ISE’s 20th anniversary edition was the biggest and best attended event in its history, also delivering the largest content programme to date, as regular ISE conferences were augmented by the inaugural European/Latin American AV Summit and a rich free-to-attend programme that included the ever popular Tech Talks, AVIXA Xchange Live and CEDIA Smart Home Technology Stage.
It was some show, as Integrated Systems Events managing director Mike Blackman confirmed during an exclusive interview for the March/April edition of Installation (click here for full interview). “ISE 2024 was our most successful show, in all our 20-year history,” he says. “We had 73,891 unique attendees from 162 countries, which is a record attendance since the show’s inception in Geneva in 2004. This is a superb increase of 27% on the 2023 edition.
“…Exhibitors also reported unparalleled footfall on booths across the largest ever ISE show. In addition, the exhibition also showcased its highest number of exhibitors (1,408) and the largest show floor space (82,000 sqm) to date.”
Blackman is right to enthuse: this was, without doubt, the best ISE to date, and it sets the stage for what is guaranteed to be an even bigger and better event in 2025. As Blackman adds: “Already, ISE 2025 is shaping up to be even larger than the record-breaking ISE 2024 with over 10% increase in reserved space compared to the previous year.” And whilst ISE 2025 is yet to reach full capacity, you certainly wouldn’t bet against it!
BOOTH BUSTER
Installation did its level best to cover as much of the huge Fira floorspace as it could during the show, but in truth we probably needed 40 days not four to fully do it justice. However, we visited a lot of booths, and our show highlights are featured here.
As was the case in 2023, unified communications had a big part to play at ISE 2024, with a raft of companies launching new audio and video products for office and home, and the education market.
Sony and Nureva teamed up to create a large-room audio and video reference bundle. Featuring select Sony SRG series pan-tilt-zoom (PTZ) and remote cameras – including the AI- powered SRG-A40 and SRG-A12 cameras, the SRG-X40UH camera and the SRG-XP1 box camera – and the Nureva HDL410 audio-conferencing system, the interconnected solution provides automated audio-based camera switching collaboration for corporate and education.
Bosch introduced Dicentis Hybrid Meetings, a complete solution that is said to “seamlessly” combine in-person and remote conference attendance. This hybrid solution is intended to create a “highly flexible meeting environment for maximised efficiency and effectiveness”.
MINIMUM LATENCY
Audio-Technica’s ATND1061 Beamforming Microphone caught our eye at the Fira. It benefits from the company’s Link’s IP technology, for transmission of uncompressed multi-channel digital audio and for information control with minimum latency. Pitched as an “ideal solution” for conference rooms, boardrooms, lecture theatres and more, the ATND1061LK searches for the speaker’s position, allowing for accurate tracking of – and switching between – participants who move during meetings or presentations. It also detects unwanted sounds during a meeting and automatically adjusts the beam so that it is not pointed in that direction.
Jabra announced Jabra+ for Admins at ISE, a cloud-based API-first software platform for remote monitoring and management of meeting rooms and devices. It gives IT administrators visibility and control over settings, firmware and insights from one unified software platform, allowing them to check in for real-time status updates from anywhere. Click here for an exclusive video roundup of both Jabra+ for Admins and other ISE launches.
Sennheiser’s upgraded Room Planner – now “more intuitive and user-friendly” – is designed to streamline device planning and room design. The Room Plan Upload Feature, allows for personalised audio and video designs when uploading room plans.
Shure launched Microflex Wireless neXt 2 (MXW neXt 2), the newest addition to its Microflex Ecosystem, expanding the success of the original Microflex Wireless platform. Designed with a unique combination of advanced features, the new Microflex Wireless neXt 2 is a two-channel wireless system designed to offer a cost-effective, intuitive, and all-in-one audio solution for diverse spaces and hybrid environments.
EXTRA CONTROL
Samsung’s “SmartThings for Business” exhibition emphasised advancements in IoT, demonstrating how business owners can leverage SmartThings for their digital signage solutions to gain more control over smart devices across various landscapes.
Samsung also announced an expanded partnership with Cisco to deliver enhanced collaboration experiences for hybrid workers. As part of the new partnership, Samsung unveiled its new 105in, 21:9 Smart Signage QPD-5K model that is compatible with Cisco Room Kit EQ, which is certified for Microsoft Teams.
Leyard showcased a diverse range of meeting room solutions tailored for hybrid working, including the Planar URW105 21:9 display. Featuring integrations with platforms such as MS Teams Front Row, these solutions aim to enhance collaborative experiences. The LN Series and the new CarbonLight CLM5.9 M3 were new additions to the company’s rental & staging portfolio.
Renkus-Heinz was keen to promote its Omnibeam beam-steering software for live venues at ISE 2024, and showcased its ICLive X Series and Iconyx Compact Series from its flagship line of digitally steerable arrays, the award-winning UBX Series of passive column loudspeakers.
Also for live venues, Cameo – the Adam Hall Group’s lighting technology brand – presented its new product highlights on its dedicated booth. The focus was on the AZOR and OTOS moving head series, complemented by a variety of other spotlights for installation, broadcast and theatre applications – including the new ZENIT models and the PIXBAR G2 LED bars.
d&b audiotechnik presented a range of next generation audio solutions, all under the banner of the MILAN standard – including the DS20 Audio Networking Bridge, the DS100M Signal Engine and the D90 power amplifier.
LEA Professional showcased its range of smart power, advanced digital signal processing and intelligible IT integration capabilities, with interactive demos of an updated LEA Cloud, WebUI, and SharkWare platforms. The company also launched six new Connect Series half-rack models, ranging from 30W to 120W per channel, said to harness all the flexibility of LEA Professional technology, only in a smaller form factor.
The best demo Installation experienced at ISE 2024 came from Las Vegas Sphere audio hero HOLOPLOT, for its X2 MD30. Bringing the company’s Matrix Arrays into a smaller form factor, X2 simply blew us away at the Fira. HOLOPLOT’s 3D Audio-Beamforming and Wave Field Synthesis tech focuses sound on the audience area, and the effect was truly astounding, seemingly beaming audio dialogue a couple of booths away as if by magic. Stand in the audience area sweet spot, and you can hear every word; step out of it and it’s gone.
The MD30 is capable of generating up to 12 separate sound fields simultaneously – each with its own content, equalization, level, shape, and position – and the ISE demo team was able to provide us with a second audio feed, ‘sweet-spotting’ in a completely different area away from the speaker installation.
Another enjoyable demo came courtesy of Sonos. The residential hi-fi company (often used in bars and restaurants too – so-called resimercial installations) demonstrated its Sonos 7.2.4 home cinema set-up, with music and movies. The system boasted two subwoofers (one too many for the demo room, Installation opined!), with steering speakers mounted in-ceiling. It was – over-egged sub bass provision aside – an incredible system, both for music and film. Installation will be looking at residential AV in greater detail in 2024, both resimercial and ‘pure’ resi. Watch this space!
Staying inside the home, smart living solutions provider Snap One demonstrated its Control4 and OvrC ecosystems with expanded KNX support, alongside Control4 CORE controllers for smart living control, and the new real-time surveillance benefits of the AI-powered Luma Insights solution.
Installation would have loved to have checked out more smart home and home cinema booths, but alas time was against us. Hopefully next year!
UPGRADED ELECTRONICS
We did manage to experience the best that displays and projectors have to offer commercial AV though, starting with a visit to Digital Projection’s arresting, cow-themed, booth.
The company introduced two of its most advanced, single-chip DLP laser projectors to date at ISE 2024. The all new E-Vision 16000i WU boasts a newly upgraded electronics platform that shares much of its functionality from Digital Projection’s flagship TITAN series. Totally redesigned from the bottom up, central to the new design is the implementation of Texas Instruments’ new 0.8in High Efficiency Pixel (HEP) DMD. This new DMD allows for a higher brightness than was previously achievable on the 0.67in DMD, as well as superior colour and contrast.
The new E-Vision 10000i boasts 9,600 lumens brightness and 20,000:1 dynamic contrast, and shares the same advanced capabilities as the E-Vision 16000i, including Source Redundancy, Brightness Sync and Auto White Balance Correction – features that are usually reserved for high-end 3-Chip products.
Projector and display manufacturer Viewsonic showcased its new LDC series, a customisable addition to its advanced All-in-One LED display lineup.
PPDS also showcased an‘ All In One’ LED display series, with four Philips Titan models, as well as entering the outdoor display market with the Philips Urban LED 6000 series – with FC Barcelona confirmed as its first customer for the Camp Nou Stadium rebuild!. The company also unveiled a new ‘entry-level’ Philips Hospitality TV series, providing premium features at a more affordable price for small hotels, and a new line of Philips Collaboration for Education interactive displays.
Display giant Sony’s Professional Displays & Solutions division showcased a huge portfolio of of products and solutions on its huge booth, catering for the corporate, education, retail and virtual production sectors, including the new high performance BRAVIA BZ-L lineup and newly released SRG-A12, SRG-A40 PTZ cameras – mentioned earlier in this roundup – with enhanced AI PTZ Auto-framing capabilities. As ever, the company was keen to promote its sustainability credentials, and its virtual production demos were out of this world!
Boasting an even bigger booth, of course, was Crestron. The company announced four new Crestron DM NAX Audio Edge Devices at ISE, intended to provide “seamless interoperability and performance” between audio sources for any AV-over-IP system. All new edge devices are compatible across DM NVX AV-over-IP, DM NAX Audio-over-IP, AES67, and Dante audio networking platforms. Additionally, the devices are powered via PoE, eliminating the need for local AC power.
Sticking with Dante, Audinate announced that its Dante Director, a SaaS solution for remote Dante network administration and management, would be available as a pre-release beta. Dante Director enables management of Dante networks from a “simple, convenient” web dashboard, accessible from anywhere. The solution joins the Audinate suite of products that bring professional management to AV solutions, including Dante Domain Manager.
AtlasIED released a new software update for its Atmosphere audio processing and control platform and products, featuring multiple enhancements. It also showcased its premium loudspeaker series, the Aimline series of column arrays, the AtlasIED IsoFlare point source loudspeakers and the AS Series of all-weather, surface-mount loudspeakers.
SCALE & DISPLAY
MSolutions introduced a new quadview video processor to help customers scale and display four video sources in a single screen. The new MS-41Q device can accept four HDMI sources and upscale any input resolution to 4K@60 4:4:4 with up to 18Gbps bandwidth, providing “exceptional” visual quality for monitoring purposes for live production, security and other applications.
Kramer expanded its innovative Series 3 product line, showing the company’s commitment to providing end-to-end solutions that are fully interoperable and connected. Series 3 offers premium quality with uncompressed 4K60 4:4:4 video, zero latency, and advanced connectivity features like fast switching, single-cable extension, and USB-C interfaces.
ZeeVee was excited to introduce pro AV’s first AV over IP encoder with a built-in comprehensive management and security interface. The ZyPerUHD60-2EMP was demonstrated alongside the company’s other ZyPerUHD60 models for 1Gb networks, as well as its full lineup of ZyPer4K 10Gb SDVoE encoders and decoders.
Atlona introduced its global debut of an alternative to touch panels for AV control in smaller spaces and less complex applications. The AT-VKP-8E provides IP-based system control in environments where a simple and straightforward keypad interface is preferred, such as standard classrooms.
Powersoft showcased Verso, a gateway device designed to connect current Powersoft products to its MyUniverso cloud platform. Formerly known as Universo, MyUniverso has now merged into MyPowersoft, ensuring that all users with MyPowersoft accounts can access the platform.
Matrox Video displayed a selection from its complete portfolio of products designed for networked, IP-based control rooms and live production environments. In the Control Room Collaboration pod, attendees saw Matrox Video’s encoders and decoders, IP KVM extension and switching solutions, and video wall controllers in action. The pod featured a video wall and an operator workspace driven by Matrox products.
TECH TEAM
Datapath teamed up with Absen, B-Tech AV Mounts and Fountainhead to demonstrate a complete control room solution of video processing and distribution, LED video wall displays, mounts, CCTV and consoles – giving ISE attendees a ‘closer’ experience of a control room set-up and the chance to explore and experience other vendor control room-related kit.
PlexusAV showcased its IPMX-based AVoIP system, boasting USB-C, RS232, IR, and the all-new Stream Conversion Gateway; whilst Lawo presented its AVoIP solutions for facility and corporate infrastructure, corporate conferencing, stadiums, parliaments, theatre and opera house applications, enterprise installs, and remote production installations – including the new IP-native crystal versatile broadcast mixing console.
The days of eye-catching, ‘me too’ AV innovations at ISE may be over (remember all those takes on Pepper’s Ghost, touch tables and huge waves of low-grade LED ‘ribbon walls’?), but this year’s anniversary certainly lived up to expectations; it was without a doubt the best iteration yet. All wheat, no chaff: the best AV technology from the best vendors, showcased at the best venue.
Roll on 2025!
