Display Technology 

As someone who has been working in the audio visual industry for twenty years, I sometimes get a little weary of the same old question, “What is hot in AV, Tim?” Sometimes I struggle with this one but today I am pretty thrilled to share a couple of items I feel are in fact, pretty hot. 

Every year I see more and more manufacturers enter the audio visual marketplace with their version of touch technology. Although this technology has long had a place with interactive whiteboards in the kindergarten to grade twelve setting, 2011 is the break out year for touch in the business meeting space. Most impressively is the SMART 8070i-MP. This elegant 70 inch commercial grade LCD screen will really make you wonder why you have not been using this all along. It offers precise and intuitive operation on a 1920 x 1080 resolution screen and provides two 15 W speakers for audio support. Even more impressive than this great piece of hardware is the way the user can interface with the software. First off, this product seems like it was made for Windows 7 touch gestures, you can manipulate objects with gestures like zoom, rotate, pan, flick and toss. Not only that, two people can write, erase and manipulate objects simultaneously – the 8070i automatically recognizes what each user is doing and responds accordingly. Whether you have it loaded onto your laptop or using the auto loading SMART Go Wire, SMART’s Meeting Pro software takes your presentation abilities to another level. Meet Pro has been designed with ease of use, effective communication and collaboration in mind. You can write notes over virtually any application or web page, capture them as a screenshot and save everything in a PDF or PPT file. Or you can mark up files in common applications, like Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Visio and OneNote, as well as Adobe Acrobat Pro, and SMART Meeting Pro will insert and save your notes in the original document for immediate distribution. For a further enhanced experience, there is the Premium version of SMART Meeting Pro that will automate data conferencing abilities with SMART Bridgit conferencing software and enable the control of multiple screens in a single meeting room from one computer – just like in your office. Imagine your ability to conference with your branch office in another province with effective collaboration of multiple computer programs, seamlessly increasing productivity and saving travel costs for a positive return on investment in no time.

Outside of the meeting space, your organization and advertisers are trying all kinds of unique ways to grab your attention and captivate you with their message. I recently came across a product that really caught my eye.  The Laser Phosphor Display (LPD) by Prysm is a unique 20” x 15” tile screen that is powered by a patented laser engine and a phosphor panel to create stunning images and at 30W per tile using 75% less power than traditional technologies. Each tile provides brilliant images a 320 x 240 pixels and can be configured into any shape you can imagine. Whether it is a large 13 x 9 tile wall with 4160 x 2160 pixels, the Prysm Digital Mannequin and Kiosk or creating a your own spellbinding inukshuk inspired freeform video display, the Prysm Laser Phosphor Display is sure to captivate.

I hope these new products peak your interest as much as they do mine, we now use the SMART 8070i in almost every one of our meetings and cannot wait to see the Prysm product being used across the country.

Tim St. Louis is the VP Sales and Marketing at Sharp’s Audio Visual, a national audio visual design integrator and rentals and event staging business. Tim can be reached at tim.stlouis@sharpsav.com or through their web site at sharpsav.com.