Head Of The Class

When Tyrie Jamerson, partner in Dallas-based integrator Near Future, was commissioned to install distance learning and other educational and networking technologies at Baton Rouge Community College, La., he and his team selected the most advanced A/V and IT products they could find. The systems got their real test last year when in a single week the number of students supported by the installation on campus and remotely exploded from 7,000 to 26,000. The company's merging of A/V and IT devices and its careful planning helped carry the day.

Nationwide, integrators are combining the best A/V and IT gear and transitioning from proprietary products to open-standard technologies to bring their customers to new levels. In the process, they are creating solutions that barely existed a year ago to blaze new markets.

"We want to be involved with the customer, help them understand the latest technology that's out there, how it helps them," Jamerson says. "I love the fact that a small college like Baton Rouge Community College now is known as a place that has the forethought to teach in this way."

Integration firms throughout the industry are seeing the myriad benefits that come from combining A/V and IT products, and are gearing up to offer them. Broomall, Pa.-based HiFi House Group started in 1955 as a retail store of high fidelity products, and now focuses on both residential and commercial integrations.

"Products are becoming more and more similar [between the markets]," says Jon Robbins, HiFi's COO. "There is becoming an overlap in product with control and flat panels taking a bigger piece of the business. More and more control is being sold in the home, like Crestron, which formerly was solely relegated to the commercial industrial side."

At Baton Rouge Community College, the school's distance learning system, which Jamerson says was the brainchild of its chancellor Dr. Myrtle Dorsey, was installed long before last August's Hurricane Katrina. The college received only wind damage in the storm, but immediately afterward became the temporary home for Delgado Community College and Nunez Community College, both of which were located in the New Orleans area and suffered extensive flooding. While the two schools were rebuilding, many of their 19,000 combined students took up residence at Baton Rouge. Students located elsewhere were able to continue their studies via Baton Rouge's distance learning systems while their own schools got their systems back online.

"The chancellor had a vision prior to the hurricane to know that distance learning is where it will be," Jamerson says. "Those are the types of things we look at, try to take part of. We really consider ourselves designers. We like to design systems focused on enhancing the corporate brand."

Near Future focuses primarily on commercial clients and schools, with a small concentration on high-end homes. The Baton Rouge integration exemplifies Near Future's chief goal of leveraging its A/V, IT and design experience to help customers develop their brands and serve their own customers or students.

"We don't do a lot of bid work. What we try to do is build partnerships with architects, interior designers, folks like that so we can get to jobs that we consider to be cutting edge," Jamerson says. "Our work is aesthetics blended with IT."

The continuing convergence of A/V and IT products for the commercial and residential markets will be one of the major themes of this month's InfoComm '06 trade show in Orlando, Fla., for A/V installers and system integrators. Randal Lemke, executive director of A/V trade organization InfoComm International, says over the last few years the education space also has been one of the strongest markets for its members and will be highlighted at the show. In its 2006 forecast survey, 72 percent of InfoComm members say they are involved in the education market, as schools look to integrators for technologies that can help them enhance their overall services, sharpen their competitive edge and maximize operations.

"We've seen continued growth in higher ed," Lemke says. "Younger faculty want to use technology and are adept at merging technology from the Internet. They want to use displays, electronic equipment in their classrooms. There are also competitive pressures. People see that their university or college has to have an electronic profile to get the students and faculty they want."

Those factors have fueled Baton Rouge's embrace of A/V-IT solutions. The school opened in 1998 with 1,700 students, and enrollment has recently been growing at 15 percent to 20 percent each semester. Dorsey says the technologies that Near Future has installed have played a central role in attracting and retaining those students and supporting the school's rapid growth. "Our faculty can stretch out and do things they couldn't normally do, and because of that we give our students a greater education opportunity than the school next door or in another state," Dorsey says.

Near Future installed videoconferencing products from Tandberg, N.Y., for distance learning and meetings, and switchers, scalers and related products from Altinex, Brea, Calif. From classroom podiums teachers can control PowerPoint presentations, select DVD players or projectors and access PC content. Near Future wired meeting rooms and other locations with document cameras, motorized screens, microphones and other gear, and continues to install products as new buildings are put up.

Near Future has been integrating similar products at the upscale W Hotel in Dallas. The integrator wired the hotel's common areas and meeting rooms with conferencing, communication and presentation products, and set up a music distribution system throughout the hotel. Instead of a proprietary media server to store music and distribute it throughout the property, Near Future wired the building for distribution from Apple's iTunes music service. Employees or guests in the common areas or meeting rooms can choose music from a preset playlist or make their own selections from iTunes. Some of the meeting rooms also include connections for iPods belonging to hotel guests.

"Those are things that are really neat, things that other companies wouldn't think about. Those are the things that would bring you back to the W," Jamerson says. "We did extensive research on the W brand, the types of people they're bringing, why people come, and we incorporate that into our design."

The choice of iTunes compared to a proprietary media server also fits into that goal. "You don't want to do things that frighten people," he says. "Just the words 'media server' scare people, but when we say iTunes, iPod, people tend to brighten up."

By using an Internet-based open-standard system either alone or combined with a traditional media server, Near Future and other integrators are creating far richer and more flexible solutions than with older proprietary products alone.

"[There are] some really cool features that only the Web can provide, exciting new utilities and Web services such as not only being able to instantly get whatever content you want, but you have Web services that personalize Internet radio stations," says Douglas Kihm, president of Salt Lake City-based vendor Axonix, which develops A/V servers. "These are unique Web services that are being applied from the IT market via the Web into the A/V market."

Many of the A/V-IT products for commercial and education customers also have a lot of play in the home, making the residential market an increasingly big target for integrators. Twenty-three percent of InfoComm members report some involvement in the residential space. Plus, 47 percent of members say they plan on entering a new market in the next three years, with residential on top of that list. InfoComm will include several courses on media servers, multiroom audio systems and the differences between the residential and commercial markets.

Another interesting sign of how strong the residential market has become for InfoComm's members: Last year the show had a dedicated residential pavilion, but this year it does not, at the request of many vendors that say that the residential and commercial markets have become so intertwined that they sell the same product lines to the same dealers for both markets.

InfoComm will be replete with manufacturers showing new A/V-IT products for home and commercial use. For example, Axonix recently unveiled two new products aimed at lowering the price of media distribution. The Media Max Spectra 6 costs $5,795 and can distribute movies, music and photos to six rooms, while the Media Max Spectra 2 costs $3,795 and distributes to two rooms (Axonix's existing Media Max Pro costs $9,795 and distributes content to up to 30 rooms). JVC, Wayne, N.J., will demo its new 61- and 70-inch rear projection TVs for home theater, television studio and museum use. Furman Sound, Petaluma, Calif., will show several new power conditioning products, while Key Digital, Mount Vernon, N.Y., will unveil new high-definition A/V switchers and processors. Digital signage technology also will have a strong presence at this year's show, and Contemporary Research, Dallas, will be showing its new SignStream server designed to distribute HDTV content for digital signage applications.

One integrator setting its sights on the commercial signage and residential markets is Process Digital Entertainment Services, Paso Robles, Calif. The company recently installed its My Media Machine, a custom-built PC running Windows XP Media Center Edition, in the local L'Aventure Winery, where it displays advertising material, photos and other content. About 20 percent of Process' business is in the residential market, for which it offers My Media Machine to store and distribute media content.

Process' owner Kevin Mikelonis sees the company's adoption of a Media Center-based system as an important sign in the evolution of the A/V market. For many years Mikelonis ran a North Carolina-based system integrator that specialized in proprietary control systems for homes, but now says that open-standard, IP-based systems are the wave of the future for basic signage projects and residential and commercial installations.

"I've seen installations of flat panels in different places called digital signage, but they are nothing more than PowerPoint presentations. The animation in a Media Center PC, how it pans and zooms and moves out, it gives the illusion of a custom-produced video or presentation, when all it's doing is taking stock images and making them move," Mikelonis says. "It's so much more captivating than a PowerPoint presentation, without the production costs of promotional video."

Mikelonis says that the Media Center PC is still a new platform and is susceptible to crashes and security problems, so he does not yet install it for home control or large media distribution solutions. Still, Mikelonis says integrators should look more deeply into it.

"A lot of guys are so scared of this thing because they think they can't make money doing it. They only think they can make money selling big, obese systems for a lot of money that require a lot of expertise to install and support," Mikelonis says. "Even though this is more of a simple system, it still requires the value-add of the right installation, selection of the best speakers and other peripherals and the right content."

HiFi House also is considering Media Center PCs. "We're getting more and more calls for Media Center, though we don't know yet whether it's ready for prime time. The audio capabilities have not been good enough, although that is improving," Robbins says. "However, we think that Media Centers will become a serious part of what we do, and in the next 12 to 18 months we will see some pretty serious increases in the Media Centers."

Seventy percent of the company's work is for homes, which it handles through its main HiFi House division. The remaining commercial work is handled by its Audio Video Systems Group. The two divisions work separately but will share customers if a residential customer wants systems installed in his company or vice versa.

Another growing market for integrators is the multidwelling unit (MDU) space, wiring condominiums and apartment buildings for A/V distribution and control. Lemke points out that a multistory apartment building offers many of the same installation challenges as a multistory corporate building, making those jobs a good match for the skills of systems integrators.

Automation and control vendors AMX and Crestron, for example, are stepping up their MDU practices, and integrator Cimax USA is launching a program to help other integrators enter the market. Pending the outcome of a lawsuit from former partner AMX, Cimax is planning on partnering with Crestron to help its integrators offer MDU and concierge systems, says George Fallica, co-owner of Cimax. "In five years, every new residence and existing property will have property-management software. It will be the new microwave, the new granite countertop," Fallica says. "[Developers have] offered every single bell and whistle they can offer, but this is the new thing, it definitely sets their building apart."

That should be the goal of every integrator--not just to sell products, but to integrate the finest A/V and IT technology to create solutions that make a real difference in how their clients attract and serve their own customers. "We not only help businesses with their IT or A/V needs, but we think we help them build their brand and bring in the right type of customers," Jamerson says.