Rebecca Day

NEW ORLEANS -- Custom integrators are looking forward to getting a close look at newly minted OLED and Ultra HD TVs at the upcoming CEDIA Expo in Denver, but they're taking a cautious approach when it comes to designing those TVs into custom projects, they told us at the fall Azione Unlimited conference. The dealer base known for having the deep-pocketed clients who clamored to be first to install five-figure plasma TVs when that technology debuted is less sanguine about the buzz and profit margins that OLED and Ultra HD can generate in a more commoditized TV market, several integrators told us.

Facing a slowing AV receiver market as consumer preferences for TV audio morph, Audyssey is looking to expand the opportunities for its ExpertFit audio measurement technology. ExpertFit is based on algorithms derived from Audyssey’s MultEQ and Dynamic EQ technologies used in AV receivers, automotive applications and other audio products. Audyssey is best known to consumers for auto-calibration features in home theater receivers to help correct for room acoustics in surround-sound systems.

Bryan Burns, former ESPN point man for emerging technologies including HDTV and 3D, launched a consulting company called The Forward Direction Group (FDG), based in Guilford, Conn. The group comprises eight members totaling “125 years” of industry experience in sports marketing, production of emerging technologies, sports law, programming and business, promotional activities, and licensing and merchandising, Burns told Consumer Electronics Daily. Burns left ESPN in July (CED July 16 p5) following ESPN’s decision to stop 3D programming at the end of the year. He praised ESPN Thursday for its pioneering work in bringing 3D to the TV screen and understood the network’s need to devote resources elsewhere when it didn’t receive support from the rest of the industry. “The enthusiasm for it had waned and companies don’t need to place their bets if everybody else isn’t betting at the same time with them,” Burns said. Burns maintained his enthusiasm about 3D, though, recalling the positive response sports fans in the field showed for sports in 3D. “They couldn’t believe how good it was, but everybody around us in the business was not embracing it the way we were,” he said. He said ESPN’s decision disbanding ESPN 3D wasn’t “the wrong call for them to make at that particular time.” Burns said his group of eight independent consultants will work under a “flex” concept, taking the people who are needed, do what needs to be done and “efficiently provide services without having to support brick-and-mortar or a big infrastructure,” he said. He hopes to provide a bridge between content providers and CE companies, he said, citing a “disconnect between those who create and own content and those in the CE business.” Burns observed having watched announcements “come and go at CES,” never resulting in a product introduction. “Why didn’t they realize that was going to happen?” Burns said. Issues with over-the-top (OTT) video are especially important today, he said. “People have to understand the value of content,” he said. OTT is “dicey stuff, and it’s new, and we're all trying to find our way,” he said. FDG’s hope is to provide advice from “people who have hiked that path,” Burns said.

Specialty audio dealers, whose performance audio roots were eroded by MP3 downloads and portable music players, are applauding Sony and CEA’s newly announced efforts to promote high-resolution audio. “I love the initiative,” David Wexler, owner of The Little Guys, Mokena, Ill., told Consumer Electronics Daily. “We need to make people more aware of making audio sound good again."

Microsoft’s plan to acquire Nokia’s Devices and Services business for $7.2 billion is the first step in the acquirer’s steep climb to gain solid share in an increasingly brand-driven market dominated by iOS and Android mobile operating systems, analysts said Tuesday. “The branding of the phones to date has been the primary means of success” in the smartphone market, NPD analyst Stephen Baker told us. “The fact that Samsung stepped so far up in front of all the other Android brands shows that more and more the market for phones is a brand market versus an operating system market."

Cisco’s contribution to Control4 business “hasn’t met the expectations” of either company, said Control4 CEO Martin Plaehn on the company’s Q2 earnings call Thursday, its first after going public Aug. 2. Both companies are objectively looking at the relationship “in partnership,” Plaehn said, and guidance for Q3 and the 2013 year doesn’t include “any material contribution from that revenue stream.” Control4’s IPO filing contained the first known disclosure that Cisco’s stake in Control4 was as high as 10.8 percent (CED July 5 p3). Control4 has provided “formal notice to Cisco that we want to re-frame the agreement and we're both working to find a better way to address the market opportunity,” which he called “very real and durable."

Cognitive Networks confirmed that its real-time data service is the automatic content recognition (ACR) technology adopted by LG for its smart TV platform (CED Aug 16 p1). LG is the first to adopt Cognitive’s solution, based on the cloud-based Engage service that provides real-time event triggers to application providers. The technology operates in the background of a program, such as Showtime’s Homeland, and provides intelligent synchronization between the “graphics plane and the video plane,” said Cognitive CEO Michael Collette, on a media tour in New York.

Audiophile music store Acoustic Sounds, which launched in 1986 as a mail-order supplier of vinyl in the early days of the CD, has added digital downloads to its LP and disc portfolio. Acoustic Sounds is the first company to offer Direct Stream Digital (DSD), the encoding format behind the Super Audio CD (SACD) format backed by Sony and Philips as a high-resolution extension of the CD, company executives said Wednesday. In a time when compressed music formats use “CD quality” as a benchmark for fidelity, DSD claims 64 times the sampling rate of CD at 2.8 MHz.

Via, a new custom installation company launched this week by six veteran custom integrators, is hoping to solidify its position in the home control market, as high-profile service companies including AT&T, Comcast, Best Buy and ADT extend their reach into entry-level home automation. “There are a lot of new entrants to the market on the low end,” Via CEO Randy Stearns told Consumer Electronics Daily. That, combined with the fragmentation of some 9,000 small companies in the custom home electronics space, led Via founding companies to realize they needed to “consolidate our efforts,” said Stearns, owner of Engineered Environments, San Francisco, which also has offices in Houston and Hawaii. A consolidation in the industry was “going to happen anyway, and we wanted to be the first mover and take advantage of the opportunity,” he said.

Korus, Core Brands’ wireless speaker alternative to Bluetooth and Wi-Fi-based systems, will begin shipping next week through the company’s KorusSound.com website, Rob Halligan, vice president-group marketing and strategy for Nortek’s Technology Solutions group, told Consumer Electronics Daily in New York Monday. The V600 and V400 speakers were re-priced upward to $449 and $349 from the $399 and $299 prices the company set when it unveiled the product in June (CED June 21 p1), he said. Prices were raised because Core Brands elected to include two $49 transmitter dongles also called batons for the Apple 4 and Apple 5 along with USB chargers for PCs and Macs, Halligan said. The accessory bundle is a $170 value, he said.