How Harman’s Latest Products Are Making AV/IT Convergence Easy

The large electronics manufacturer is briefing professional A/V dealers on its brands and its efforts to design complete system solutions.

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Just like an old-school rock band that built a fan base through countless tours, Harman Professional has been on the road looking to enhance its dealer relations.

Stopping in the greater Boston area as part of its Harman Connect roadshow, the popular A/V manufacturer conducted morning and afternoon brand education sessions that outlined the capabilities of some of Harman’s most popular professional products.

Leading the series of mini brand presentations, Mark Rehel, regional sales director, Northeast, Harman International, told the dealers in attendance that the purpose of Harman’s visit was to showcase the company’s new “One Harman” approach to system design.

Rehel then pointed out Harman’s audio history, including facts such as its brands’ usage on approximately 80 percent of recordings. He went on to emphasize that the company is a complete solutions provider that brings to market a number of patents and more than 12,000 engineers.

“We are covering so many applications,” noted Rehel. “Our revenues were $6.4 billion and we have more than 995 patents and patents pending; we own 80 percent of the connected car market and we are talking to Google and Amazon because we own the space.”

Related: Harman’s Acquisitions of AMX, SVSi Lead to Single-Manufacturer, Customer Aligned Approach

Outlining some of the markets Harman Professional addresses, Rehel explained that the company provides products in the A/V, control, lighting, enterprise, entertainment, retail, touring, cinema, large venue, hospitality, corporate, education and government verticals. He said an important priority of the company has been the interoperability of its products and brands.

“If you can’t tightly integrate, what’s the advantage,” he rhetorically asked. “We’re at the forefront of AV to IT.”

Ensuring the interoperability he speaks of, Rehel said the company has gone to great lengths to make sure its products are compliant with the latest IT standards, including FIPS-140-2 encryption technologies.

Interoperability Fuels Product Design Goals
Following Rehel’s remarks, Rob Kuntz, regional sales manager, Harman Professional, explained the company’s RPM Configurator tool. According to Kuntz, the tool removes the arduous labor of programming. He went on to explain the RPM software’s cloud capabilities and stated that configuring a system through the use of the software “literally takes no time at all.”

Kuntz also emphasized the interoperability that Harman is building into its products to make them easier in the field for dealers to utilize.

“Each one of these brands are ‘best of breed,’ but they all take a holistic approach,” he said. “We take our successes and experience and use them in creating an conducive environment.”

Utilizing the vast experience of its rep firm, Rehoboth, Mass.-based Hanoud Associates, Paul Hanoud, briefly touched upon the evolution of the audio market and the connectivity options Harman currently offers. Some of the technologies Hanoud pointed out included Crown Amps’ inclusion of Dante, Cobranet and Harman’s own Blu-Link platform.

Before ending his presentation, Hanoud also made a point to tell attendees that lighting installations can actually produce more revenues than A/V. He also noted how Martin Lighting fits into dealers’ service portfolios.

“Lighting is big dollars,” said Hanoud. “Lighting is actually bigger than audio.”

Video Is a Diverse Market
The next two presenters were Shawn Cameron, video distribution, senior sales engineer, Harman Professional, and Mark Templeton, director of sales engineering, SVSi. They covered the various methods Harman offers to distribute video content.

Cameron discussed the transition to 4K and AMX switching solutions such as n2000 and Enova products, as well as the company’s fiber accessories. Templeton covered the SVSi’s history, including its beginnings, which trace back to 2007.

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Templeton recalled how in SVSi’s early days, the brand started out as a high-speed camera company that designed an infrastructure technology that transmits video over Ethernet—explaining how the company’s technologies transmit audio, video and control signals over standard IP networks.

Templeton continued by pointing out today’s network environment is much different than in those early days and because of the growing usage of enterprise-grade networks, which are capable of supporting traditional computing functions and the reliable transmission of A/V technologies.

“You can deploy some pretty sizable A/V networks on those enterprise, conceived networks,” he said.

Concluding his presentation, Templeton outlined SVSi’s current product platform and the applications for its N1000, N2000 and N3000 series product lines and their features, which include scaling, PoE, IR options, crop/zoom/pan capabilities and video wall functions. He ended the presentation by emphasizing that all of SVSi’s products offer open control for use with AMX and other manufacturers products, including Crestron.

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