InfoComm Day 1

June 18, 2015 by Dave Haynes

show15

Up at 4 AM doing homework, as that’s kinda how things are going this week in Orlando, where InfoComm is on. Full days and zippo time to do more than tweet and answer emails.

The show looks very busy, but it is so large in scope it’s a bit hard to really tell.

The signage solutions summit on Tuesday, that Insteo’s Jim Nista had a massive part in putting together, went off very well, and it was sufficiently well attended that tables were added at the last minute.

summit

The format needs tweaks, but Jim was involved because the show wanted a reset on its signage education efforts, moving it away from just gear-head “how to install” and “key insights” stuff.

I’m doing a separate thing this morning about data-driven digital signage – a panel that will look at how real and archival data can shape, trigger and BE content.

As for the trade show floor, it’s a bit like my impression at Digital Signage Expo a few months ago. The gear is bigger, better, brighter, thinner, easier – though maybe not cheaper.

I saw Samsung’s new OLEDs in a doored-off room you have to get brought into. Very nice. But no pix allowed.

ldchristie

If there’s anything I’d single out it would be the full-on arrival of tight pixel pitch indoor LED, which was everywhere. I saw my first 1.9 mm LEDs a couple of years ago at the International Sign Association show. Now there are piles and piles of companies here – well-known and unknowns from Shenzhen – show displays with pitches as tight as 1.5 mm.

At that size, they start to rival LCDs and certainly make an argument for ambient, architectural walls because the whole skinny bezel, seamless thing needed with LCDs goes away. There are no tangible seams.

I thought Christie did a nice job showing the differences between the pitches, using a skyline-style set of its Velvet tiles to show what content looks like with increasingly tighter LED modules.

The most striking thing to me, by far, is the total absence of content and creative shops. It’s possible I missed something, but as far as I can tell from marching around on Wednesday, there is not a single vendor on the huge floor that is primarily in the business of producing the creative that moves through all the gear and software, and drives all the screens, that all these vendors are selling.

Yes, trade shows are expensive to do. But I have to think some shop that got a 10 by 20 and said WE DO CREATIVE would have a very busy week here.

dspresystage

I got a kick out of this thing which I passed 4 or 5 times and rarely saw anybody sitting at, unless they were just sitting ‘cuz they really needed to sit. The guy doing it knows his stuff in the interviews, but I think has an IV drip carefully hidden away in a suit sleeve that steadily supplies him with Red Bull.

He was telling interviewees their sessions were being viewed by almost half a million people.

Sure they are.

More marching around today.

Here are of my tweets from the last coupla days … for those who don’t really follow that stuff …

Leave a comment