companies the ability to record conference calls, produce archive files of the recordings, and simultaneously stream the conferences to thousands of employees worldwide. It uses the video conferencing network as the source for employee-produced videos, such as training modules or CEO broadcasts, thereby leveraging the investment in a video conferencing network.

The Polycom Video Media Center (VMC) 1000 solution is a complete, scaleable video-on-demand content management system and live broadcast/streaming solution. Linking the worlds of video conferencing and Web streaming, Polycom VMC plays a critical role in any comprehensive video strategy. Video content is packaged with presentations and other media in a secure and easy to navigate user interfaces. Customized Broadcasts are easily set up with question submissions and polling for live Webcasts and quickly turned into Video on Demand content

8 Channel Wireless Microphones

I have specified the Revolabs 8 channel wireless mic systems for quite a few boardrooms and video conferencing systems. I like the idea that each microphone has a great pick-up pattern and is rechargeable. Revolabs has thought outside the box with this one, the design for table top or lapel application does very well. Each mic has its own output, this works very well for audio dsp matrixing which is standard for most high-end applications.

Document Cameras

Remember the old days when teachers put a piece of paper on an overhead and projected it on a wall or screen? This is still done with document cameras.

Document cameras can connect directly to a projector or laptop and project on a screen. Advantages with the new system is that images can be stored, manipulated and/or emailed.

There are also fixed ceiling document cameras. They flush mount into a ceiling and take a snap shot usually to a table. This is handy for large drawings and schematics.