ISE 2024 Day 1

In this episode, Walt Zerbe, Sr. Director of Technology & Standards talks with Rich Green of Rich Green Design, Mike of Smart Live AV, Pete Trauth of Nirvana Home Entertainment, and Paul Skelton of CEDIA about what they did and saw during the first day of the ISE show in Barcelona Spain.

Podcast Transcript

Walt Zerbe  0:01  
I am CEDIA, I'm CEDIA imcd. This is the CDM CDM podcast. Hello and welcome to another SEO podcast. I'm Walt Zuri, Senior Director of Technology and Standards and your host for the CDA podcast. And this is the first podcast from ISC 2024. Birthday in Barcelona, Spain. And I have to tell you, I I, so far this first day has been, I think, a gigantic success. And I have a bunch of people here to talk about it, who have been doing lots of things. We have people that have been teaching, I've done stage talk today. And we have people that have been walking around the show as well. So I'm just gonna go left to right, left Left like you to introduce yourself, your name, your company, and anything else you want to share about your industry involvement. And we'll go from there so rich.

Rich Green  0:53  
Hi, my name is Rich green. I live in Palo Alto, California. I am a proud CEDIA volunteer, and very proud to be a CDF fellow. I'm an integrator. Here. Thanks for just a lowly integrator. Yeah.

Walt Zerbe  1:07  
Thank you Rich.

Mike Ranpura  1:07  
Hi, I'm Mike from smartlife. AV based out of London, UK. I'm also a member of the CEDIA commission. We do things related to the CDs certifications.

Walt Zerbe  1:19  
Thank you, Pete.

Pete Trauth  1:22  
I am Pete trouth with Nirvana home entertainment out of Los Angeles, California. And I am proud to be an integrator.

Walt Zerbe  1:33  
Oh, that doesn't sound too, too confident their feet.

Pete Trauth  1:37  
It's been a long time. Okay.

Walt Zerbe  1:40  
But I love we can get into that. No. Yeah. All right, Paul.

Paul Skelton  1:43  
I'm Paul Skelton. I'm the regional development consultant for CEDIA in Australia and New Zealand.

Walt Zerbe  1:48  
And I will give Paul the best, most eloquent voice award for this particular podcast as we all agree. Yeah,

Paul Skelton  1:54  
totally. And yet you understand what I'm saying? Yes. Wow, no

Walt Zerbe  1:58  
problems understanding Aussies. I met some others today. And I had to be careful because I'm like, Well, I don't know the accents really, really that detailed. So I had to, I was gonna say New Zealand or Australia. And I had to be because I know you guys don't necessarily love each other. So I had to guess

Paul Skelton  2:14  
we love each other, I guess. Right? It's just cute when they think they're real people.

Walt Zerbe  2:20  
All right. So attendance. I'm rather impressed with the first day. I think it's there's a lot of people here. What do we think?

Paul Skelton  2:29  
I think that's actually been a little bit of a better flow than last year. Because I feel like last year there was the bottleneck outside people were waiting an hour and a half to get in and then just feel felt really cramped on the show floor this year. I think there's been just a steady flow of people throughout the whole show. It's been a lot easier to get

Walt Zerbe  2:44  
around much better job on the entrance. Yeah, they're much better job highlighting where education is. And it's actually exists.

Mike Ranpura  2:51  
thing that I think the key thing is they opened up multiple entrances this year. So people didn't have to all come through one one entrance. Yeah. And also, the idea of having your badge printed, bring your printed badge meant that anyone who had the badge can go straight through and a separate entrance was awesome. And yeah, everything just flowed. flowed a lot smoother. There wasn't really a cue to get in. So yeah, it does, it does help because then you can get straight on to the stands and where you need to be really quickly.

Walt Zerbe  3:20  
Yeah. So I didn't plan this. But we happen to have if you didn't catch it, three CD volunteers. And Paul and two staffers. So that that's pretty awesome. So you rich, your day was not walking around? Or did you walk around? I know you were teaching. So let's hear about your day when you teach.

Rich Green  3:37  
Oh, the whole day was teaching boy, they're working on me hard. Volunteers in salt mine. Shut up and teach. I was great. Yeah. So I work all year to prepare for this day. What happened this morning was the future technology inside scoop from Silicon Valley. And the room was full. And we had great engagement. I mean, the eyeballs, the stairs, the shock, the jaw, blood dripping from the ceiling. It was just exactly what I hoped it would be. Good. No, no, it was good. And a lot of new content this year. And of course, the main topic is AI. Absolutely. So I went deep into AI and I thought about what would be some new information that people might not have heard yet. So I'm predicting an AI winter coming up. Oh, yeah. Not any code for that people. Not many people are talking about this, but like there's going to be an AI winter. And then about three years there's going to be like a supernova major explosion, and then there's no turning back. And I think the reason for the AI winter is we're gonna run out of capacity computing capacity, believe it or not, you know, Mark Zuckerberg He's stockpiling sorting. Nvidia GPUs got 350,000 of them.

Walt Zerbe  5:04  
Alright, so just to put that first bit in perspective, he has 350,000 of these GPUs and they're not $100 apiece. Ooh, they are how much they're like 30,000 apiece or more. No, it's

Rich Green  5:15  
a ridiculous. They're, they're,

Walt Zerbe  5:17  
they're it's fun, believable. I mean, Musk just bought half a billion dollars worth. And he didn't get him enough or nearly enough.

Rich Green  5:25  
But I think one of the things that's important for us to realize and for us to keep talking about is that AI consumes power, tremendous amounts of power. And so the big the big folks in that business like Sam Altman, yeah, understand this, that's open AI, the limit to his ability to keep expanding his power. So yeah, open AI. So he's investing in fusion energy, a company called Helios.

Walt Zerbe  5:51  
That's the joke, right? When we're going to Fusion 10 years. Yeah,

Rich Green  5:54  
I know. He says eight years. He says, we're gonna we're gonna fusion at scale in eight years.

Walt Zerbe  6:01  
Wow. Okay, so I did a talk on the stage first thing this morning, 11 o'clock, right, when the show open pretty much, well, two hours after the show up, and I didn't think it was gonna have anybody. You know, when you first come to the show, you're probably not going to sit down for a talk, you're gonna go see the shiny stuff, and the buttons and the flashy lights. We were three quarters full. And our session was about security and cybersecurity and privacy. So we did the usual passwords and all that stuff. But I really took it down the road of I think our industry is going to have a really rude awakening for being square in the middle of supplying all these devices. And it's going to be a hot mess, it's going to get contractual for protection, potentially, it's going to get litigious. For people being like, Well, I was hacked, you put the stuff in, it's your fault. I think we're into a major Firestorm with that in the very near future. I asked somebody on stage, you know, maybe you need to have a contract where you, you write, you know, I'm not liable if we do best practices do the best thing we can to protect you, but you still could be hacked. And and someone on stage stage said, Well, I wouldn't sign that. And I said, You know what, we do this already. And we've been doing it for a long, long time. And you know what that is, you park your car. And it says, We are not responsible if your car is broken into and your things are stolen, but you still park your car that is like the I think an analogy we can use to try to get people to help us with this. But that's my prediction as on top of yours. It's gonna get messy for us.

Rich Green  7:37  
It is going to get messy. And something that we need to be thinking about is the power of blockchain. Yeah. And that

Walt Zerbe  7:44  
wasn't scalable, right? Is it becoming more scalable? Or that's Oh, no, no,

Rich Green  7:48  
no, it's a problem. It's another energy hog. Yeah. So isn't it ironic, that's why I'm thinking we're gonna have an AI winter, we're going to be hitting the hitting the ceiling in power, and security. And there's going to be some hiccups. And as

Walt Zerbe  8:01  
a whole world's trying to electrify with heat pumps and cars, and then we're going to add that on top too. Yep.

Rich Green  8:06  
Yep. Yep. There's going to be some issues, and who is better suited to solve these problems for our customers than us? Right? We are, we need to be well aware of ways for the mass of homes that we work in to consume way less energy and are more sustainable. We've been talking about this for 20 years. Yeah,

Walt Zerbe  8:30  
but we met It's getting real. How many of you guys are doing Power stuff in your businesses? or stuff like management, storage, critical load monitoring, shutting stuff off? That's not necessary. All that stuff?

Pete Trauth  8:43  
I figured we already past the point of no return.

Walt Zerbe  8:45  
But are you doing that? Are you providing services

Pete Trauth  8:50  
that it doesn't even matter that it's done or are doomed and gone?

Walt Zerbe  8:53  
Oh, I like your town. You know, remind me enough.

Pete Trauth  9:03  
But it's, it's not just, it's not just those things, but also you look at like the metaverse big one, you know, like really huge, huge video hog and same thing, power problem. Look at things like you know, like, like any of this, any of the generative AI that's using imagery and then soon they're, you know, going to have they already have it video out there and to do a video now. And that's just an unreal amount of amount of processing that's happening. So I mean, you know, you have, you've got the blockchain issue, you have the, the, you know, anything that's going on with like, the NFT world and an art and graphics and yeah, and, and VR, VR, and that this all being in the cloud or At least moving in that direction. Let's process it all online. And yeah, I'm with Richard on this, you know that we're gonna hit a wall where, you know, even if the power grid can handle it, that we just won't be able to, we won't be able to get the processing, you know, with, with people buying up before like a couple of people buying up all of the processors that that sounds I haven't even heard of that until today. But like, that sounds crazy. There's

Rich Green  10:31  
another scary thing and that's water. I read an interesting statistic, one chance, GBT interaction consumes about a swimming pool size of water now,

Pete Trauth  10:42  
and that's just text. Yep, totally. That's insane.

Mike Ranpura  10:46  
But then there's also this, I think it's like a balancing act. Because I have, you know, friends who do work related to data centers. They're building data centers left, right and center, like on a crazy scale. Right now, they're greenline data centers all over the world, to the point where they're exploring, you know, underwater data silos to dissipate the heat, or installing them in like Antarctica and areas where they don't have to manage that he. But when it comes to the power grid, like, you know, the it's a misconception, like electric cars are not more energy efficient, because to make them cost more, and then that you're you're limited in the whole process, creating more resource issues, right?

Walt Zerbe  11:32  
We need better battery tech, and I know they're working on it. Solid State batteries, organic batteries, we'll get there. It's there's always pain before we get going. But this is really interesting. I've Did you guys see any power stuff on the show floor yet?

Pete Trauth  11:47  
Little bit? I didn't even get the stop at any booths that I didn't

Walt Zerbe  11:52  
see any to go find it.

Mike Ranpura  11:54  
We kind of as integrators we touch the surface of it. So with certain, you know, intelligent PD use you can they display on the screen? Yeah, what you said just using and to be honest, like one amp, two amps, and rackets is nothing like, it's, it's like, you know, in your, in your American terms, probably 60 pounds or $100 extra a month on what an AV rack could actually consume. Because you use Class D amplifiers, you use more efficient technology, unless you're doing some, you know, amazing, crazy, insane project. But the average kind of typical project is using relatively really efficient power supplies, surge surges and power conditioning issues in some countries more than others. But we, you know, we use that as a default condition, the power to make their electronics last longer. In the UK, like solar is being looked at more as an energy source in homes. We know the power grid can't handle it, these data centers need to have power, like dedicated power supplies run in to power the data centers, because they can't feed off the local grid. Yes, isn't too much. But as integrators, I don't think the source of the issue is with us. You know, we can use things like basic triggers to turn amps on and off when they're not in use. But most of them have a standby mode or they have an intelligent function to wake up when the zone has been used. So whether or not there's enough power to run our stuff, I don't think that's that's an issue. I think it's more of a high level global issue as to how are they going to allow for the power group to supply enough power when they people using car chargers everywhere when they're gonna start doing all of this stuff. And not only that, you're gonna see that balance shift because with lighting, you're gonna have mains power lighting disappear, and low voltage POV lighting start coming into play. Yeah, where, you know, you don't need 240 volts or in your case 110 volts to run a light bulb, right? You could run a 24 volt fixture that I

Walt Zerbe  14:03  
think DC micro grids will finally come to fruition. Ken's been talking about that for a long time. It's way more efficient than AC and rectifying the DC and or even solar as DC rectified AC rectify magnet DC. That's like, it's so inefficient. Yeah.

Rich Green  14:18  
So you got to do battle with the electrical unions? Yeah. Oh, there's

Walt Zerbe  14:21  
going to be battles? For sure. Yeah, as well. So there is one that we do need to be very worried about power for the house. And that's in California, they passed this net zero. So you're not allowed. You have to put back on the grid what you consume. I think that's going to be a hot mess and how unforced How much are they enforcing that right now is that that's not really an effect yet, is it?

Pete Trauth  14:46  
I haven't I haven't seen it yet. In fact, by now, but the big big problem I see with that is that they're not taking into account how you come up with the solar panels and The first place the energy that goes into creating these things on your roof and yeah, yeah, there's there's these government programs that are paying for it. So we're paying taxes for that, you know, they don't want to get into a political Tosh. No, no. But you know, in any case. Yeah, it's then what's the net energy? Really? They you say net zero, but really is? Is it really Net Zero? Yeah, right.

Mike Ranpura  15:27  
It's all it's all a kind of concealment to shift the narrative one way or another, like, I had a client I went to see and ground source heat pumps are a big topic right now. Right. And this client had one of the was one of the first to install a ground source heat pump. To install it, they have to get like a massive drill, drill, like couple of 100 meters down through the ground to put this pump back down. Right. Yeah, we do it in the States and, and he's told me, I've had to pay for that crane to come back and dig it up three times because it got blocked or it failed or whatever something happened to the cost is astronomical on digging your backyard and up again, to get that thing out. Because it's not something you can just take out and maintain. It's literally buried like hundreds of meters underground, this

Walt Zerbe  16:21  
return on investments already shot may

Rich Green  16:22  
say something positive.

I just came came back I saw James and Bridget over at the cords booth. Yeah. And you know what, they're shipping their cables. Now in plant and paper base,

Walt Zerbe  16:37  
I actually committed them. When I had an integration company. I just hated all the stuff that I threw out, you know, five bags wrapped in one for one provider of phone, it was actually not only is it bad for the environment, but it was a serious hassle to deal with. I would love less packaging and smarter packaging in our industry for sure. Yeah,

Rich Green  16:59  
we got to stop the plastic addict. Sorry.

Walt Zerbe  17:01  
Let's Let's also change the topic to anything you saw cool today. Alright, so did you get into hollow ply?

Pete Trauth  17:07  
I did. Yes. And Alright, for

Walt Zerbe  17:10  
those not familiar, you should be because you should have heard it on the CD podcast or seen it in the news. But all of lots of the really wild wave forming beam steering audio company that's most famous right now for being deployed in the sphere in Las Vegas. And they were here as a 10 by 10. Booth a long time ago, and I saw them. And now they're, there's something else. So what do you think of it?

Pete Trauth  17:31  
It's, it's still the most interesting audio technology that I've seen. I've never seen anything that is like it, it's completely unique. There are other companies that do beamforming and that, you know, that do this, you know, beam steering, I guess are? Yeah. But the way that these guys are doing this, and and this is all this is all done with with these really, really high numbers of drivers.

Walt Zerbe  18:03  
There's 186,000 drivers in the sphere. Yeah, it's a lot of drivers with an app and each with a DS own DSP. Right.

Pete Trauth  18:12  
And so they have these two cables to plug into each one of these arrays. And I don't know exactly what each one is for. I can't remember, but I'm gonna guess one is power. And the other one is data. Yeah, probably. And they do all the processing on that board has its own computer basically on on that array. Really, really, really cool technology. And that's one of the things that if I didn't get to any other any other audio demo in this entire place for ISC, I would say go to that one. All right. That's in

Rich Green  18:47  
the awesome. Is this appropriate for live venues? Or is yeah, that's what it's all there. YouTube is playing through it right now. Okay, so they're not getting latency issues through the DSP? Oh, no, no, they're

Walt Zerbe  18:58  
using AES 67. And the latency is extremely low as well. Cool. Just this weekend, or now for another second on it, because I love it. But they use about six days of supercomputer time to crunch the algorithms to figure out how to do mono stereo immersive in the sphere. Because each driver and how it refracts against the curve screen each each and it's each point in space, and blah, blah, blah, and then it spits out a little add text file that they can recall in milliseconds to reconfigure the system. With freeware, they're using Reaper, and I've been using like Pro Tools. So there are another level. That's what I love about the show. All these things are tools. And this show is giant because we have commercial tools. And we have residential tools. I know things are bucketed that way, but they're really tools. And that's really the magic ISC and you can decide, oh, that tool would be good for me, or that tool is going to open up a new opportunity for me that I didn't have before. So that's why you need to come to the show. Because you will get exposed the product if you only wanted to see the expo you won't see at Seattle All

Rich Green  20:00  
right, that's that's the magic that there's this crossover that occurs. And you've got residential people looking at commercial equipment going, Whoa, this is really interesting. I can use this.

Walt Zerbe  20:12  
Yeah. How would you do today?

Paul Skelton  20:16  
I've basically been on my feet all day walking around just meeting with different suppliers talking about the Australian market. That's been the bulk of my day and had some really good conversations. And people seem to be taking the Australian market a lot more seriously now, which has been really interesting. had people sign up for the textile mills that we run in Australia wanting to get more involved with the education side of things, which is a big push for us. And then in addition to that, I was on a panel discussion earlier with Pete and Matt, monopolists from experience one over in Australia talking about certification, which obviously a massive topic globally. And I think it was interesting, because a couple of you have mentioned that panels that you've been on, you had three quarters full certification panel. No, not even close. And I think that is indicative of our biggest problem with certification. People don't care.

Pete Trauth  21:08  
It's just not that sexy a topic. I think that's the right like I

Walt Zerbe  21:14  
never really have seen title for it. So people would sit down and surprise we're talking about certifications used to be

Rich Green  21:20  
that used to be sexy. I mean, CEDIA top down, started with certification. There was a lot of there was an aspirational model, people would come to these shows, attend education, get their credits lined up, study and cram for the exam, it was a big deal for them, they'd come I remember, they come out of the room, hugging and high fiving each other Wow, great exam, you know? Is that happening anymore? Definitely. Do that.

Paul Skelton  21:50  
I'd find that out if they did.

Walt Zerbe  21:54  
Well, that is something we need to keep working on and education as well. Unfortunately, I think our industry is a little guilty of Oh, I know everything because I've been doing this for 20 years. Yeah. But you could be doing it wrong for 20 years, and you have to keep an open childlike mind. That is, those are the people that are going to think differently shaped their businesses as the world changes, and others are going to find that there and glow in the dark.

Paul Skelton  22:21  
And it's so easy to prove someone wrong these days. So you can get found out pretty quickly if you don't know something. So don't wait that point. It's probably worth doing the training just for that to protect your own brand. But

Walt Zerbe  22:36  
we'll just see today. So

Mike Ranpura  22:37  
this year, I mean, last year, I decided to do a bit of education. And I didn't actually get around the whole show last year. This year, I came with the plan of committing to try and get around the whole show. Yeah, I know they've made the show bigger by three halls, which is which is insane. Three halls bigger and each hall is massive in itself. I still find there's an issue with with placement of exhibitors, like out of the oven, how many halls we have here, 999 Halls, right, and we have half a hole dedicated for residential. And I can see companies in the residential section which should not be in the residential section. So I think I think there could be better utilization of space. But in terms of new stuff, like you know, the pre marketing bars, I know, l acoustics have just launched some new new speakers, we know that cords are doing a few new things. We know there's a couple of brands have announced products, right seeing a lot of new products. Yeah. But I've so far today, I've seen brands launch refinements and, and slight improvements on either their software or the hardware. Like DoorBird, for example, they've been enhanced their range with you know, access control modules and fingerprint readers and, and things like that. And like you said, it's just it's inspirational. It's evolutionary

Walt Zerbe  24:04  
versus revolutionary, which was pretty much as kind of every CES show to me, actually. It's

Mike Ranpura  24:11  
like, what can you use? Okay, that's a real product. Now. I could use that, you know, like access control, I don't have to put that on a gate. I can use that to unlock the customers, you know, secret layer, Batcave, access control, whatever it might be. So there's just use cases which you're like, Okay, I can see that working for this. I can see that working for that. But then yeah, like the audio demos are a big thing because this is really you know, this is where you like exhibitors have to spend the big money to for the floor space. When they come here, they they're bringing everything they can right. And I've said this to many people, I was like, can you imagine the value of goods in this place right now? Oh, my gosh, millions if not billions, and the insurance must be through the roof or not? I don't even know if anyone let me assure anyone in this place by

Pete Trauth  24:59  
That's a really good question Scotty billions

Mike Ranpura  25:04  
and billions of pounds worth of worth of tech, and just some of this stuff, right, like a pair of speakers already into 100,000. And then there's nine holes worth of worth of the numbers, the numbers go crazy. But this is where the audio companies come on. And they they put on the demo spaces, the rooms. It's not, it's not something you'll find at a local show or Tech Summit. This is where they invest the money in or a game. This is where you need to be to hear that and, and, you know, we're an industry where we like to hear and, and try things and see

Walt Zerbe  25:39  
things in a clink as a beer man.

Mike Ranpura  25:43  
We like to try before we buy, because if we are sold on the concept, then it's easier for us to sell our clients on the concept. Yeah. Right. So. So yeah.

Walt Zerbe  25:53  
Any other mazing things there? Pete?

Pete Trauth  25:56  
Yeah, a couple. Two things. Two things. So So this morning, I started out the day with a keynote from a speaker named Amelia Kalman. Really, really interesting talk. And this was about AI. And it was there was about basically the the future of what she was seeing the things playing out.

Walt Zerbe  26:20  
I'm surprised it was an AI talk

Pete Trauth  26:22  
yesterday. All right. Well, so there's a term that I learned today called amplified intelligence, which I love it. I think it's it's an it's a, it's a more accurate way to talk about what AI is. Because really, it's taking it's taking the intelligence that we have that does not exist in AI. And it's amplifying our intelligence is giving this giving us this tool to go and basically, you know, amplify ourselves and what we're able to accomplish

Walt Zerbe  27:00  
the things I'm positive

Pete Trauth  27:01  
term. Yeah, I like that.

Walt Zerbe  27:04  
Bring a lot of negative the time, so I left that. I'd

Pete Trauth  27:08  
rather use that from here on forward than artificial intelligence, because I don't feel like artificial intelligence is really an accurate way to describe that.

Rich Green  27:17  
Just a little comment in the vernacular here. The the proper term for what we're talking about is artificial intelligence. It's wrong. It is intelligence. It's not artificial. It's quite real. So it's actually non biological intelligence. Yeah, that's exactly what we're talking about. And if you go back to the FBI, non biological intelligence, yeah, it doesn't quite envy. Bi sorry. Man, back in the early days in my, you know, my Palo Alto time, I've learned that through Doug Engelbart slab at SRI Stanford Research Institute, where they invented the computer mouse and new modes of interaction with computing, that it was all about ay ay, ay, intelligence augmentation. So very similar to your amplified intelligence. Intelligence augmentation is how can technology improve and enhance the human condition? How can it Doug Engelbart theory was the problems facing humanity are accelerating at a rate where we mere humans can't solve them. We need augmented intelligence to solve them. So his mission was to use technology to amplify what we're capable of thinking and accomplishing. And that's where we're at now. That's what's that's what's happening.

Walt Zerbe  28:38  
Pete Pete's involved in a talk that we did a podcast on beat night. Tour on Friday, I think it is, yeah. Which plays right into this, which is using technology to improve the human condition, which is right off of our integrator 27 wipes, which is free, which is neuro inclusivity. Designing for different neuro types. And for those that don't know what that is just real quick. Dyslexia is a prime example. So I think yeah, these tools, I love the positive spin on this, of how we can do better to people interact and function and be entertained,

Rich Green  29:14  
but it gets worse.

Walt Zerbe  29:17  
Oh, boy. I hit the end button. Now. The

Rich Green  29:21  
AIS are getting so good that they're they're exhibiting emergent behavior. Oh, well, that. Okay. In a larger sense. He was it's not it's not been programmed. They're exhibiting emergent behavior. Yeah. And we all read about this last week that they programmed in an AI to lie. Yes, they did. And then they couldn't unprogrammed it would not stop lying. It

Walt Zerbe  29:45  
figured out how to hide so it couldn't date so we couldn't tell it was lying. Yeah,

Rich Green  29:49  
suddenly put guard rails at scale is to have aI against AI. Yeah, so it'll be aI wars. On that cheery note back to you.

Walt Zerbe  30:00  
I was just getting so the keynote. Oh,

Pete Trauth  30:02  
and okay, so there was, I wish I could remember the name of this booth. But I'll maybe another time. Anyhow, this was a VR experience, totally unlike anything that I've seen before really where they created this, this kind of little artificial room that was in an entire world in itself, where you would walk through this, this maze and into this endless huge room on the inside. And and they had these different model cars that you would like futuristic cars, you'd get inside and check out and you could I mean, it was it's really hard to explain, you know, it's one of those things you disoriented

Walt Zerbe  30:43  
in it. Did you have any balance? A little?

Pete Trauth  30:45  
Yeah, a little bit after it? No, no, I was I was okay. At the end of it. I actually, I got out of that one.

Walt Zerbe  30:54  
Figure out what that is. We need to we need to tell everybody what that wasn't. We need to go see that

Rich Green  30:58  
too. Yeah. Yeah. What Hall? Was it in? Hall four? Is that like a VR Hall? Or what's going on over there? multitier? No,

Pete Trauth  31:08  
yes. Multi technology. So it's kind of a mishmash. But this? Yeah, that I'll figure out what it was. It was unreal. I mean, really? Next Level? VR.

Walt Zerbe  31:21  
That's cool that that's at the show, and then

Rich Green  31:23  
were they selling? What's the product? You know, I

Pete Trauth  31:26  
think that they're, I think they're showing software? I think it's, I think it's a software thing. And I think that they're selling this to be maybe used in a specific sized space. But software is what they're selling. They're not selling any hardware, or software as

Walt Zerbe  31:46  
a service. So maybe a SaaS company, or?

Pete Trauth  31:49  
And I'm not sure who is who is VRS set they were using. But so you did where you did wear a headset. Yes. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. With that said,

Walt Zerbe  32:00  
apples releasing their day out yet. Tomorrow, is it?

Rich Green  32:05  
Well, they sold out the first run they did. Now it's not shipping yet. But we now know a whole lot more about it. It is truly a breakthrough product.

Walt Zerbe  32:15  
Yeah, I wanted to bring this up just really briefly. So you know, we released the ERP 22, immersive audio, right? Metta practice Mersive audio is here to stay. And you'd made a comment, maybe a year or two ago, that the that headset wrapped around an actual audio system in a room is would be an amazing thing, because you're gonna have a giant screen on your face, and then the actual immersive audio coming at you from all the proper directions, and not earbuds.

Rich Green  32:46  
Exactly, you would have a positional head tracking what they call 60 off six degrees of freedom. So it's detecting exactly the orientation of your head and what you're looking at. And it's mapping that into the audio system of the room. So that you get the visceral, big raw, shake your liver impact of the room sound Yeah, with a completely immersive move your head around, you're looking into this three dimensional space with the VR headset. So you got kind of the best of both worlds. That's its doesn't speak well for the future of video projectors and screens. But it does give life to that dedicated room.

Walt Zerbe  33:23  
And that's why I wanted to bring it up. Because a lot of people might be you know, listening to this cast, like, oh, whatever, that's just a personal thing. But it's another tool, and it could absolutely be integrated in our space. So

Mike Ranpura  33:35  
I was having a chat with someone regarding music streaming, actually, and I think fuckin vaguely remember, they were saying that Apple is going to give more royalties to artists that produce their music in three dimensional, whether it's Dolby Atmos, or whether it's just

Walt Zerbe  33:58  
highest paying right now. Anyway.

Mike Ranpura  34:00  
So then the question was, well, if if they outsource this, this kind of 3d mapping to a third party, then does that then reduce the quality of the content? Because you're just outsourcing what would be the artists intent, just to make more royalties on your normal album? So it would be a second thought, rather than our some eyes? Who'd be like, Oh, no, we want to make this in three dimensional for our for our listeners, right? Yeah. So will it then dilute the market just because they want more royalties that people start putting out poor 3d versions of their albums? And so that's that's an interesting I mean, we're already seeing some some good three dimensional music and there is some good content on the platforms already. Yes, certain songs which are done really well.

Walt Zerbe  34:53  
But yeah, awesome. is a good one. Also over stuff. Yes. So

Mike Ranpura  34:57  
boom is always used as a as a demo. Right. But it's one of those where you're like, okay, in reality, how many clients have come to you and said, All right, we want a very immersive audio listening experience, right? Like that. It's, it's a unique thing with a limited amount of content. So unless something like and it is usually apple that makes something mass market, right, when they do something, then everyone else buys into it. So it could be the beginning of immersive audio in the home because of this headset. And it's like, it's not the intended use, but it's a byproduct and a positive benefit to our industry, that people start asking for immersive spaces where they can hear immersive content.

Walt Zerbe  35:41  
Really good comment. Cooper

Pete Trauth  35:42  
VR experience.

Walt Zerbe  35:44  
Yes. Became through Cooper VR. Cooper, ah, the car manufacturer

Pete Trauth  35:49  
era

Walt Zerbe  35:53  
is one of those guys in France. And

Pete Trauth  35:54  
those cars look really, really cool. They're real. Yeah. And then Dr. It's

Walt Zerbe  35:59  
coupe. I understand. They're kind of souped up Volkswagens. Yeah,

Mike Ranpura  36:02  
yeah. So it's part of the same group VW Audi? Yeah, it's just got new new kind of like bodycare. Same like a Lambo isn't is an Audi. But the internals are the same, right? Yeah. Like, it's a Yeah, so Cooper is probably their marketing team trying to promote the car. But if they don't, Mark Yeah, they're probably marketing the car. That's what that's what it is.

Walt Zerbe  36:24  
All right. Well, we're about at that time. Is there anything else that somebody really wants to get out that wants share on day one podcast

Rich Green  36:30  
here? We have an aha moment in the Design Thinking workshop this afternoon with Peter ALA. And that's based around integrator 2027. That's right. It's based on the ISO 27. Everybody. So this group designed a business for profit, sustained profitability, five years out, what would that business look like assuming the exponential growth of new technology, and there was a gentleman there from Nigeria. And he said, My biggest issue is inflation. And he just kind of changed the whole dynamic of the room. It's like, whoa, okay. We are in a truly international global show here at ISC. Yeah. And we have to be respectful and mindful that there are many, many points of view, walking the floor here. And this gentleman from Nigeria shared with us a real urgent problem in the growth of his business, dealing with rampant inflation. And so we came up with some novel ideas through the design thinking process, how he might consider reimagining his company. And one of the things he came up with is, well, I need to stop importing products and start working with products within my country and data. So it kind of made me pause a little bit. It's like, I need to listen to this gentleman from Nigeria. Something happening here. And we are industry tends to be a Eurocentric, US centric. Yeah. We need to be sensitive that there are emerging markets all over the world. Look at India. Oh my god. Yeah. India is so huge. And it's about to get and

Walt Zerbe  38:11  
I know huger, we have integration friends there that paid dearly to bring brought products in.

Rich Green  38:18  
Yeah, so I think that the geopolitical situation impacts our businesses in very real ways. We as CEDIA should be even more mindful of what our members need, wherever they may be in the world. And just think just circling back to certification. Yeah, you know, whose certification? And who are we certifying? And what? Where is it relevant? Is it relevant in Nigeria, so just I'm just putting out a voice for diversity inclusion, we need to be very mindful and sensitive to the people that we interact with. And this show is front and center. Just look out of this booth at the diversity out there. It's astonishing, and it's exciting. Yeah.

Walt Zerbe  39:07  
Well, thank you for that. Right. So I think that's a good note to end on. So I want to thank all of you guys for being on the podcast today. We'll be doing one every day. Just to we'll get more into products. I know we got a bit on AI today, but we had to because I mean, that's what everybody's talking about. Probably gonna look to see who's I haven't seen AI plastered all over booths. So

Rich Green  39:26  
I'm not seeing it either.

Walt Zerbe  39:28  
I did at a at CES. But I'm not seeing here. And that's kind of refreshing. Why is

Rich Green  39:32  
it didn't we say this last year to like, why aren't we seeing AI here? It

Pete Trauth  39:37  
was everywhere at CES. Yeah, everywhere. Yeah.

Mike Ranpura  39:41  
I think ces ahead of where this market is this market will only invest in proven concepts where there's demand. Whereas CES is at the cutting edge of technology. It's you know, oh matters. Your

Walt Zerbe  39:56  
smoke and mirrors. Yeah,

Mike Ranpura  39:57  
matters just come out. We're going to get out multiple products out there. I haven't seen a single CI company integrate matter Yeah Very good. Yeah, you haven't seen that yet because they weren't until it's a proven concept and it works.

Walt Zerbe  40:12  
They're part of the Matter organization but they're not they're not they're not showing product yet. They're there they're involved they're watching it they're monitoring it but right there's like Yeah, very good point. I think the future is in curved flat screen TVs I think 3d Curved Flat screen we're gonna go back to reading clean glasses. All right, well, we got to add So thanks, everybody for listening to the podcast today. You know, we're gonna say but I would as always I would like you to please keep an open mind. And drink Earth milk and drinkers milk. Yeah, all the water bottles here cardboard.

Mike Ranpura  40:46  
I love him book your tickets for next year because you know you're missing out.

Walt Zerbe  40:49  
Thank you. All right, Ciao. Bye.

Pete Trauth  40:58  
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