The Controversial INFOCOMM "Shootout" is Finally Laid to Rest

The official announcement had been anticipated since June of 2001,and last week the ICIA confirmed what everyone expected: The ProjectionShoot-Out would be no more. Declining participation by majormanufacturers over the past two years and a widespread perception thatthe event had outlived its usefulness finally did in the "World'sLargest Showcase of Projection Technology", as it was billedannually.

Shed no tears for the Shoot-Out. As conceived in 1990, it was aside-by-side comparison of front projection technology, dominated byCRT imaging. Back then, one could easily see large differences betweencompeting models of CRT projectors, and later CRT projection anddirect-view monitors.

Today? The CRT is all but dead in the Pro AV and IT markets. Thewidespread use of transmissive and reflective LCD imaging, plus DigitalLight Processing and plasma, have driven size, weight, and price pointsdown so far on projectors and monitors that a purchase decision is nowbased on the lowest price in a given resolution/brightness category.Image quality doesn't really factor in anymore.

The hammerlock that Sony and Epson have on transmissive LCD imagingalso took a lot of steam out of the Shoot-Out. It wasn't unusual to see75 to 80 percent of projectors in a given category all using Epson LCDpanels and optical components. The same holds true for DLP, where manysuper-small projectors were basically variants of the PLUS single-chipDMD projector.

Among the large venue crowd, it became apparent that a good showingdidn't necessarily translate into orders, but a bad showing could beharmful (if not fatal) to sales. (Many large-venue projectors are soldvia private manufacturer or dealer demos, anyway.)

Add in the cost of participation ($2500 per entry, plus inventorymark-downs of the resultant B-stock goods, shipping, insurance, andset-up/strike labor), and the bean-counters at Sony, NEC, Epson,InFocus, JVC, Digital Projection, Barco, and Christie Digital all cameto the same conclusion: Save that money, and instead put it into thetrade show booth, parties, dealer and sales training, etc.

In short, the Shoot-Out simply became irrelevant. For the last fewyears, the powers that be at ICIA protected the Shoot-Out with zealousfever, fearing that its demise would severely harm INFOCOMM. Not achance! This show has become one of the must-attend events of the AVindustry, and still offers a strong combination of seminars, exhibits,and networking opportunities.

As the late George Harrison once sang, "All things mustpass......"