September 2008
Features
Expert Roundtable: Trends in Education
By Jack Kontney
The education market for AV installation is both segmented and expansive. In terms of needs, goals, and requirements, there are distinct differences between K-12 and higher education…
Technology Showcase: Test Equipment
By Bennett Liles
With the increasing sophistication of AV gear and the progressive convergence between IT, AV, and broadcasting, many of the tools used for testing and maintaining these systems are also crossing what used to be industry boundaries…
Technology Showcase: Interactive Whiteboards
By Jay Ankeney
The great irony of an interactive-whiteboard presentation is that despite the growing battery of digital equipment available to the person standing in front of the audience, the most important aspect is purely analog…
Technology Showcase: Document Cameras
By Jay Ankeney
There’s a scene from the WWII spy movie 5 Fingers where über-suave James Mason, code-named “Cicero,” pulls a tiny Minox camera out of his jacket to snap copies of top-secret diplomatic messages in the British embassy…
Installation Profile: HD Distance Education
By Dan Daley
The concept of distance learning has a contemporary ring to it, but it’s rooted less in the high tech of the 21st century than it is in the social revolutions of the 1960s…
Putting the AV in Education
By Dan Daley
As important as they are to the work of systems integrators, AV systems used for paging, security, and conferencing have a largely peripheral place in most average people’s lives…
Reviews
Audio Review: Mipro ACT Series
By John McJunkin
Mipro has introduced its new ACT-51 and ACT-52 wireless receivers (1-channel and 2-channel versions, respectively) intended for use with its ACT-7H, ACT-5H, ACT-7T, and ACT-5T transmitters…
Video Review: VBrick VBoss Broadcast
By Jeff Sauer
Live video streaming has been around for more than a decade, and in that time, it has secured a reputation for technical complexity in both networking and video…
Columns
Picture This: Opportunity Knocks
By Jeff Sauer
If you follow AV industry news regularly, you might have already read about the surprisingly strong TV sales over the last few months, despite the poor economic environment the country is in right now…
Market Mysteries
By Michael Goldman
I’m just home from a vibrant CEDIA Expo 2008 — an event SVC is covering in detail online and in our upcoming October issue…
Expert Viewpoint: Educators, Meet Integrators
By Pat Thompson and Bill Cyree
Today, the education market is taking greater advantage of AV technology than ever before — using it as a training tool; as a means of analyzing and preserving students’ work…
Associations Focus: NSCA Reaches Out
As part of the NSCA Education Foundation’s mission to reach out to the next generation of integrators, eight students will receive the training they need to succeed in the commercial-electronic-systems industry…
Associations Focus: CEDIA Moves Forward After Another Successful Expo
For five days, Sept. 3-7, the industry’s best gathered for the last time in Denver to share information, learn about new technology, and continue building the residential-electronic-systems industry…
Associations Focus: Social Networking with InfoComm
InfoComm International has launched a new social-networking site: community.infocomm.org. Create a profile and join special interest groups, share resources, and more…
Expert Viewpoint: Powering the Home Theater
By Marshall Currier
Factories and other older buildings that have been converted into luxury condos come with a high price tag and thus attract high-end clientele…
POV: Reaching Out
By Randal A. Lemke, Ph.D.
Each day, society taps into audiovisual communication to harness the power of sight and sound to exchange ideas, educate, entertain, inspire, and motivate…
Departments
The Buzz: Installation Spotlight: Austin Independent School District, Austin, Texas
By Garry Wilkison, Austin Digital Media
The Austin Independent School District (AISD) has been a leader in technology in the Austin, Texas, community for many years. In 1982, AISD was one of…
The Buzz: Installation Spotlight: Sophie’s Home Theater, Westfield, Ind.
By Trevor Boyer
Sophie is a 7-year-old girl who lives with her parents and two brothers in Westfield, Ind. Sophie was born with truncal arteriosus, which means her heart…