InfoComm 2016 in a Nutshell

Intriguing New Products, From Wireless Intercoms and Live Mixers to 4K Laser Projection and Ultrafine LED Displays

InfoComm 2016, the largest pro AV trade show in North America, wraps up today in Las Vegas. Meaningful InfoComm product introductions can come from all over the industry, from powerful new audio plug-ins to clever wireless network designs for intercoms to entirely new types of display technology. Here's a quick rundown of some of the announcements that caught our eye as they came out of InfoComm this week. 

AJA showed the HA5-Fiber Mini-Converter, which converts HDMI to 3G-SDI over single-mod optical fiber. It can extend HDMI signals up to 10 km, AJA said, and supports up to eight channels of embedded audio. Two RCA-style plugs are included for dedicated stereo audio input. It's scheduled to ship in July for an MSRP of $695. www.aja.com

AV Stumpfl introduced Wings Player, a miniature media server supporting H.265, ProRes 444, and Animation Pro codecs with resolution up to 4K as well as uncompressed HD content. With up to four DisplayPort outputs (and one more for the monitor), Wings Player has integrated camera-based warp and blend, multi-timeline and multi-master workflows via the company's Wings Vioso RX software platform, and full show control and system monitoring. The company said "any number" of Wings Players can be clustered with synchronized video out. www.avstumpfl.com

BenQ showed its TL240C and TL321C, new 24-inch and 32-inch display boxes designed to display products alongside AV content. The display is designed to allow viewers to see the product inside the box as they watch an advertisement playing on the outside screen. The TL series display boxes have an average life span of 30,000 hours, the company said. Also at InfoComm was BenQ's BlueCore DLP laser projector, the LU9715, designed for large venues. It has a dual color wheel and a dual-array laser light source, and the company said it delivers 8,000 lumens. www.benq.us

Bose Professional showed its new line of adaptable power amplifers, available in three 1U models, which are expected to ship next month. The company's PowerShare technology allows asymmetrical sharing of power across outputs, giving installers more flexibility in designing and reconfiguring a system. Also new from Bose at the show were three ControlCenter zone controllers and a preview of its upcoming ShowMatch DeltaQ loudspeaker arrays, which allow changes to be made that match array coverage to audience areas and distance in spaces ranging from small clubs or churches to larger arenas and ampitheaters. pro.bose.com

Christie showed its AP series of 5,000-lumen 4-LCD projectors with HDBaseT single-cable signal and control capabilities. An optional wireless adapter enables remote LAN connectivity. They're designed to offer a solid set of features at an affordable price, the company said. www.christiedigital.com

Clear-Com showed its FreeSpeak II wireless (1.9 GHz and 2.4 Ghz) base station, supporting multiple frequencies and up to 25 full-duplex wireless beltpacks. The new FreeSpeak II splitter box allows up to five transceiver modules to be connected. With 10 distributed-antenna transceivers and two transceiver splitters, the company said FreeSpeak can cover a range up to 3200 feet from the base station. FreeSpeak II integrates with Clear-Com's intercom systems. www.clearcom.com

Focusrite showed the Red 4Pre, a 58-in/64-out Thunderbolt 2 interface with four Red Evolution mic pre-amps, high-headroom instrument inputs, and dual Pro Tools HD DigiLink and Dante network connectivity. It's available now for $2,500. Focusrite also launched the second generation of its Scarlett USB audio interfaces, with new metal gain controls, redesigned instrument inputs, and analog surge-protection circuitry. All of the new interfaces will be available by the end of June, Focusrite said, and are also shipping with Avid Pro Tools First. Also at the show were RedNet's A8R and A16R Dante network interfaces, the RedNet PCIeR PCI Express card, and the RedNet AM2 Dante headphone amp and line-output interface. www.focusrite.com

Magewell said its capture devices, including Pro Capture PCIe cards and USB capture hardware, are compatible with Telestream's upcoming v7 release of its Wirecast production, encoding and streaming software. www.magewell.com

Matrox launched its MURA-IPX-O4DF 4K IP decode and display card with H.264 decoding of a single 8K stream — or up to two 4K 60p streams, four 4K 40p streams, eight 1080 60p streams, and so on. It has four DisplayPort outputs, providing multiviewer functionality. It's slated to ship in the fourth quarter. www.matrox.com/graphics

Optoma introduced two new single-chip DLP laser-phosphor projectors, including a 4K UHD "ultra-short-throw" model that is said to display a 100-inch 3,300-lumen image from two inches away. It's expected to ship in the first quarter of 2017, the company said. Filling a hole in the market is the ZU510T WUXGA projector, said by the company to be one of the few WUXGA laser-phosphor DLP projectors in the mid-range category, with 5,500 lumens of brightness. www.optomausa.com

Panasonic showed a new large-venue laser projector, the PT-RQ32KU 3-Chip DLP Solid Shine 4K+. It delivers center brightness of 27,000 lumens, the company said, and is capable of up to 240 Hz operation. The Solid Shine line-up also includes three more single-chip projectors that deliver a maximum of 10,4000 lumens. They're designed without filters to be dust-proof and come in QUXGA, WXGA and XGA versions. Also new is the 2,000-lumen PT-JX200 Space Player laser projector designed for retail, museums, restaurants and similar venues. www.panasonic.com

Pliant Technologies showed CrewCom, a new wireless intercom system designed for production crews of any size. CrewCom uses a new proprietary network type, CrewNet, that can operate over Cat-5e and single-mode fiber to extend the range of a wireless intercom network. CrewCom includes radio packs, control units, radio transceivers, a copper hub unit, and more — but the company is still getting FCC authorization to sell some of the hardware, including the control units, radio tranceivers, and the hub. www.plianttechnologies.com

PNY showed Nvidia's new Quadro M6000 12 GB video cards operating in sync to drive a 16-display video wall, and had an Nvidia NVX 810 running eight monitors. www.pny.com/commercial

Roland Professional A/V showed the M-5000 and M-5000C live mixing consoles, based on the Open High-Resolution Configurable Architecture (OHRCA) platform. The consoles can be integrated with other digital audio protocols, including Waves SoundGrid (via expansion card). The V-1200HD multiformat 2 M/E video switcher and processor, with a built-in 16-channel audio mixer, allows up to two operators to control up to seven remote PTZ cameras. Roland's V-1HD video switcher accepts up to four HDMI sources at HD resolution and outputs a program over HDMI and stereo audio out. And the XS series of matrix switchers allow eight different HDMI or analog video and audio inputs to be switched to up to four HDMI or HDBaseT outputs with built-in scaling, making it a solution for switching and scaling content for LED video walls, the company said. proav.roland.com

Shuttle Computer Group showed the Shuttle XPC SH170R6 Cube PC with a Matrox C900 single-slot/nine-output graphics card in a 3×3 configuration, a bundle designed for digital signage installations as well as control-room video walls. The system supports up to nine 1920×1200 displays running at 60 Hz, the companies said. The systems are being sold in multiple configurations through Exxact. www.exxactcorp.com

Sony debuted its Canvas display technology, which uses tiny LED source lights to drive very large multipanel displays making up a new kind of video wall. Because those "Ultrafine LEDs" are so small, 99 percent of the display's surface area is completely black — meaning Canvas displays can deliver very high-contrast HDR images. www.sony.com/canvasdisplay

Telestream brought Wirecast 7 to the show. The new version of its live streaming and production software includes GPU-accelerated decoding, new production features, and a redesigned UI with presets for destinations including Facebook Live and YouTube. ISO recording now allows clean media to be saved for later repurposing, and a new Shot Editor panel lets users turn layers on and off within each shot. Text can now be entered live, imported in a file, or automatifally pulled in from an RSS feed. Also new is an audio mixer and a hot-key customization system. Wirecast 7 is expected to be available at the end of June. www.telestream.net

Waves Audio showed its X-FDBK feedback elimination plug-in, its Waves Nx "virtual mix room" plug-in for headphone monitoring, the eMotion LV1 live mixing console, the MultiRack software host for running simultaneous instances of Waves plugins, the BSS DPR-402 compressor/limiter/de-esser plug-in (based on the classic dynamics processor of the same name), and the DTS Neural Surround Collection, a trio of plug-ins for stereo and surround upmixing and downmixing. www.waves.com