AV Asia Pacific’s Top 5 Picks for Integrate 2017

With Integrate just around the corner, hear from AV Asia Pacific’s Editorial Director, Christopher Holder, as he chooses his top five highlights for this year’s Integrate at the MCEC...”Five Integrate highlights? That’s way too constraining. It’s like being asked for the best five bars of your favourite Beatles song. Don’t make me choose! Okay, I’m going to cheat.”

1. VR:

I can’t wait to see the 360° cameras in action. I’m thinking of the Z Cam range (Corsair Solutions, F10) and the Panasonic live camera system (Panasonic Australia, E40). Audio for VR is getting interesting as well… no longer the preserve of super-pricey dummy heads or tetrahedral mic arrays. Sennheiser (stand D10) Ambeo leads the way, with pricey dummy heads and tetrahedral array mics, along with a way more thrifty ‘dummy head for dummies’ called the Ambeo Smart Headset — effectively, they’re earpieces fitted with omnidirectional microphones.

2. Video over IP:

HDBaseT is gradually making way for video over IP. Do your best to decipher the various flavours of compressed/uncompressed (not to mention the various flavours of compression) video over the network. On the uncompressed 10Gb front, check out Biamp’s Tesiralux AVB system (Midwich, i10) and the Aptovision approach, best seen on the iMAGsystems stand (Stand i4) with its Lightning product and ZeeVee (Audio Visual Distributors, E4). Compressed 1Gb video over the network has a range of contenders. Good luck, it’s bit of a jungle out there.

3. Great Audio:

Bose has rethought the humble in-ceiling speaker with EdgeMax (stand F34), Dante will be absolutely everywhere (from conference mics, to loudspeakers, to interfaces and mixers), and the Q-SYS ecosystem gets bigger and more influential every year (TAG, A2).

4. InfoComm Young AV Professional Program:

I love the story of how a Knox Grammar IT teacher with a background in AV has started a grass roots AV revolution, and you will too. If you’re a young AV pro or you have a young, budding AV pro in your life, get them along. The program starts Day 3 from 8am until midday. I’ll be organising a posse of would-be AV young-guns. Great initiative. It’s free to attend but you must register – find out more here.

5. Shameless MCEC Plug:

Without a doubt the highlight of the show will be the MCEC panel discussion! Entitled ‘Expanding a World Class Exhibition & Convention Centre at MCEC’, I’ll be moderating a panel discussion led by MCEC’s Michael Walsh. Don’t let the 9.30am, Day 3 start put you off — grab a double espresso, grab a Berocca and hear how MCEC continues to stay ahead of the tech curve. See more on this session here.

To see Chris in the Integrate Speaker Series and explore the new products on the show floor, you need to be registered to attend Integrate – click here to start your registration.