Setting the scene for success...

Running an efficient demo...
It was a couple of years ago, I attended a demo given in a prestigious place, run by a distributor of AV equipment.

A complete Home Theater system was hooked up, albeit fancy leather armchairs which were not really within the scope of this demo anyway, the equipment alone was worth about £150,000 and I knew all of it was first class.

The demo began with music first. 

• The first soundtrack was a vintage recording of the Beatles (from the middle sixties, in mono). 
• The second one was from Pink Floyd “Dark side of the moon”, and 
• The third was a New Orleans style brass band.

These old recordings did not do any justice to the expansive audio system, but there was something worse…

An automatic Eq had been used, from a measurement made with an average of X microphone positions.

One obvious problem (there was more than one, actually, but this one was so obvious to me that all the others were hidden) was that by averaging different microphone positions, the analyser measured the acoustic power response, not the pressure response. As the loudspeakers were not of the constant-directivity horn type, the directivity increased with frequency, which is typical of consumer grade speakers. So, for a flat on-axis response, the power response was decreasing with frequency.

As the analyser measured a naturally rolled-off power response, the automatic analyser boosted the HF.

The result was a very prominent on axis HF response, which sounded incredibly harsh.

The whole demo was a disaster, and quickly shut down my attention. I can’t even remember what the videos were.

So, from this experience I deducted three things:

1)      If the sound is not right, you don’t even notice the videos

2)      Never use a vintage recording

3)      Never use an automatic equalizer (unless it is the only thing you are trying to sell)

This was only one demo, but I have seen  hundreds…

So I will try to put together my thoughts, following for your review, in an organized way.

***

1 The whole demo must be perfect from a technical standpoint

2 The organisation of the demo must be a perfect selling machine

Let’s start with 1

A perfect demo from a technical standpoint is when you reach immediately this “suspension of disbelief” that only happens when nothing distracts you from the action.

This means that:

• The image must be perfect
• The sound must be perfect
• The image and the sound must be in perfect coherence

Actually, nothing is perfect in the real world. So we can afford an approximation we will call “perfect” which is immediately perceived as perfect and when after a while, no serious flaw is perceived.

Achieving this in imaging is not very difficult, you only need:

• A good projector (with a lumen output suitable for the screen size)
• A good calibration of the projector
• A good screen (this you already have if you are my client)
• A dark room

Now you need a good sound.

This is very, very difficult. Believe me, as an acoustical engineer having been designing sound systems for 33 years now, I am still discovering new things quite often.

The sound is about the sound system, its layout, the signal routing, and the room acoustics. All these are strongly interacting, so if you get one thing right, it might not be suited to another one.

This is what I will develop in details in the next series of articles, as it deserves a proper study.

Finally, you need the sound to be in coherence with the image. This is not very complicated. 

First, you need to place the L,C,R speakers behind the screen, like in commercial cinemas. This means that the screen has to be Acoustically Transparent (A.T.)

The problem is: Only one projection surface is Acoustically Transparent and does not deteriorate the image, It is the Enlightor 4K. Fortunately, you are familiar with it, and that is a good start.

Now that you have installed the front speakers and the screen to insure a good spatial coherence, you need to adjust the time coherence.

To achieve this, you need a manual lip-sync adjustment function in your AV processor (if there’s none, change the processor) and a test signal. I have sent you a test signal, but if you lost it, please download it following this link:
http://editorsean.com/blog/49-audiovideosynctest

Now, back to the future!

I assume that you have had all the articles about the sound (please be patient), that you have got everything right from a technical standpoint, and you only need to get some prospects or customers to be blown away by your demo.

I am not a marketing consultant, so I am not going to explain you how to get prospects or customers to your demo room. Still, if you need it, I can send you some interesting literature dealing with the subject (just ask me in that case).

At this stage, you need to organise your demos. Let’s look at 2

You have to be introducing the system before you start. Describe the system in details, and explain your prospects that this time, it is going to be different. This grabs their interest: they are longing to see and hear something, and your explanation is a teaser.

Further, if you have described the system, they will not spoil the magic with spurious questions.

Then you fire your first track. It has to be grabbing their B----! Don’t start with music. It has to be breathtaking, it has to be action!

The idea is that when the first track is over, they come back to reality and immediately think: 
“this is THE system I want”

To achieve this, you must put together the following ingredients:

• It has to be an action movie
• It has to be in daylight (the scene, not the room!)
• It has to be credible (so, avoid Sci-Fi, Batman, Robots, etc…)
• It has to be loud
• It has to be scary

I can think of two tracks which are a real good fit. One is the ship battle in Master and Commander. The low-frequency sound of the cannons firing has to be perfect though. I have seen it disappointing on so many occurrences that it is to be used only if you are certain that your LF is tuned the right way. BTW, this is my favourite for checking the LF of a system.

Another one is the Marksman in action scene from Saving Private Ryan. When you see the cannon of the tank pointing at …YOU, this is really scary.

Still, in this movie, I would try to avoid "gore" scenes, like on the beach. This can really put your client off.

After the first track, you can explain that they have seen only one aspect of the system capability. Now you must draw their attention on what to observe in what they will see.

I remember Julian Vereker and Ivor Tiefenbrun, respectively from Naim and Linn were very good at that in the 70’s (in demonstrating audio only). They have built their brands mainly on a demo protocol.

The second track should be about dialogue.  It evidences the coherence between the sound and image, and, as you will explain, it depends both on the nature of the screen and on the lip-sync fine tuning.

For this, you should select a dialogue or better, monologue scene. It must be the original version. Definitely discard any dubbed scene. If possible, if available in original version, select a scene in your client’s native language. This is easier in English or in Chinese than in Swahili, of course, but you need your client to understand easily what is being said without subtitles.

By the way, do not demo anything with subtitles: It is very disruptive.

Then, for the third (3^rd) track you should show a train, a plane, a car or any noisy object travelling from one side of the image to the other side. This will demonstrate that you need the sound to be coherent with the image so that it travels following the same path as the noisy object. With solid screens the sound has to go down and then up when it goes from one side of the image to the other one. See:

http://older.screenexcellence.com/technical-concepts/good-bad-reasons.html

Finally, for the fourth 4^th AV track you have the choice between two options, according to you client’s profile if you know it (you should investigate this before if you can).

• If he is a mainly a “videophile”, you should present him a scene with stunning pictures. Documentaries with landscapes are always bringing a nice touch of magic.
• If he is mainly into audio, then a video from a concert is ideal. Be very careful though, about the image quality. Also, do not play “Hotel California” if your client is less than 50!

At this stage, your client has still a potential objection: If this is the system he wants for AV, he still is not so sure about the audio. You have to demonstrate that the system is much better than his Hi-Fi.

This is actually true. Remember, you have already gone through all the audio and acoustic optimisation I have (I will, remember: we are back to the future!) described to you.

Now you have to demonstrate the audio.

Here you don’t have to explain what he will have to pay attention to, as it could become boring and get on your client’s nerves. You have already done that with videos.

Start with a track # 1 containing blues-rock, a clean recording and an interesting voice.

I’d select “Black velvet” from Analah Miles or “Rock’n’roll dream” from AC-DC, for example.

Avoid tracks with too complicated sound effects, like Peter Gabriel for instance (although I quite like listening to it, but I wouldn’t use it for a demo).

Then you can play track #2, which has to be jazz, but a cool one. Use a track with a closed-mike recording of a female voice. Discard any free-jazz or brass band.

Finally, this one must be the last track:

http://www.cduniverse.com/search/xx/music/pid/2463240/a/Grieg%3A+Peer+Gynt+%2F+De+Waart,+Ameling,+San+Francisco+SO.htm

You should play track N 9, “Solveig’s song”. This is an absolute killer: It would sell any decent sound system to (nearly) anybody.

Now your demo is over, it is time to sell.

To recap:

Films scenes:

1. Saving Private Ryan
2. Monologue (I like the owner of the island coming to the fridge and opening champagne in the first Jurassic Park)
3. Train going from one side to the other
4. Video of a rock or blues artist live concert. There’s a nice one with John Lee Hooker, Eric Clapton and the Rolling Stones together, for instance.

Audio only:

1. Black Velvet
2. Close mike recording of a female jazz singer
3. Solveig’s song

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All the best for now!