Rebecca Day

Specialty electronics dealers have to rethink their value to customers because it’s going to be changing based on “what products we sell and what services we provide,” Daniels said. Disruptive technologies are impacting dealers’ businesses “at a much faster pace” than in the past, and product life cycles are shrinking, Daniels noted. Dealers need to stop doing things the way they always have “to maintain a sustainable business,” he said, encouraging fellow retailers to “acknowledge the threats and find opportunities.” Unless integrators accept that the way they run their business today is going to be “radically different” from the way they run their businesses five years from now, they're going to have a very difficult time “adapting and competing,” Daniels said.

Glikes still bristles when he discusses how 3D TV was brought to market when he was head of the Home Technology Specialists of America. “I'm still livid about what happened with 3D,” he said. “They gave it to Best Buy,” he said. “The batteries were dead in the glasses, and the salespeople didn’t know how to sell it.” 3D was a premium technology introduced by the middle tier of the retail pyramid, he said, “the wrong way to introduce new technology.” As a result of 3D not being positioned as a high-end technology, “it’s a throw-in” today, he said. “There’s no mystique.”

Pandora’s goal is to be available in the U.S. and worldwide “everywhere you would get traditional radio,” Paschel said, but the car holds particular promise. He cited the various phases of Internet radio in vehicles, breaking out phase one as connection of a smartphone via Bluetooth or auxiliary jack where data can’t show whether the smartphone is being used in a car or not. In phase two, where the 85 vehicles fit in, Pandora is integrated with the infotainment systems of car makers such as Cadillac’s Cue. Users still pair through the phone in the Cue setup, but GM’s future connected car through the AT&T 4G network that’s set to launch with 2015 vehicles will take Internet radio to phase three of integration, where Pandora “won’t require your phone” but will operate seamlessly over a 4G chip in the vehicle, he said.

Dolby and Royal Philips said at NAB this week that their glasses-free Dolby 3D specification will be adopted by Cameron Pace Group for its 3D video production process. According to a news release, the three parties believe that glasses-free 3D presentation in the home “can be improved” through implementation of the Dolby 3D format, which can apply to content and displays, including TVs, smartphones and tablets. In addition to eliminating the sometimes troublesome glasses from the 3D landscape, Dolby 3D doesn’t require a viewing “sweet spot,” allowing viewers to experience 3D regardless of sitting position, the companies said. Meanwhile, following DTS’ announcement Monday that Fairlight would support the DTS Multi-Dimensional Audio (MDA) audio authoring format as part of an effort to “avoid a format war” for next-generation content creation and cinema playback, Dolby told us it doesn’t believe the MDA proposal for a “single interchangeable file format addresses the broader needs of exhibitors or studios.” During the development phase of Dolby Atmos, feedback from mixers, studios, distributors, exhibitors and directors indicated Dolby created a “a compelling technology platform that meets the broad needs of the market, including the need for interoperability,” Dolby said, saying it’s committed to standardizing the way different system components work together. Dolby has given the industry “detailed technical specifications” surrounding packaging, security, audio/video synchronization, and streaming from digital cinema servers, a Dolby spokesman told us. Dolby Atmos provides the “right balance of openness with the power, flexibility and control that the industry needs,” and it “minimizes complexity by integrating seamlessly with existing workflows for creation, delivery and playback,” he said. Dolby sound engineers in the field can ensure performance levels and address the needs of stakeholders, something a standards body couldn’t provide, he said. Dolby will continue to work with third parties who want to integrate Dolby Atmos into their products and systems, and it is working with industry groups, including NATO (National Association of Theatre Owners) and UNIC (Union Internationale des Cinémas), to share expertise while the evaluation of potential open standards continues, he said.

Sony also announced pricing for its new 4K media player, the FMP-X1 ($699), that will ship this summer. The player will be bundled with 10 4K titles and 4K video shorts and will also be able to stream 4K content from Sony’s video distribution service, announced at CES, with titles from Sony and other studios, the company said. The player’s bundled titles include Bad Teacher, Battle: Los Angeles, The Bridge on the River Kwai, The Karate Kid (2010), Salt, Taxi Driver, That’s My Boy, The Amazing Spider-Man, The Other Guys and Total Recall (2012), Sony said. Although the company said the service would be available this summer at its CES news conference, it now says the service will launch in the fall. A company spokesman told us the service hasn’t been delayed but that the company is “ironing out the details."

Soundbar factory sales revenue accounted for 30 percent of all loudspeaker sales in January 2012, according to CEA figures, and the number more than doubled to 64 percent by the end of the year. The soundbar category may account for half of all home speaker dollars by 2015, said Kerry Moyer, CEA senior director-retail membership, in a presentation on U.S. retail trends.

The average wholesale price of a flat-panel TV in 2012 was $536, up slightly from an average of $515 in 2011. The trend has translated to retail due to “successful UPP and MAP programs” vendors have put in place, Moyer said. Large-screen TVs in the 50-inch and above category are showing the most growth and are projected to top 7 million units in 2016, according to CEA figures. Sets above 60 inches are slated to be 11 percent of TV shipments from 2014-2016, according to CEA.

The Los Angeles market is showing support for Ultra HD, said Joseph Akhtarzad, president of Just One Touch Video & Audio Center, Santa Monica, Calif., who said he has sold multiple Sony and LG 4K TVs, despite the $25,000 and $17,000 price tags. Akhtarzad had an exclusive on the LG sets for the first 60-90 days after the October launch and sets sold “extremely well, exceeding all numbers,” he said. LG had to send more sets by air freight from Korea to satisfy demand, Akhtarzad said. He wouldn’t disclose sales numbers for “competitive reasons” but other dealers said Akhtarzad’s stores have sold more than 100 of the 84-inch LG sets.

Portable audio newcomer Beacon Audio, which recently joined the PRO Buying Group, is looking to bring to specialty audio retailers a kind of “street cred” that will bring in a younger demographic, Beacon Audio Vice President of Sales Dan Beggs told Consumer Electronics Daily. Beacon launched its colorful “value-oriented” Bluetooth speaker and headphone lineup last September with the plan to build its music products business off the live music events business of sister company Right Arm Entertainment.

Chrysler showed the first Dodge and Jeep vehicles to sport its next-generation Uconnect system at the New York International Auto Show this week. Chrysler CEO Reid Bigland called Uconnect Access, which premiered last year in the 2013 RAM 1500 pickup and SRT Viper, drivers’ “hands-free ticket to Internet radio listening and wireless technology.” Uconnect is built on the Aha radio platform from Harman, which announced the Internet radio upgrade for Aha-equipped 2013 vehicles at CES. Streaming radio apps available on the Uconnect systems include iHeart Radio, Pandora and Slacker along with Aha Radio and its 30,000 Internet radio stations, according to literature. A custom vehicle app for iOS, Android and BlackBerry users lets Uconnect subscribers open doors and remotely start vehicles via their smartphone, said Joni Christensen, Chrysler head of marketing, Uconnect Systems and Services. The system’s embedded 3G module can serve as a Wi-Fi hotspot for an additional fee, she said. Chrysler is talking to Sprint about 4G chipsets, but “ubiquitous coverage with 3G was the right answer at this time,” she said. The Aha system includes in-vehicle hands-free communication with the cloud using voice-recognition and voice-to-text for text messages only. E-mail voice to-text isn’t available on the system at this time, Christensen said. The hands-free communications require Bluetooth MAP (Message Access Protocol) support, which Christensen said isn’t supported by iOS phones. An Apple support community page for Uconnect users shows numerous issues iPhone phone users had with trying to integrate with Uconnect, we found, even though Apple’s iOS 6 release was reportedly going to support Bluetooth MAP when it was released last fall. Christensen said Chrysler’s priority at the outset is to focus on “driver-relevant” apps and give drivers “vehicle-appropriate controls” using voice commands, touchscreen or a steering wheel button. “Our aim is not to have people tempted to use the apps on their phone,” she said, saying the app rollout is slow because “we have an extensive testing process.” One of the distinctions of the original Uconnect is that “people loved it because it was so easy to use,” Christensen said. “We want to maintain that promise to our customers.”