CEDIA Expo 2022 is right around the corner and CE Pro’s resident “Video Guys” are not only excited to see the latest products during the annual trade event, they are eagerly anticipating the show’s training opportunities.
Joel Silver, CEO and lead developer, Imaging Science Foundation (ISF); Jason Dustal of Murideo; and Robert Zohn, president and founder of Value Electronics, point out the CEDIA Expo show is a valuable event for dealers for a numbers. They joined the CE Pro Podcast to discuss the upcoming tradeshow in Dallas, as well as cover Value Electronics’ annual TV shootout.
“CEDIA is the important trade convention for education and product training on all the advancements that we’ve achieved this year, and I think we’re going to learn from Joel [Silver] and Jason [Dustal] that it [2022] will be one of the more important CEDIA conventions,” asserts Zohn.
During the show Dustal will be teaching “CEDIA/CTA-RPP28 to Design and Verify HDMI Systems” on Thursday Sept. 29 from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Leading up to the show he will also be teaching an Imaging Science Foundation (ISF) calibration class in Dallas on Sept. 25-27.
Silver will also be teaching the ISF calibration course with Dustal. In addition, during the show, Silver will be taking part in “Ask the Experts: Video Performance and Design” on Wednesday Sept. 28 from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
Commenting on why he takes part in the Expo’s educational program, Dustal says it’s just a matter of helping integrators to maximize their talents.
“We really want the installers out there to really understand how to do this stuff in the easiest and most efficient way possible,” Dustal says.
Silver says the training is important on so many levels, including the design of today’s AV systems, as well as these systems’ installations, and optimizing products once the installation is complete.
The training can even help dealers with tasks such as product evaluation.
“With 4K and 8K you no longer need a mansion to have 100-inch TV set, so our rooms accommodate the sets because the amount of resolution [they deliver] and the real kicker is the scaling,” Silver says. “… the upconversion in the engines on these TVs is spectacular. I think what we’re not seeing press on, and people don’t understand, is just how much of an easier job upconversion is on an 8K TV with four times the processing power and more times the physical pixels [these TVs offer].”
The trio of experts noted during their conversation on the show how hot the current home video market is right now with large-screen TVs selling well, including markets where these products have not traditionally sold well. Silver emphasizes that in today’s market 65-inch TVs are the “new 42-inch TV.” From there, he notes that 70-inch sizes are gaining popularity and at the high end of the market, homeowners aspire to own 90- and 100-inch TVs.
Value Electronics’ TV Shootout Participants Shine
Moving on to modern displays and Value Electronics’ annual TV Shootout event, Silver, Dustal and Zohn note how dramatically the current market has improved and the competition’s results validate the performance of today’s TVs. (You can hear their discussion about last year’s Shootout here).
Arguably, the biggest performance development the three say that has happened has been the increase of brightness levels, which have allowed today’s TVs to approach the performance levels of professional calibration displays.
“It’s funny because looking back to some legacy display technologies, we were always for SDR at 34 foot lamberts and we were lucky to get that in some cases, which equals right around 100 nits and you know now we’re seeing TVs do 100 nits in their sleep,” Dustal says.
“There’s so much headroom now for SDR and that’s really where it gets important for these really bright rooms. Let’s be honest, not everybody’s watching a TV in a pitch black room with bias light behind it and no ambient light at all. People are normal human beings and my case in the living room is exactly the same … we are seeing some TVs 3200, 3300 nits out of the box even calibrated 2500, 2600 nits.”
Summarizing the results of the shootout, Zohn emphasizes the expert panel of judges’ opinions and voting are the final word.
“Well, the judges vote, and I stand back and we tally the votes at the end. They vote basically looking at picture quality, performance only in all the elements of picture quality, so the results speak for themselves,” Zone says.
“Emissive displays typically win premium emissive technologies typically win over transmissive [technologies]. This was the first year … that I have ever seen the TVs after calibration match the BVM-310 [Sony Professional BVM-HX310 Professional Master Monitor] so well. They looked exactly alike. I don’t know how the judges could even determine which one was better they all looked like the BVM-HX310. It was amazing. But an emissive display QD OLED from Sony won for the 4K event as they well deserved to. LG’s emissive display, their 8K OLED won the 8K event. They were all very close.”
Here the full hourlong conversation with our “Video Guys” by watching or downloading the podcast above. Find past episodes of the CE Pro Podcast by subscribing to the CE Pro YouTube channel or our Apple and Spotify podcast feeds.