ISE 2015: The installer's Show Review and Photo Gallery

With over 60,000 trade attendees, this year’s Integrated Systems Europe (ISE) was arguably the busiest we’ve seen to-date, which possibly goes some way to explaining why next year’s show is expanding to 4 days in 2016. Innovation was everywhere, from 4K Smart signage and transparent OLED displays, to leading edge control and distribution systems. So, after working the floor as usual, capturing a mix of video and photos, what impressed the Inside CI team the most?

The Projection Studio, led by Ross Ashton, a special guest of Panasonic at ISE 2015, certainly attracted big crowds with its 3D projection mapping of a Tesla car. The Tesla Models S electric car is powered by Panasonic batteries making it a natural choice of vehicle to have on display. The car was clad with material to give an all over image that looked like it was emitting directly out of the car body! It was a great showcase of what can be accomplished in the commercial marketing arena. 

Epson also drove home a winner this year, with the European launch of its first laser projector, the EH-LS10000. The projector uses advanced 3LCD reflective technology with a dual laser light source. We caught up with Paul Wilson, the brand’s UK product manager, who told us “the new EH-LS10000 is something we’ve been working on for the last couple of years…the projector has a very high contrast and the laser can be switched in black scenes to give the an absolute black contrast”.  We think this model really throws a cat amongst the high-end projection pigeons at around £6,000. The new model will begin to ship early April 2015.

Immersive AV experience
While looking around the many ISE halls we stumbled on the JBL Synthesis home theatre room and treated ourselves to a truly immersive AV experience. At the show, JBL was showing off a new system comprising the SDP-25 processor and matching SDA-7200 seven channel 200w power amp. The processor offers installers plenty of connection options, including six HDMI 1.4 inputs and is CI friendly with two HDMI outputs, allowing for you to feed picture to a projector and TV at the same time. The system is compatible with 4K sources, with decoding of DTS-HD and TRUE-HD sound formats. UK distribution will be through karma-AV.

Also looking very useful was the SMART kapp, a reinvention of the dry-erase board (pictured below). These stylish titanium white-boards are designed to share information via an app; whatever you write on the board is distributed to connected parties. This can be done over a 3G connection and is secure in the fact that the person writing the information can invite the guest to join into the experience. Once complete the connection is terminated and all info is back with the author. Simple but effective workflow, and a winner in my eyes.

I was also taken with Wyrestorm’s Enado Mini web server AV control system (pictured above). Based on the same hardware as WyreStorm’s NetworkHD Controller, it’s a versatile bit of kit able to control any IP device on your network through a web-based UI. What we like about the Enado is the simple programming needed to set up this powerful system. It offers IP control of your Wyrestorm matrix as well as all source kit, like blu-ray players and Apple TV. Also worth investigation is Wyrestorm’s new 4k tester, designed to help any installer find faults without spending hours looking for the wrong problem. This could be a real time-saver! Comprising the TT-GEN-4K UHD 4K HDMI Timing signal generator and the TT-SIG-4K UHD 4K HDMI source signal analyser, the generator can create virtually any resolution imaginable, refresh rates or scan types and sync polarity as well as pattern type used to test colour, gradient, detail, motion and 3D.  Signal types, colour space and depth can also be set and audio formats, up to 8.1, can also be tested.  The powerful feature set is rounded off with an EDID setting to read, store and recall EDID codes to ensure total compatibility between connected devices in the installation.

A slice of cake and a cup of tea...
Over at the HDanywhere stand, MD Chris Pinder gave us a hands-on preview of the impressive new LayerCake system. Comprising of a 8x8 video matrix, 12x12 audio matrix and 8-zone power amplifier, LayerCake installers can deliver up to eight zones of multiroom HD video and up to twelve zones of audio. The standard package features a new fixed-format 8x8 HDBaseT-Pro Class A 4K capable video matrix. It’s also the first matrix to incorporate DarbeeVision Visual presence technology. This is an optional picture improvement technology. We’ve already seen it on the latest Oppo high-end Blu-ray player, but this is the first time it’s made its way into CI distribution kit. 

Always a tentpole booth at the show, the AMX stand this year was branded under the parent group Harman. Showing the latest updates to the DGX Digital Media and Enova Switchers, AMX is taking a new approach and is offering great solutions for the commercial integration market. The Enova DGX system looks like a bullet-proof way to link multiple spaces together, distributing AV and control around the building, and there was the usual mix of great looking display keypads. We love the new additions to its Massio meeting room user interfaces.

ISE 2015 certainly lived up to its billing as being the place to be for the professional AV and systems integration industry. I think next year with an expanded event, we’re going have to pack an extra pair of comfortable walking shoes. And probably some bigger batteries...

For more from this year's ISE extravaganza, fire up our Photo gallery below...