The Hong Kong Show is where Electronic Innovations are happening.
Drew's Hong Kong
Consumer Electronics Show Report.
Ah, back in Hong Kong again. It’s a marvelous city both to do business in and to, well, enjoy. I think that I’ve been here more than 50 times. And, every time arrive I feel the same rush of excitement.
This city lives business. Everybody is busy all the time. It’s really great. Each year there are dozens of trade shows in Hong Kong and below you’ll see a picture of the massive new convention center. It’s really a great place to see new products.
This year’s consumer electronics show is the biggest ever with over 1600 individual exhibiting manufacturers.
Below you’ll see just a few of the products that I saw. I really did see every single one of the 1600 exhibitors. It’s the way I work a trade show. I start at one end on one floor and walk every single aisle, every single booth. I try not to miss anything in my quest for the newest and the best technologies.
This show is primarily consumer type electronics such as audio, video, home automation mobile audio/communications and lighting and virtually every type of PDA type device. This is not a computer show, that’s really COMDEX.
Below you’ll see just 6 Snapshots of what I saw. I was using low resolution and recording voice files attached to each picture to help me remember what I saw. So, please forgive the quality of the pictures. I had a lot of ground to cover (oh my poor feet) and not really enough days for all 1600 booths.
Take a look to see what’s coming and I’ll get back to work making the deals so we can explore and utilize all these great new products. I just wanted you to know that there’s hundreds of times more really ‘good stuff’ than I’ve pictured here.

Onward.
Here we are in Hong Kong Harbor on the Star Ferry that’s been going back and forth between the Kowloon and the Hong Kong side of the harbor for more than 50 years. We’re on our way to the Convention Center.
The new Convention Center is the massive building with the rounded roofs that dominates the harbor view to the right. Hong Kong is really a great mix of new and old. And you’re never far from the water.
And speaking of never being far, you’re never far from a terrific local restaurant. The food in Hong Kong is second to none and there are probably 6 really good ‘local’ restaurants on just about every block.



With over 1600 exhibitors on over 5 floors there’s a lot to see. And every aisle was mobbed. There are always a ton of people. And they’re all buyers. The show isn’t open to consumers, only buyers from around the world. This is definitely where all things electronic are happening.
 Notice the flowers to the left? They are for good luck, prosperity and success. Virtually every one of the 1600 booths had their own display of ‘gifted flowers’. It’s a really nice custom. OK, let’s look at some products. Remember, I’m limiting this page to 6 product ideas to give you a taste and not make the page too big to download.
Anyway, equalizers, compressors and electronic crossovers are really important to our musical enjoyment and I had several meetings with manufacturers making new innovative versions.
Here’s a 62-band equalizer that’s made for studios but I think that I can get for us. You can exactly sculpture your sound to fit your room or your environment. Remember, the best speakers don’t sound good in a room filled with high-end absorbing furniture or too-hard reflective floors and walls.
Equalizers can do much to fix these problems and really add exciting life to your music. Below the equalizer is an electronic crossover. Why? Well, wait till you hear your music when you have the frequencies separated and separately amplified for bass, mid and high end.
You probably already use a subwoofer. This cleans up and energizes the rest of your sound like your subwoofer detonates your bass.
Finally both CDs and in fact all digital music have a problem. Its 100db signal to nose ratio sounds awesome as you already know at normal and high volumes. But have you ever wondered where the sound goes when you listen at low background levels?
Well the truth is when you turn the level down so that louder sounds are soft, you simply can’t hear the really quiet sounds at all. By using a compressor, you can reduce the dynamic range so that the loud and soft sounds are both audible and you can really enjoy non-obtrusive background music. It’s the way we listen in the office and frankly most of the time, so this is important. Much More later.
Here’s a Wireless Marriage Saver® that you can use to listen to your stereo system music, your computer or your TV without bothering your spouse or if you have an older parent who turns the TV sound all the way up, now they can listen at the volume they want without driving you crazy.
Anyway with this unit, you can use any stereophones you have and probably love now, remotely. It’s really neat and I hope it’s on the way soon.  



OK, here’s one of the simple mixer/phono preamps I’m working on. You will be able to copy all your LPs to CDRs when I’m done.
I’ve written a whole tutorial about how to save your treasured LPs to digital sound and how to get all the great benefits of long term storage, automated programing and much more. Click to check out my LPs to CDRs Tutorial. You can use it right now.
But I’m trying to put together a complete package that you can follow step-by-step from needle drop to enjoying your music digitally in your car, home or anywhere. You can do it now, but I’m going to continue to refine it and make it even easier.



NOT AUDIO
OK, they just look like portable stereos. But, they’re not. (Well, they do play audio too, but read on.) I spend a lot of time in the Far East as I’ve said before. Many people in the Far East haven’t been using DVD.
For a number of years they’ve been using VCD. What’s VCD (Video CD)? Well, it’s just another technology that records and plays back video. And the units pictured and many others that I’ve been researching can play back really good-looking video with very little effort on your part.
What’s the difference?
VCD can be recorded on your standard CDR drives. You don’t need DVD drives to create it.
VCD is a great way to convert your personal movies from your camcorders or even 8mm to digital format. Plus, you can make slide shows from your still pictures (digital or print) and slides with great looking transitions and captions and more. It’s neat.
VCD is cheap. You use the CDR you already own and discs are less than $0.50 or even a lot less.
Shortcoming? The quality is more like VHS than DVD. Much more later as I work out an easy step-by-step way for you to enjoy all your movies and pictures digitally. This is fun.
I love weather stations. I like to know what’s up outside and what’s going on in various rooms in our house. I’ve had remote (wired) temperature sensing for more than 15 years. But now with 433MHz it can all be wireless and easy to set up without running impossible wires.
I am negotiating with more than 6 manufacturers for the perfect combination of weather reporting features. You won’t be disappointed when I finally get it right. There’s so much we can do. It’s a kick.
Patio Blasters like never before. Here are the backs of some great sounding, great looking patio blasters that I’ve turned over to some factories that we do business with.
We can’t show the brand on these, but wait till we get our own. What’s really neat is that they are so good that they are also theatre surround speakers.
Usually I don’t much care what things look like I only care how they work. In this case it does matter what they look like because you’ll put a pair (or system) in your living room or den as well as on your patio. And wait till you hear the sound that I heard. Wow!



 
OK, that’s a brief tour, just a brief taste of what I saw at just the show in Hong Kong. In this picture we’re looking out of our hotel room window. To the right you can see the convention center where I saw all the great innovations and just to the lower left the boat is one of the Star Ferries I told you about at the beginning.
If you ever get the chance, take a trip to Hong Kong. It’s a truly great city to visit and do business in. The people are great. There’s a buzz of productivity that pervades everything. Nothing sits still in Hong Kong. You will be energized from the minute you arrive. New products are coming soon. Stay tuned.

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. . . Drew


 
 
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