Rob: Alright, we are back on the Connected Design podcast and coming to you right now from inside of a hustling and bustling expo hall here, the Las Vegas Convention Center ahead of InfoComm. We’re one day early as we sit here, Mr. Tom Devine. Yeah, I know. But it’s with how crazy it is right now, it’s even crazier to think what it’s gonna be like over the next couple of days for you guys.
Tom: I know it and it is it’s wild how this whole entire place transforms in like 24 hours. By the time tomorrow it’ll look completely different and everything looks all professional. But if you guys could see right now it’s a madhouse around us right now.
Rob: Having seen the other like this side of it from other companies I’ve been with, knowing it’s like magic, man. It really is to see it like there’s no carpet down and that you guys got carpet down. I I imagine you did that for you knew I was coming, so you wanted the carpet to be ready for a podcast. that we can’t even see below our hips. but it’s all right. I appreciate you doing that. But like to then know to your point, right? Like 24 hours later this is gonna be a completely put together trade show experience for The commercial AV industry. It’s unbelievable.
Tom: Exactly. It’s so fun to be a part. InfoComm, what I kind of think about, it’s like the Super Bowl of commercial AV. So really exciting leading up here. I’ve been here for the last few days, and we’re excited to see all of these integrators who are, putting through professional systems throughout the whole world converge and start to, mind meld and share ideas and share solutions and share technologies and what can happen. And so for me it’s a really exciting time.
Rob: So Tom Devine, VP marketing for AVPro Global. talk me through that a little bit. What’s what’s life like? What’s the job like?
Tom: Yeah, thanks. yeah, so yeah, Tom Devine from AVPro. I’ve been here for over ten years. and we’ve changed a lot in those ten years. But I’ll tell you what, for right now, what we’re what as you know what I’m working on right now is getting out to the world that AVPro is more than just AVPro Edge and Extenders. That’s what we’ve been known to, known for, a long time. We have a 10-year warranty, it’s what we sell the most of. It’s what a lot of people say, when you need it done. Right, you just grab the box, the green box, you know it’s you don’t have to worry about it. we’re really proud of that, but we have a lot of other solutions, so we’re excited to share those other solutions. recently, or about one year ago, we acquired the control company RTI. Yep. with that, that changes the landscape for how we want to go with our distribution of audio and video, and how that can work alongside RTI. Well, that’s very important to us, and so that’s what we’ve been really Concentrating over the last year is marrying AVPro with RTI and having these converge so that if you’re gonna use an AVPro product and an RTI control system, they’re gonna work together smoother, it’s going to be an easier job for the integrator. Now, the other thing we’re doing is we’re trying to determine what is an RTI control job. And so as we have AVPro Edge, we work with all control manufacturers. We work with Crestron, we work with Q-SYS, those are some of our biggest partners. Well we also want to show that we have this control in RTI and we want to find those locations and those types of installs that RTI is going to be the perfect fit and we’re excited to share that with you know all of our viewers here.
Rob: It’s a like you guys have a complete story to tell, right? And that’s kinda marketing, storytelling, that’s kinda what you do. So I have to imagine being able to, kinda weave the ne the narrative at a show like this and help the attendees or those commercial integrators and residential, which we’ll get to, make sense of this, kind of the crux of what you’re here doing at the show like this.
Tom: Exactly. So very exciting having everybody converge here and yeah and then being able to show audio plus video plus control and how that equals AVPro. And that’s kind of what like you said the story that we’re trying to convey over this.
Rob: Well, I unintentional completely side note plug that we’re on Shure microphones. I know they’re a headline sponsor. We’re gonna see how well they do it cutting out background noise. ‘Cause if you didn’t believe we were on the show floor a day early as things were being built and you probably can hear it, but we’re gonna do our best to suppress that no
Tom: Well yeah, good luck because a guy has to be grinding metal, I think is the only thing.
Rob: can think of. That’s proof that like this show they do anything to make it come together. Whatever they gotta do.
Tom: But it’s yeah. It’s unbelievable. Yeah, no kidding.
Rob: So I being at InfoComm, I know we’ll we’ll get into it ’cause I know in a few weeks crazy to say that, but in a few weeks we’re gonna see you at another show that kinda covers a different part of this industry. but talk about your presence here. I know obviously very commercial centric. Yeah. so what’s the converse what are those conversations like or how do you guys present yourselves a little differently you know than we will see in a couple of weeks?
Tom: Totally. So yeah, I mean AVPro we do residential and we do commercial. And we focus super focused on each one of those industries. So we have different solutions for each one of that integrator. And there are a lot of integrators that play that light commercial, that resimercial, whatever buzzword you want to find out for it. space, especially sports bars, especially hospitality, hotels. Well, we’re finding all of our customers do that in any segment. And we really want to show that. So what we’re doing today is we are actually showcasing what a casino would be like. We’re taking advantage of the Las Vegas setting, and we at the InfoComm booth were showing what a casino would be like. Well a casino, it has a sports bar, a casino has a lobby, has a hotel, it has these different spaces, has digital signage. And what we’re trying to show is that all of those different things make up this one installation and can all be fed by AVPro products, can be controlled through RTI, and even more so, Each one of those individual sections, they can also be harnessed into different types of installations. Say it’s a dentist office or a university or a whatever kind of installation or vertical you’re using. If it includes audio, video, or control, AVPro has a place to fit in there. So for our commercial audience, that’s what we really try to focus on. and that’s why as we set up this you know this mock casino, we have a fake slot machine to try to play. around a little bit and we have you know like a fake menu sports bar and we’ll be giving out beer a little you know a little bit.
Rob: I gonna say I a dentist office, if they were coming through here, I don’t know how they feel about a slot machine and a sports bar, but I’m all for it, man. But it what it does and kinda what you’re getting at is the fact that it shows the real world application for everything that you guys do. Granted, I mean, we’re on a show floor, right? An expo hall, but like gives you the chance to put your products, put your message out there in a way that is very I livable may not be the right word, but like usable.
Tom: You’re exactly right. What you want what we want to convey to our audience as they come in here is that an integrator can come to our booth and they can see with their own eyes and touch and hold with their hands the solutions that they can immediately take back to their own cities, their own towns, and start bidding jobs for these types of solutions. So maybe you don’t have a casino. That’s okay. You have hotels and hotel has a lobby and has a bar and has these things. Maybe you don’t have the exact solution we’re showing here as in a casino, but every commercial installation has these different elements and we want to show how with AVPro, with RTI, you combine these solutions together to give you the full package. And so that’s what we’re sh that’s what we get to show today. Now this relates right into residential though. It’s not like we’re using some other type of solution, but with residential, we’re gonna just be more concerned about multi-channel audio and HDR video. Where with our commercial audiences, we don’t really care as much about that stuff. They’re gonna do two channel audio, they’re not worried about the picture quality being you know some sort of eight million colors on screen. They need to be able to see the Excel sheet very clearly when they present it to a hundred people or whatever. So it’s a different type of audience, but a lot of the same things they’re looking for are the same. Yeah. So we try to harness our solutions for that. we’re not showing multi-channel audio, we’re not showing HDR. What we’re showing is the scalability and the interoperability of AVPro. So we are we are working with a bunch of different partners, whether it be control or cameras or peripherals or whatever. we have a whole bunch of different types of products around our booth and we’re showing how you interact with those products like you would in a real world with our solution.
Rob: I and that may I mean you may have already done a great job at answering the follow-up here is like right we will be at CEDIA Expo in just a couple of weeks. So the that I’m sure details pretty well how differently the presentation is, but talk about the conversations that you have. Do they are they drastically different or what or what really is different about, your presence here versus what we’ll see in Denver?
Tom: Well The biggest presence is going to be here, we are not presenting our brand audio control in a major way at all. Because audio control is revolving around home theater and audio excellence and multi-channel audio and busting out 16 speakers with two subwoofers around your, amazing living space and and that’s what it does great. Here we don’t offer that element. What we offer is we offer commercial amplification. That doesn’t need these massive wattage powers like you need in home theater. but everybody inside AVPro, we think home theater is pretty cool. And we actually Yeah. And we’re like all Cinephiles and Audiophiles. So while yes, we’re excited to show our commercial offerings, what we do in residential, it powers what we do in commercial. Because commercial, while yes, they need more screens and they need much more massive scalability. What they’re not looking for are these very technical details of signaling that we have to be specialized in. And what that does for us is it allows us to specialize in those. for residential so that when we get to commercial, everything is just more stable. Yeah. Things work better. When you plug in this you know a brand new MacBook that’s gonna pump out a new signal off of your USB device that’s that’s giving you HDMI 2.1 capabilities or display port capabilities. Well
Tom: You have to have a system that works with that. And maybe that’s not out for a year. So the in the thing you’re installing now has to be able to work with that. That’s what we try to show at AVPro as well, is that we are ready for the future. By taking those technologies that are they’re standard and residential and giving that to commercial, it allows the commercial more headroom on their installs.
Rob: Yeah. Well I and I know it’s a year out so you may not even have put any thought to it yet, right? But you already heard and know about the rumblings of reSIDE coming to here and we you’ll have the kind of the chance to merge those messages. talk about that a little bit and have you started to think about how, does that impact the way you present yourself at a show like this?
Tom: Well Yes, what you’re talking about, and to recap, I’m sure most of your listeners know, is that we’re at a commercial focus trade show. But next year it is going to be a commercial trade show with Lightapalooza and a residential section. So y we are AVPro we go to Lightapalooza. we’re no we don’t do lights, but that’s where all of our integrators are. we are at CEDIA, we’re at these places where you know it’s being headed by the buying groups or part of those buying groups. Yep. So we are definitely gonna be playing ball. AVPro goes to where the integrators are. We don’t try to tell people or force integrators to go to a specific show or find us here. We’re gonna go wherever you are going. So yes, we’re definitely gonna show that at next year, but we’ll do it in a different way. Commercial integrators and residential integrators are very different folks. They have different priorities, they have different install tech techniques, they have different strategies for gaining business, they have different ways of modeling their business. A commercial A job may take 18 months before you install. A residential job sometimes can take less than 30 days before you’re installing. so these are different types of businesses. So what we will foresee us doing is keeping our entire commercial presence.
Rob: I appreciate you offering that bit of insight.
Tom: And that’s how we’re gonna take it. But I can tell you we’ve talked to a lot of partners and everybody can
Rob: Could be very different. Yeah, we’d do something different. I kind of exciting, right? you don’t know how it’s gonna to manifest itself, but it’ll be cool to experience it for sure. And I know a lot of people are excited about that and looking forward to it. So I gotta ask too, we’re we’re what, six-ish months into I think I might have seen him around here, Matt. being at the helm. You know. kind of give you the chance to reverse review or you know. How’s he doing? How’s th how have things been at AVPro since Matt took the helm.
Tom: Exactly. So Matt Murray, current CEO, taking over from Jeff Murray, his dad, who’s a real, had a very long legacy in A.V. in a great InfoComm person of the year two years ago, Jeff Murray. So you it wa it’s been a big change. But what I can tell you is Matt is young professional that’s ready to grow a company, that’s ready to push solutions, that’s ready to give integrators what they want. And Jeff was ready to do that as well, but he has been working for 40 or 50 years in the industry.
Rob: Tired, so
Tom: So he would he still is super involved in our day to day. I still talk to him all the time, but he also wants to be able to get on the fishing boat every once in while. in between those times where Matt doesn’t get a fish anymore. Matt just has to do all business all the time. But it has it is a change, right? When you have somebody who comes from an old an older style of business, the way that the business has been ran for in the in AV since the beginning of AV distribution. Right. Well, you know
Rob: Understand
Tom: The way that Matt’s running it as being a very young CEO is different. And he is looking at different ways. We are much more involved in AI, we’re much more involved in clouds. We’re looking at what can happen for connectivity. And we want to usher that in. company to work a little bit better a little bit harder at what’s next and that’s really a fun place to be because he allows us to make mistakes and try things that maybe isn’t gonna be the future but we get to put a little bit of R&D development into these things that allow us to do you know things outside the box and develop our own technology. Well Matt Wants people to know that we are an R&D firm. Yes, we manufacture products. A lot of people that manufacture products they work with a manufacturing plant and they, have orders and they put in their order. Well, we are a little different. We have the manufacturing plant ourselves. We choose every resistor, every capacitor. we have a lot of different lines, we choose our own cables. We’re trying to develop technology. We developed our own lenses for fiber optic transmission of HDMI, and now we’ve developed a new XS. C technology that allows for HDMI extension for even longer distance, even more stable at a lower cost. We’re constantly trying to push what’s available, and that all comes from our leadership from Matt Murray. So it’s really exciting to have him be on board and at the top and
Rob: So a glowing review for sure. And I I’m sure I can only imagine that dinners you know on Sundays at the Murray’s they’re they’re still talking shop. So Jeff to your point, you as much time as he’s spending on the fishing boat now certainly is still I’m sure, h having some influence exactly how things go. So you can’t leave it behind, right? That’s
Tom: That’s right. He’s our chairman of the board. So I mean he is still a big part of the AVPro family. Especially as we try to show people audio, video plus control, we need his leadership. We need what Jeff’s experience has had through all the different things that he’s done. And that is a great counteract, the yin to the yang for Matt, with all of the new things that Matt wants to push with technology. So it’s a it’s a it’s a it’s a great partnership.
Rob: Exciting times here for sure at AVPro so Tom, I appreciate you taking the time. I wanna let ya I feel like they might have finished up since we left. Everything’s looking great. I got ya out of the work.
Tom: Appreciate it. Thank you so much, man. Rob, we gotta get you around.
Rob: We did this when we did. No. That’s awesome. Well I appreciate you taking the time. best of luck throughout the show. I know this will publish after the show, so I hopefully it will have been a success. and definitely look forward to catching up with you guys down the line. So this was a lot of fun.
Tom: Yeah, thank you so much for coming, Rob. Yeah, for all the Connected Design viewers, check out AVPro. We have some really good solutions. You’ll find that we are a young company that is coming out with fresh solutions that are new and pushing boundaries. we hope you check us out. And thanks so much for taking the time to you know talk to me today. All right.
Rob: Absolutely.
