InfoComm 1998

From the Archive

InfoComm 1998

CX Media has covered many InfoComm trade-shows. Here’s our coverage from Connections Magazine in July 1998, if you are curious about what AV/integration looked like 20 years ago… By Editor Julius Grafton:

“DATELINE INFOCOMM DALLAS, AS THE ‘NEW’ AV INDUSTRY PUTS ON 20% GROWTH

InfoComm 1998 shone like a beacon in Dallas last month, as everything AV was on show at the main global industry event. It was the year of the Flat Panel, and the LCD video pro­jector. Or maybe the year of the shortage of network techni­cians, or the year of video and data integration. Such is the breadth and strength of the new and evolving AV industry.

The CRT projector is now dead technology, with count­less thousands installed around the globe – all set to quietly just fade away, day by day. DLP projection is coming, but the real stars of InfoComm were LCD projectors. The Dig­ital Mirror Device (DMD) from Texas Industries may be the technology of the near future, but it hasn’t quite made it.Yet.

The electronic cinema moved closer to reality with the new Hughes JVC ILA (Image light Amplifier) 12K projector. Visitors at Dallas saw the 12k in the projector shootout, and many came away convinced that while traditional film may still have a slight edge in terms of contrast and colour, the huge Hughes was just about there.

While INFOCOMM is the place where Sony, Barco, NEC, Sharp, Sanyo, Epson and oth­ers all battle to sell video pro­jectors, it is also the Ground Zero venue for integration, sys­tem control, and even smart building technology. More coverage from page 19”  LINK (opens to 5 page PDF)

Clare Waddingham and Trevor Buck of Electronic Systems exhibiting their Aus­tralian made Lectrum brand of lecturns

HirePoint (Sydney) had a busy booth to promote their Windows 98/NT rental tracking software.

Mighty Mini: This 1,700 lumen LCD projector from Eiki, Sanyo and Proxima is the same machine rebadged. Set to replace the CRT fleet in Rental Inventories everywhere.

Read the complete July 1998 edition here (requires one-time email registration), or search through our magazines for topics or people – since 1992