Panasonic announced the first twin lens 3D High Definition camcorder. Traditionally to shoot 3D required a complicated rig with two cameras with special processing to make up the 3D image. Now with this unit, you can simply record 3D as you would any other video. This camcorder records to Panasonic’s P2 memory card system making the transfer of recordings quick and easy.
Panasonic expects this unit to be available in the fourth quarter of 2010 and cost about $21,000.
It’s not too often I see a product that excites me, but I ran across one today. Light Blue Optics has announced a product they call the “Light Touch” that uses lasers projection to project a small image on almost any surface. By using laser projection, they avoid the problems of focusing and all the optics necessary for traditional projection systems.
What makes this interesting, is it also can track your fingers thereby making the projection a fully interactive touchscreen. So with one of these devices, any surface can be turned into a 10″ touchscreen.
http://www.lightblueoptics.com/products/light-touch/
Imagine the possibilities …..
On of the most critical, yet overlooked areas of audio is speaker placement. Speaker placement will not only determine whether or not you can hear the audio, but it will also effect the tonal and intelligibility of the sound. In the next few articles we will look at some of the factors that go into proper speaker placement.
Speakers produce sound in a cone starting at the speaker and radiating outward at a wide angle. You can even measure the width of that cone by replicating this simple demonstration. Set up a speaker in a large empty room. As the speaker is playing, walk accross the front of the speaker perpendicular to the direct the speaker is facing. You will notice a point where the sound becomes clear and louder, and a point where the sound seems to muffle and decrease in volume. If you were to mark those points, and measure that angle, you can find out the “dispersion angle” of the speaker.
Typical public address (PA) speakers have about a 90 degree dispersion angle. In other words, the sound exiting a speaker box (at certain frequencies) will disperse out from the speaker in a cone whose angle of dispersion is about 90 degrees. In the diagram above, you can see that the sound dispersion (indicated in blue) does not cover the area directly in front of the stage.
To enable the audience directly in front of the stage, we simply angle the speakers into the audience. As you can see in the diagram above, by changing the angle of the speaker in relation to the audience, we can cover more of the front of the room.
Not only does a speaker have a horizontal angle of dispersion, but it also has a vertical one.
Typically, PA speakers have about a 60 degree vertical dispersion. You can see the dispersion pattern in the digram above indicated in blue. You may note that audience members sitting closer to the speaker may have a harder time hearing that those in the middle of the room. Care should be taken to ensure that all members of the audience are within the dispersion pattern of the speaker.
The rule of thumb is this …. “If an audience member cannot see the front of the speaker, they can’t hear it” While there are other factors that will come into play (which we will delve into in later articles) the rule is a good one to keep in mind.
In October, the Wall Street Journal awarded the Industrial Industrial Research Institute in Taiwan the 2009 Wall Street Journal Technology Innovation Award for their Flexspeaker loudspeaker design. The Flexspeaker is a thin flexible speaker that is the thickness of 3 or 4 sheets of paper. It is light, flexible, and inexpensive. What struck me about it was the many ways that it can be adapted to the audio visual industry. Some of the other features of this speaker is that it can be printed on, it can be cut to any size or shape, and it is very flexible.
Some ideas for using these speakers would be to print them as signage for the event. Or possibly to cover a podium, or hard set. Besides the obvious advantage of being able to integrate the speakers into a setup without having the unsightly boxes on sticks, they also are easier to transport and to setup or strike.
http://www.prlog.org/10376639-itris-flexpeaker-an-innovative-paperthin-speaker-technology-receives-2009.html
One of the largest sectors of functions and events, are fundraisers. Almost every week there is one of many charities is hosting an event in order to raise funds for their respective groups. I thought it might be interesting to toss around a couple of ideas on using technology to help drive dollars to these groups.
One of the most common fundraising tools is the “silent auction”. A new twist on this tried and true routine is to employ an electronic bidding system. Using small handheld units about the size of a cell phone, attendees can bid on the item of their choice. Once the bid is placed, the items and current bids would appear on a large display. In between the items, sponsors could display ads or even commercials. Not only will the audience be spurred to bid, but an additional revenue stream can be created by selling sponsorships on the bidding system, or placing paid advertisements on the screens.
Another opportunity to enhance the donor’s experience while increasing the revenue is through digital signage. You can use digital signage to inform your donors about your cause in an interactive engaging way. All the while you can intersperse acknowledgement of your corporate sponsors. You can even sell advertising with video. So not only are you getting your message out to potential donors, but you are being paid to do so.
With the widespread of broadband internet, why restrict your income to potential donors that are attending your event, when you can invite the world to join you. You can even take email bids on your auction items. Or set up a PayPal account to allow visitors to donate directly.
My message here is not to look at audio visual as a cost, but as a potential income stream. The added benefit of course is that you can get your message out to your donors, and possibly make money by doing it.
I’m sure everyone has been to some soft of event at a large venue where the sound echoed until you couldn’t understand every word. While maybe not as dramatic, every indoor space produces some sort of echo or reflection of sound. It is the job of your audio engineer to compensate for the room and produce the best possible sound to the audience.
In rooms less than 100’, standard speakers will do the job quite adequately, because the reflections are usually too short to be noticed. In fact, they can give the sound a fullness and warmth that can be quite pleasing for music. But as the space increases the echo increases.
The first thought is to add more speakers in the back of the room. Seems logical, but unless handled properly, they will make the problem far worse. Since the sound from the speakers in the front of the room will travel to the listener far slower than the electronic signal to the speakers in the rear of the room, you will hear the back speakers first, and the front speakers some time later. More echo.
By properly placing the speakers (and that will vary depending on the space), and using a device called a delay unit. The delay unit does exactly that, it delays the electronic signal to the rear speakers. In that way we can ensure that the sound from the front speakers reach the listener at the same time as the sound from the rear speakers. Good sound !
Remember, if they can’t hear your message, what was the use of the meeting?
Over the weekend, I watched “Frost Nixon” a well done portrayal of the interviews that David Frost did with Richard Nixon a few years after his resignation. It reminded me of the importance of quality recordings of events and meetings. After all, if bad recordings can help to bring down a US President, what hope does a meeting planner or audio visual company have.
Today, with the advent of inexpensive digital recording equipment, it makes little sense to use anything else. One of my favorite recorders is a Marantz PMD 660. There are several features of this unit that make it an ideal recorder for our industry. For example, by loading it with a large memory card (it records to a CF memory card, with are readily available and inexpensive), you can record several days of meetings on a single card. I often tell my technicians to start the recording well before the start of the meeting and not to stop te recording until after the meeting has concluded. In that way, I can avoid one of the most common problems in meeting recording, missing the opening remarks and forgetting to start and stop the recorder. It can record as an industry standard MP3 file that isplayable by an iPod or any other MP3 player. MP3 files are very easy to transfer easily to computers or to CDs. Another feature I like is the recorder’s ability to pause when there is no sound to record and to be able to restart without missing anything. The Marantz is small, portable, flexible, and available for under $500.
If Rose Mary Woods had one of these, we may have found out what was actually said during those infamous eighteen and a half minutes.
The trend toward 3D imagery continued yesterday when Sony announced that they will begin selling 3D LCD Televisions and Blu Ray players in 2010. Panasonic and JVC had already committed to them earlier this year. With more and more film content available, hardware manufacturers are getting on board and starting to roll out the gear. All three of the systems being proposed require the viewer to wear 3D glasses to enjoy the effect. Sharp and Phillips dabbled with a system that did not require glasses, but relied on special software and a screen overlay to achieve the 3D effect, but it only worked with those 3D images. When playing standard content they were not usable.
I think it would be interesting if someone developed a 3D presentation software similar to Keynote or Powerpoint. But until that happens, I don’t see a great deal of usage for them in the professional AV market.
There is a lot of buzz in the industry these days looking for “green” meetings or events. However like so many things there is no clear definition of what makes a green meeting. That is not to say there are some good ideas about saving resources in the event industry.
While the savings may be small, if we all do our part, we can impact the amount of “carbon footprint” we all leave behind us.
There is a lot of talk about 3D projection these days. But what is it exactly ? 3D projection is defined by Wikipedia as, “3D projection is any method of mapping three-dimensional points to a two-dimensional plane. As most current methods for displaying graphical data are based on planar two-dimensional media, the use of this type of projection is widespread, especially in computer graphics, engineering and drafting.” In essence, making images appear as if they are three dimensional and floating in front of a screen.
In order to understand it better, watch the attached video. It is an excellent use of the technology.
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