Rebecca Day

After a year of unprecedented losses, restructurings and layoffs, many AV custom integrators are taking a lower profile at this week’s CEDIA Expo in Atlanta, if they're going to the event at all, said several polled in recent days by Consumer Electronics Daily.

Verizon will upgrade FiOS subscribers next month to version 1.7 of the service’s operating system in seamless downloads to set-top boxes, executives told reporters Wednesday in New York. An upgrade highlight is a bidirectional side-loading feature to allow subscribers to connect any media device to their home networks and have video, music and pictures from those devices available for viewing on a FiOS-enabled TV, they said. In September, media from products connecting to networked PCs by USB -- such as digital cameras, thumb drives, cellphones and BlackBerrys -- will also be viewable on the TV, the executives said. The FiOS software will recognize the devices automatically, no setup up by the customer required, they said. Verizon said it’s firming up relationships with Internet video providers for direct access to video Web sites from the FiOS menu. The carrier said it already has deals with blip.tv, Veoh and Dailymotion. Verizon said it’s also adding set-top-box addressability with the upgrade to version 1.7. Advertisers will be able to target ads to subscribers by their locations, executives said. Verizon will release its Iris development kit for FiOS widgets in late October, through a Web site just for this purpose, to anyone who wants to write and publish an application using the LUA programming language, they said. Applications can be added only with Verizon’s approval. They can be free or for a price. They'll be available under the Widgets Bazaar section of the FiOS menu. The FiOS network passed 10.3 million homes in 16 states June 30, executives said. The service has 2.5 million subscribers and about 8 million set-top boxes in use, they said. FiOS offerings include 115 HD channels in all markets, 15,000 monthly on- demand SD titles and 1,400 on-demand HD titles, they said.

Harman High-Performance Audio Video, formerly called the Harman Specialty Group, imposed changes in its marketing, advertising and distribution policies in preparation for September’s CEDIA Expo in Atlanta, executives said in a New York media briefing Wednesday.

Custom AV integrators seeking to weather the economic storm are riding the green wave -- offering clients energy management solutions as stand-alone tools, as value-add incentives or in integrated packages, our poll of integrators found. “We're moving our company in the direction of not only being able to conserve energy through our control technology but actually generating clean energy as well,” said David Young, president of the Sound Room in Chesterfield, Mo., typifying others. “It’s a combination of conserving and generating to offer a complete technology package.”

While some manufacturers are scaling back or dropping exhibit plans for the CEDIA Expo in Atlanta in September, specialty AV supplier Russound is gearing up for its biggest presence ever at the show, executives told us last week. The company has booked more exhibit-floor space than at previous Expos and plans to trumpet its 1,000-plus-SKU catalog rather than just promote high-profile products, as it has usually done, they said.

In the worst economic climate that custom home electronics retailing has endured in its short history, specialty AV dealers are scrambling to recover, redefine and reshape their businesses, our poll of those merchants found. Hit by the falloff in the home-building market, the fast- rising threat of the Internet as a distribution rival, and consumers’ reluctance to spend discretionary income, many in the custom channel are reeling and seeing little hope for an uptick any time soon.

D&M is pulling all its brands out of this year’s CEDIA Expo in Atlanta, the company confirmed late Tuesday. Executives described the move as a temporary, but prudent “hiatus” from the event, and said exhibiting at the show would be unnecessary because all the D&M brands will have introduced or shipped new products by the time its five-day run opens Sept. 9.

Hoping to fill a high-end TV niche that companies like Pioneer and Runco once occupied, specialty TV supplier NuVision met with dealers at the exclusive Soho House members’ club in Manhattan this week to re-launch its brand of upscale LCD TVs. It came armed with new financial backing from a Weston, Conn.-based investment firm, Cat Trail Capital.

Falling short of its goal to reach the coveted top spot in AV receiver market share for 2008 didn’t deter Denon from debuting an ambitious 2009 slate of AV receivers, Blu-ray players and headphones at a New York media event Monday.

Promoting the blending of Internet content with HD cable, Digeo on Thursday will release a spring update for its Moxi software that will give users additional functionality combining the two platforms, company executives told us in a briefing. Digeo launched its first retail product at CES through a limited-distribution deal with Amazon, and with the software release today, both existing and new customers with broadband connectivity will have access to half a dozen new features as they roll out this weekend, they said.