My recent trip to the Cedia Expo show in Atlanta was the first since 2006, a year when the 3LCD crowd and lower-priced LCoS projectors stole the show from DLP projection technology. In fact, my enduring impression of that ‘06 Denver event was the large number of display manufacturers who were showing "brick-and-mortar" projectors and flat panels in their booths - not a Cedia channel product to be seen.

Given the continued downward trends in pricing and a still-sluggish housing market, I didn’t expect much as I arrived in Atlanta. I was there primarily to teach three Cedia courses and secondarily to scope out the show floor, along with fellow DD correspondents Steve Sechrist and Art Berman.

The show, which is now parked in Atlanta for three years (apparently against the wishes of many members), was ensconced in the rear lower hall of the Georgia World Congress Center, with some spillover into a small portion of Hall B. If you listened carefully, you could hear crickets chirping in that part of the show…

Hall C was a bit more crowded, although by Saturday afternoon there was ample evidence that "exhibitor bonding day" had begun. Still, the usual stalwarts made an appearance, with the largest booth belonging to Crestron. Long-time competitor and Cedia supporter Extron was mysteriously absent from the show, however.

Suffice it to say that truly innovative products were few and far between in Atlanta. Among the flat panel guys, Ethernet connections were the order of the day across a wide range of products. Here are few notable examples that I spotted.

Pioneer, once a charter member of the flat-panel club, instead featured a new media server product called Project ETap (or "Entertainment Tap"). It’s basically a Blu-ray player/DVR combo with the ability to go out and find audio, video and still photos from the user’s home network, plus stream and download from sites on the Internet such as YouTube. The ETap module can also download "managed copies" of movies and TV shows.

Back in the nearly empty Hall B, TiVo showed concept demos that allowed home automation through Series 3 DVRs, partnering with Lifeware. TiVo DVRs have already had the ability to access TV shows and movies from other Series 2 and Series 3 DVRs over home networks, and also support streaming and downloads from Netflix and Amazon. Now, they can control everything from room lighting to drapes and thermostats.

Samsung’s booth showed several different implementations of Ethernet connectivity, featuring numerous Yahoo widgets that take the viewer directly to preferred content providers. Sony’s booth, which had quite a bit of product shown previously at NAB and InfoComm, also featured widget-driven Ethernet connectivity to specific sites for streaming and downloads.

The quality of Web-resolution video scaling seen in both Samsung and Sony booths gives one serious pause: Will consumers ignore the obvious scaling artifacts and noise and enjoy the content? Or, will they complain to dealers and retailers about picture quality on their 52-inch LCD TVs?

Wireless goes hand in hand with Ethernet connections, something that TV manufacturers are still slow to implement. Sony showed a Wireless N implementation built-in to an LCD TV and also connected to their newest Blu-ray player, the BDP-N460. What’s significant about the Wireless N implementation is that the software is built-in to the TV or player to communicate with a Linksys/Cisco WET610N dual band wireless bridge, the first time I’ve seen that done. (I use the exact same product on my home network with a Brother printer.)

LG also had a nice wireless demo, featuring their 55LHX, 47LH85, and 55LH85 LCDS HDTVs. The 55LHX incorporates RGB LEDs with local area dimming and 240Hz processing. But it was the 1080p streaming capability that interested me most, as all three models can be used to move high bit rate content from Blu-ray and red laser players, cable and satellite set top boxes, and other media devices over a distance of 30 feet from LG’s proprietary media "hub."

Similar demos could be found in other booths, and I didn’t have enough time to check them all out. But the 800-pound gorilla in the room was this: What impact will plug-and-play wireless connectivity have on a market where custom wiring and signal distribution is considered to be a bread-and-butter line item in any home theater installation?

A few HT dealers at the show told me in sidebar conversations that they were doing a lot more retrofit and upgrade work this year, instead of video and audio installations at the rough-in stage of new construction. While that kind of work isn’t nearly as lucrative, it helps pays the bills in a down economy, and it’s also an easier sell to customers who once had designs on moving up but are now staying put in existing homes and remodeling on tight budgets.

How will Cedia dealers and installers deal with this trend towards wireless audio, video, and Ethernet distribution that appears poised to overrun the retail channel in the next decade? Will they adapt and figure out a way to make it pay off, just as they have gotten used to selling and installing lower-priced front projectors and flat panel TVs?

Time to start refresher courses on TCP/IP, I think…