PLUG FOR INNOTIVE... INFOCOMM 2004 "GOOD BUZZ" AWARD

Good news for the company, Innotive Corporation, I helped out for nine months while I waited for my girlfriend in Korea to finish up her time with her firm. They received recognition at InfoComm 2004, the audio visual technology industry's annual meeting. I thought they should have won something at Comdex too since the conference was more relevant to the core technology, but sometimes the dice doesn't roll your way. Their software product is one of the few "wow" technologies you encounter. When I gave presentations, so many people would be amazed at the functionality of the product... "powerpoint on steriods," "it's right out of 'Minority Report'," etc. Press release from Insight Media follows:

Insight Media, the leading source of intelligence about the microdisplay industry, is happy to announce the winners of the InfoComm 2004 "Best Buzz" awards. They honor what people were talking or "buzzing" about at the exhibition.

The Good Buzz awards are selected in the same way. Those honored with this award created good buzz for their products or services, but were not as widely recognized as those honored with a Best Buzz award.

Top honors for "Best Buzz" at InfoComm 2004 go to:

· Sony for its demonstration of a 4K x 2K resolution projection system using its SXRD technology. The showing of 8-megapixel images was indeed impressive, but as Sony acknowledged, the system needs improved uniformity, contrast and electronics before being ready for commercial use.
· Texas Instruments for the introduction of the SXGA+ (1400 x 1050) DLP chip set. This new 4:3 aspect resolution chip set will replace SXGA products, and TI announced that four companies at InfoComm (Christie, Coretronic, projectiondesign and Barco) would start to use the chip set in products this year.
· projectiondesign and Christie for the F3 and DS+60 single-chip front projectors. Using an innovative dual-lamp design and the new 1400 x 1050 DLP chip set, this platform offers 5000 or 6000 lumens using 250W or 300W lamps. This essentially doubles the previous single-chip DLP brightness record.
· MicroDisplay Corporation and Uneed Systems for its demonstration of single-chip LCOS-RPTVs. Both 43- and 52-inch RPTVs with 1280 x 720 resolution where shown on the floor, with 1920 x 1080 resolution demonstrators in a suite. Expect the 720p versions to be on sale this fall at very competitive pricing.

Receiving "Good Buzz" awards at InfoComm 2004 were:

· Daktronics, Barco Events, Lighthouse and DynaScan Technology for impressive demonstrations of rapidly advancing LED technology. Daktronics (www.daktronics.com) used its new 3 mm pitch LED modules to build a 5(H) x 10(W) foot wall of LEDs that offers 1024 x 576 resolution with very good brightness, high density, and over 1 trillion colors. Barco Events (www.events.barco.com) constructed a giant 14.7(H) x 26.6(W) wall that offers 1296 x 720 pixels of resolution. Video run on this wall created an impressive effect - even next to a pair of stacked Barco projectors that offered 2048 x 1020 resolution and 50,000 lumens! DynaScan (www.dynascanusa.com) showed several of its rotating LED cylinders with a tight 2+ mm pitch. The 360-degree displays are eye-catching and show much improved image quality compared to previous demonstrations. Lighthouse (www.lighthouse-tech.com) showed outdoors LED panels that offer a very bright 5000 nits.

· Innotive Solutions for its "Minority Report" demo. Adding a touch screen and user interface to a Panasonic PDP allows the manipulation of graphic image databases using finger movements - an interface that should be extendable to perform the image manipulation tasks the way Tom Cruise did in the movie Minority Report.

· Digital Projection for its demonstration of a 10-megapixel display. Using five DLP projectors, each with 2048 x 1024 resolution, Digital Projection had the largest (35'W x 16'H) and most impressive display at the show. With 10 megapixels all beautifully edge blended, this caught the eyes of everyone.

· Mercury Online Solutions/Fred Systems for its software and digital media processors for digital signage. This is one of the most comprehensive software solutions we have seen for scheduling and delivering digital multimedia content on a worldwide basis, with uptime of all displays in the network at better than 90%, compared with a typical 50 to 60%.

· X3D Technologies for its eye-catching 3D display. The company showed a modified 50-inch plasma panel, which does not require any special eyeware to see the 3D image. X3D develops and licenses 3D software and hardware to the advertising/signage, PC and broadcast industries, and plans to help roll out 500 such systems in theaters this year.

· Kimoto for its unique film-based screen to create 3D images. Leveraging it s expertise in polyester-based off-axis diffusion screens for projectors, the company showed a 3D system that attracted a lot of attention. The screen is a translucent white board on one side and offers a 3D display on the other using a standard projector.