Black Sharpies!

You know you're a CI when...


...you find black Sharpies all over the house.  I promise you, this is not an exaggeration, and I haven't even gone digging around to find more yet.  This is just what I saw when getting ready for work this morning.

Right now there are black Sharpies:

• (1) under bathroom sink
• (1) on wife's nightstand
• (2) on my nightstand
• (4) in cup on dresser in bedroom
• (3) in cup on computer desk
• (4) on dresser next to computer desk

...and I probably have NONE in my van since I carry them all inside when I get home.  Time to go buy more!

Firmware that breaks stuff? Sweet! Where do I sign up?

Ohh RTI...  QC problems?  Ehh, OK.  I can deal with that.  Chalk it up to a new manufacturing process, or new plant, or RoHS lead-free solder; whatever.  Products that take longer to come to market than planned?  Yeah, again, whatever.  Vaporware is fine by me.  I'm not even going to tell a customer about something that isn't at least in stock at my local disty.  Firmware updates that break things?  That ain't cool.  (Is this a foreshadowing of C4 in my future?? :)  )



Recently RTI released version 2.1 firmware for all two-way enabled devices.  Cool!  Through the power of the interwebs, I already knew that the 2.1 XP-8 firmware makes the power sense ports not respond to anything.  Luckily.  Also, in preparing for our Open House I was trying to get an MX-980 to issue Litetouch RS232 commands by sending IR triggers to the XP-8 to execute macros.  I'm not too well versed in URC, but I have used the IR macro triggers to do some funky things before and they always worked perfectly.  Couldn't get them to work at all.  Is this another thing that 2.1 breaks?  Who knows!  Had RTI come out and at least told us that these things were bugs in the 2.1 firmware then I wouldn't have wasted 2 hours trying to get it to work.


Here was my problem.  I have a house with three Zigbee T2-C's and an XP-8.  It was my first job with multiple Zigbee remotes and multiple ZM24 antennas.  Had a TON of problems getting it set up; apparently us RTI dealers are unwitting beta testers.  I'm cool with beta testing as long as I know that's what I'm doing.  I went back out to this house and while I was there I figured I would update the remotes to 2.1 since they supposedly cleared up some Zigbee wake-up issues.  I knew I couldn't update the XP-8 because I'm using a power sense event to trigger whole house audio to come on.  Had I not known this (thanks to Remote Central) I would've loaded 2.1 into the XP-8 and probably wouldn't have tested that power sense event.  Why would I?


So I load 2.1 into the three remotes.  Goes fine.  I made a few minor changes to the programming, so I had to update the XP-8.  No go.  I get an error that the Weather driver is an old version and the XP-8 can't be updated.  Huh?  OK, well maybe I can just update the Weather driver to 1.1.  No go.  It already shows 1.1.  OK, well I can't update to 2.1... so what do I do?  I call RTI.  I had read that they had an unreleased 2.2 firmware for the XP-8.  I call and beg for it.  He tells me that yes they have one, but he's not sure he can give it to me.  He confirms that it fixes the power sense issue and mentions something about system macros, but I didn't quite catch it.  I'm assuming it's the IR macro triggers I couldn't get to work at the shop.  Well he agrees to send it to me.  Cool.  After a few hours of going back and forth with misspelled email addresses and messages stuck in spam limbo, I finally get it.  Upload it and all is well.


Or is it?  My Home Page with weather info at the bottom now has no image and the text all reads %SYS%% and a bunch of other garbled stuff.  Great.  Check the programming and now all my existing weather page variables are linked to long garbled strings of characters instead of what they are supposed to be (like Forecast 1 - Day).  No way I'm rebuilding all those pages, so I open up a version of the system file from before I got to the house that day.  Check the weather variables and they all have the same garbled info.  So I add a couple new weather pages from the page wizard... and they all have the garbled variables, too!  How in the world is that possible?  I just did a T3-V and T4 at the shop with the page wizard's weather pages and they all worked fine right out of the "box", just like they should.


I go back to my current system file and have to remove every single weather variable and re-add it.  What a pain in the a$$.  Update the remotes and they work fine.  WTF?


Obviously RTI knew about the problems because they already had a 2.2 firmware completed.  Why couldn't they at LEAST post a note on the dealer side of their web site telling us that the firmware caused a couple problems, tell us what those problems are, and tell us they're working on it and will have a fix out ASAP??  I understand not having 2.2 available on their website yet as they were probably still testing it, but why leave us in the dark like that?


On top of this crap, I was adding two IR sensors, an IR hub, and one emitter to this system.  I should have been out of this house in 90 minutes.  I had already gone over all the customer's questions, made the programming updates, and at 90 minutes in I was finished hooking up the IR sensors.  Well, after a bad IR hub and these firmware problems, I was there for over 5 hours.  My whole day was shot.  


Fun times. 

Grand Opening

Phew...  After weeks of scrambling preparations, our Grand Opening was last night.  Other than the weather SUCKING and traffic being really bad for no reason (one person who usually has a 20 minute ride took an hour and 45 minutes) it turned out great!  We had about 75 people show up, did guided tours of each room, had great food and drinks, door prizes, a cartoonist doing caricatures (on a paper with our logo and information at the bottom... sneaky...) and just a good time for all.  Now our 'builders' can see the custom stuff they never knew we did and the 'custom builders' got to see the sheer volume of work we can handle.  Nice.

So why was it stressful getting set up for this?  Here's why... I had about 2 weeks to revamp what all the equipment in each room could do.  Didn't have to hang TVs or install speakers or anything like that, but I redid the entire control system and made every source, including 3 cameras, available everywhere.  To summarize, here is what was installed when I started here back in Feb.  This was simply a design that wasn't planned out in a single vision; it was let's add this here, let's add that there, etc.  No one was in a position to step back and see what could be done.  It's not that there wasn't anyone who could pull it off, there was just no time to do it and I just don't think anyone saw how close they were to the potential that was there.


It was:
Room A
You could view one DirecTV receiver or Escient Fireball via composite video

Room B
You could view one DirecTV receiver, Bose Lifestyle, Blu-Ray, (all component video, thank god) and do some good/better/best speaker demos.  MX-980 for control.

Room C
Four-screen video wall; only displayed one DirecTV receiver full screen and played audio through 1 pair of ceiling speakers

Room D (theater)
You could view Blu-Ray, PS3, Wii, and one DirecTV receiver.  MX-810 for control.

Main racks - MRF-350 tied to everything.  MSC-400 installed in a nice RSH shelf, but wasn't hooked to anything LOL!  :)

Here's what I changed.  I have to give most of the credit to the bosses who OK'ed spending the money on the stuff I suggested.

Main Racks
Left MRF-350, pulled MSC-400 out.
Added RTI XP-8 and Zektor Clarity Elite 8x8 component video and audio matrix.  If you haven't heard of them, I HIGHLY suggest checking them out.  This piece of gear is unbelievable for what it is.  The control is incredible, performance is transparent and fast, and it does things you wouldn't even think of.  (analog/digital and digital/analog conversion, three composite/s-video to component transcoded inputs in addition to the 8 component inputs, input gain control, audio delay control, timed volume fade commands, follow-me zone control [pay attention - this one sounds confusing...  you're playing a source in one room and are about to go into the next room but want to shut the first room down.  One command fades the volume out in room 1, puts that source into room 2 and fades the volume up to the exact level where you had it.  That is ONE COMMAND.... INSIDE THE MATRIX, not in the control system!  One serial string!]) 
Much thanks to Jeff Haynes from Zektor for getting us this unit in perfect time to get it installed for our show!
http://www.zektor.com

Room A
View 4 DirecTV receivers and Escient Fireball.  Control from MX-810 (the one that used to be in the theater)

Room B
View one DirecTV receiver, Blu-Ray, and Bose Lifestyle.  Didn't change much in here since there was already so much to do with the speaker demos and all... Control still from MX-980.  Adding sources is just a programming change away...

Room C
View 4 DirecTV receivers, Blu-Ray, Escient Fireball, and 3 security cameras on any or all screens of the video wall, all independent of each other.  Ceiling speakers and new wireless headphones (two different audio zones) can play audio from any screen or video wall.  Plus that audio zone will follow if you change sources.  So the ceiling speakers aren't just playing DirecTV 3, they're playing DirecTV 3 but a tracking the Bottom Left screen.  Change the source on the Bottom Left screen and they follow suit.  Same goes for wireless headphones.  Doesn't sound like much but it took some thinking to figure out how to do it with only set flag/clear flag/test flag commands available to me.  Control is now via T4 (with 2-way feedback through Wi-Fi).  T4 is also programmed to control the theater.

Room D (theater)
In addition to the PS3 and Wii, you can now view all 4 DirecTV receivers, 3 security cameras, and control the Litetouch system in that room.  Control is now a T3-V.


All in all a fun night. Only 2 or 3 minor technical glitches and everyone seemed to walk away impressed.  That's all you can ask for, right?  Oh, and my friend won a $25 Outback giftcard as a door prize.  :)

Genuine fungus, now only $2.29!

Love it.  Korean markets are MUCH more interesting than the local Giant.

I love the DACs in my Blu-Ray player

I tell you what.  I've got an older Harman/Kardon AVR which I always thought had a nice sounding amplifier section.  I knew it wasn't top of the line, but I would call it above average.  I got a Pioneer Blu-Ray (the highest non-Elite model).  In reading the specs, they seemed to be touting how great the Wolfson DACs were.  Well, my H/K doesn't have HDMI inputs anyway, so I decided to connect it all analog to the 8 Channel input.

At first I didn't know if it was the high-res audio formats on Blu-Ray discs that was making the difference, but my little* BIC Venturi front speakers sounded bigger and put out a much more wide-open sound than I had ever heard out of them.  It was the type of difference that I only thought an amplifier upgrade would provide.  Unreal. After watching a few standard DVDs, I realized it was the player itself creating this great audio.

I can't imagine that the H/K's DACs are "bad," but it opened my eyes to how much of a difference the processing makes. 

* by "little," I'm talking about price.  I've got 2 big ol' 6.5" bookshelves that get down to about 50 Hz and a center with dual 6.5"s that supposedly gets down to 38 Hz. 

Google is your..... friend?

A post at Lifehacker got me thinking. What would people see if they searched my screen name on Google?

Well I did it, and since I use the same screen name on every forum, you can see EVERYTHING I've ever posted. Not that it's rocket science, but this never occurred to me. So if a customer knows who I am on RC, they can also see anything I've put on Livestrong, Intuit, DirecTV, AVS, Personal Finance Forums, etc.

I don't post anything I wouldn't want anyone to see, but it kinda creeps me out that a customer could, without me knowing, see not only what I may have done that day, but also personal financial stuff I may have asked for advice about, whether I posted about a workout I may have skipped, or if I'm having trouble with my Quicken software. Nothing I wouldn't talk about in a general conversation, but to have someone able to see it without asking... I don't like it...

May be time for a screen name change at RC...

Thoughts?

C4... it's da bomb...

So I just did the required prerequisite online classes for Control4. They require that you go through them (about 3 hours!) before you can do their in-person 3 day training which is required to become a dealer. There was a thread on IP asking "who else thinks Control4 has it figured out?" Well, add me to that list. Not only can you do things that I've never been able to offer anyone with equipment from URC, RTI, Harmony (ewww...), Elan, Homelogic, etc. but you can do it all at a fraction of the cost.

As I understand it, C4 is on about the third revision of [some of] their hardware. Some of the features they've included are obviously based on real world situations and installer feedback. I think that's a very good thing. Some manufacturers just don't get it.

As far as the interface goes - it is what it is. When you design a C4 system, you design a C4 system. Until a few months ago I was not a fan of the interface at all; mainly because I had too much of an ego about how good of an interface I can design for a customer. Well in all reality I'm sure I'm not as good and I think I am and it still takes me a long time to put a custom interface together. 99% of the time I'm only tweaking the interface because I want to, not because the customer needs it or even wants it. With C4 I can hand the system over, say "this is how it works...", and be done. Hell, they even have a user's manual for the entire system that lays out the basics for them. I would have to sit down and finalize a "template" interface that would work for every job before I could even begin to write my own user's manual that I could hand to every customer. C4 already has it done... why do I need to reinvent the wheel?

Let me explain my position on this. I'm not talking about being lazy. I would LOVE LOVE LOVE to be doing huge, elaborate jobs and writing my own code for Crestron/AMX systems. I love a challenge and get far more satisfaction out of figuring out some weird custom problem than I do from setting up yet another home theater system. "Yeah. Wow. Surround sound. Pretty cool. Anyway, do you want me to figure out how to adjust the temperature in the theater dependant on how many people are in the room, what genre of movie you're watching, what time of day it is, if someone is cooking in the kitchen, and if it's somebody's birthday??" Yeah, I'm a total tweaker. I get sidetracked trying to figure out how to do things that don't matter in the first place. I would love to work on big commercial jobs where they have truly custom requirements.

However, I don't work in that market. My customers don't need that. They also don't need the expense that would incur. They don't need the hardware required to do that stuff. They can figure out how to use the DirecTV menu and don't ask me to "improve" that [but if they did I would suggest TiVo :) ]. If they can learn that interface, they can learn the C4 interface that is already built and documented. It costs my time, my customers' money, my company's bottom line.

We're not 100% sure if we're moving forward with becoming a dealer yet, strictly because of the minimum opening order. Either way, we'll keep doing RTI for the truly "custom" jobs. RTI has by far the best programming environment in my opinion. It's just the hardware costs that are a killer. Take a look at this hardware comparison that I just made up and hope is accurate. :)

RTI ZRP-5 (replacement for the soon to be discontinued RP-1)
MSRP $299 -- requires an antenna module, either 433 or Zigbee, at $149 MSRP
Effective MSRP $450
Features:

• Best RF in the business - stores commands on processor instead of on the handheld control
  
• 5 IR emitter ports with adjustable gain for each, non-addressable
• 1 high output IR connection (for IR connecting block)
  
• 1 Power sense input

Control4 HC-200
MSRP without handheld remote (for comparison) -- $399
Features:

• Zigbee RF server built in
• 4 IR emitter ports, 2 can be used for RS232 with $20 adapter
  
• Ethernet port for system control, internet connection, IP control of devices (which saves IR/RS232 ports)
  
• Astronomical timeclock
• Analog audio output (variable or fixed) for playback of digital, networked audio
• USB port for hard drive to store mp3s and photos
• Analog audio input to digitize external source and play through analog outs or stream through network to other controllers
• Video outputs (SD and HD) for system OSD, photos, IP cameras, etc.
• Remotely programmable through internet

Come on, is this even a fair fight? :)

Bad emitter?

Anyone ever have an emitter just go bad out of nowhere? I've had them bad out of the box before, but not a month after install.

Got a guy with a simple IR repeater in a pool room (pool meaning swimming pool, not pool table, not that it has any bearing on this in any way...) where the equipment is in the mechanical room. Everything works except the receiver. He can control it from the universal remote we installed. (LOL it's called the Dolphin... waterproof learning remote........) He can walk back and control everything standing in front of it and can control the DirecTV box perfectly from the other room. Emitter is still stuck on firmly, sounds like it's still in the right spot and wasn't moved, no wires are loose or disconnected from the connecting block. So I have to drive an hour to swap a friggin' IR emitter.

...and I've got $5 that says it's from SnapAV... :)

What's coming up for me

So my company prides/prided itself on how they weren't "married" to any one line of products (other than GE Security). Personally, I think that's a big mistake in the AV & control categories. They have a couple Russound systems out there, a few Elan, even two ZON systems (eww!). They started using RTI then migrated to URC, now they want to go back to RTI. So when a job comes up and I have to design it, which direction do I go? Makes the design take twice as long.

Now I've gotten them on board with some new manufacturers and vendors, like Marantz, Sherbourn, Velodyne, Sim2, Zektor, Audio Authority, NeoPro, and probably some others I'm forgetting. They were always CRAVE dealers, which I had never been before, and now we're joining a low-voltage buying group and we have to watch our numbers and make sure we meet all our minimums and all that good stuff. So... looks like suddenly I need to become familiar with Denon CI, Panamax, Escient, and have to push 99% of our speaker sales to Klipsch (although I believe we can purchase Jamo and Mirage through them as well). And I'm keeping with RTI for the time being.

So speakers, amps, projectors, video switching, control, music servers - those are covered. What are the two big gaping holes in that list?

1 - Whole House Audio
2 - Whole House Control

I was an Elan dealer for about 5 years. I've been through HomeLogic training twice, and even won a full demo "kiosk" from them. I've known our rep and the regional manager for years; he even sent me to Tech Week for free. So, does the company want to push Elan? Hmm. We might. [that would be a solid "Maybe"] OK. So they pay to send me to the latest HL certification class. Do they want to push HL? Hmm. We might.

Alllllrighty then. Well. Umm. Now what? For now I'm still spec'ing Elan into jobs because that's what I'm familiar with. Actually, right now I'm using Elan multi-zone controllers and RTI controls, but that's beside the point.

So it turns out the new buying group includes Control4. Well, here we go. Looks like this might be the only way I get them to actually commit to a whole house audio/control system. So now I'm waiting on a price sheet. I really wanted to go with HomeLogic, but the more I look into C4 the more interesting I find it.

With HL, there is NO entry level interface. You either get a 7" or 8.4" in-wall, or an 8.4" wireless touch panel. Other options are the PC and iPod interface. The PC interface is absolutely identical to what you get on the touchpanels. The iPod interface is super-slick and super-fast. Very cool. But no handheld control. You would have to use an RTI/URC handheld and control the actual subsystem through it. So you would have, say, a T2-C and a processor to interface with your AV system, lighting controller, and maybe HVAC. Then the HL "brick" would also have to be tied into the AV system and the lighting system and the HVAC system. You don't actually control the HL system from a 3rd party controller. (Admittedly there is a way to map IR triggers into the HL system, but it's kinda clunky. I've never actually done it, so maybe it's not as bad as it seemed in training) Seems way redundant to me.

I have yet to see a recent C4 price sheet, but as I understand it, for the price of an entry level remote & processor you get at least the possibility of a small automated system with an on-TV graphical interface. I have customers that will like that. Fixed user interface? Meh. Not my cup of tea, BUT... one less thing I have to worry about. I'd prefer to hone my wiring and trim-out skills instead of trying to get the entire job done plus design a UI. Don't get me wrong, on paper I would rather do custom everything for everyone. But, not every job warrants it. Half the customers probably wouldn't know if it was custom or not anyway. I'd rather get more systems in at a lower entry price and build up from there. We don't have Crestron/AMX level customers and we don't do Crestron/AMX level integration, so while it is a goal of mine to get on board with one of the two, it would be pointless right now. I'll take my lumps with a "lesser" system (according to the ridiculous thread over at RC right now) and keep on learning, keep on having satisfied customers, keep on getting paid, keep on enjoying my job.

This pic is a little better...

Finally, a pic. And a crappy one at that.

Finally got a "teaser" pic of the rack on this job. WAY uninteresting, but hey, it's all I've got. :)

The second rack finally came in, so I'm putting a bunch of Fios boxes and an APC H15 in there for now. It'll probably end up with some networking gear as well.

Took this pic with my fancy new Palm Treo Pro. 2 megapixel cam, and the emailed pic I received was 23K. Hmm. Gotta figure that one out.

Anyhoo, ignore the white RG6 hanging out by itself. It's the temporary feed going into the H15, then back out the the RF distribution I mounted (above the pic) to one of the shipping plates from the rack.

And now for something completely different

TOTALLY unrelated. Had a long, but good week. I've got a few Miller Chills in me [which taste like watered down Corona with lime] and have been listening to music at full blast through headphones (minus the "sound check" feature in iTunes that brings the volume down a bit, so I won't be TOTALLY deaf tomorrow) for the past 2 hours.

By far my favorite local band. Great guys, different music... I just love it.

I used to hit up 2-3 local shows EVERY week without fail. No kidding. I'd go by myself, I'd stand around by myself all night at shows where nobody was in the crowd, introduce myself the band, whatever. These guys, Compression, I ended up seeing a LOT of and used to help them set up and take down drums at the shows, go see them play in their rented "mansion"'s attic where it was 110 degrees.... the good old days. LOVE IT!

compression "tyranna"

Red tape...

I need a beer. Still don't have ANY OF THE VIDEO DISTRIBUTION PARTS I NEED that we ordered on Monday. Found out 3 days after the fact the the distributor only has 2 of the 15 parts I need (and they are 2 Receive baluns... they're gonna do a lot by themselves...) and another part isn't in their system and will take at least 10 business days just to add it, and THEN they'll ship it from a backorder status. What??

So I call the manufacturer (Audio Authority - my contact so far has been great). They have everything I need sitting right there in their building, they sell for the same price as the distributor. Awesome! Just need to have the higher-ups sign a "dealer agreement" which is just our info, not even credit terms or anything, and they'll ship next day with a credit card payment. OK!

That was yesterday morning. Guess what STILL isn't ordered yet? All they needed was a signature and a credit card number and I would've been installing it RIGHT NOW.

Did I mention the customer moved in to the house today?!

Argh.

Oh, and all the Fios boxes lost their IP addresses right before I left, as I was setting up 4 of the TVs so they would have them for the night.

Argh.

Workin' in the basement

Been slammed trying to finish this large [for us] job. No brain power left at the end of the day. I will definitely be posting pics as it's my first "real" rack job. I'm not counting the first couple that weren't designed by me (or anyone else for that matter) and everything was just slammed into place and turned on. No no, no more of that nonsense. Here's what we've got. If the design sounds funky it's because it is. We went through 10 revisions of our proposal and each one pulled more stuff out. I had to dumb down the functionality but refused to step down in quality. So here it is.

First Floor:
Marantz SR5003

• Main Zone feeding a 52" Sony XBR and two cabinet style Sonance S623C speakers
  
• Zone 2 feeds Sherbourn TST 200-4 amp in basement rack which feeds 7 pairs of Sonance S623R's... through in-wall volume controls... ugh... :)
  

Sources are AM/FM/XM from the AVR, Escient FP-1 iPod dock/server, HD Fios box



Basement:
Marantz SR5003

• Main Zone feeding a 60" Pioneer Elite and two speakers TBD
  
• SR5003 Zone 2 feeds a 2nd Sherbourn TST 200-4 in basement rack which feeds 5 pairs of Sonance 623R speakers (and more volume controls...)
  

Sources are AM/FM/XM from the AVR, Escient FP-1 iPod dock/server, HD Fios box, and this guy from Game Cabinets, Inc.




We didn't provide it, but it's pretty cool. It's essentially a Windows XP machine with a 15" touchscreen control and 8" display monitor. We had him order the model without the amp since we already had amplifiers figured in for the house. I'm setting it up on an auto sensing line level switch with the Zone 2 outputs from the basement AVR. I tied it in right at the amp, so whether or not Zone 2 is playing it will override the line level out from the AVR and pass the audio on to the amplifier. Then the amp will sense the audio and will power on. Just like that. Hit play on the touchscreen and the basement speakers will play - no intervention with a remote or in-wall control to figure out (which is lucky, because we don't have one down there!)

The line level audio switcher outputs 12v which I'm feeding into our XP-8. The XP-8 will sense the audio trigger, then I can either have it do nothing or I can cause it to send its own 12v trigger to another line level audio switcher that responds to 12v. He wanted the jukebox to come on in the basement automatically but also wanted the option of playing it upstairs. So I can give him a button on the remote that sends a 12v trigger to the switcher and overrides the first floor audio, OR I could just program a Sense Event macro that automatically trips the first floor at the same time as the basement if he decides he wants it to go that way instead. I like having the flexibility to go either way.

Theater
Marantz AV8003 Preamp
Sherbourn 7/110 Amplifier
Velodyne SC-1250 Amplifier
Velodyne SC-15 (x2)
Sonance Cinema Ultra II LCR (x3)
Sonance Cinema Ultra II SUR (x4)
(and a LOT of 12/2 speaker wire - with the passive subs that is 9 speaker runs there)
Sim2 D80E Projector
Ethereal HDMI-CAT5 baluns (x2, AVR to projector, local Blu-Ray to AVR)
Blu-Ray player TBD; we had a Marantz BD8002 in there at one point, but it was pulled out. I think he may end up with a Panny DMP-80 or whatever that model number is.

Adds:
So all of our mini-coax distributed video wiring got pulled out a looong time ago. Now he wants to centralize 8 of his 10 Fios boxes. Luckily, ok luck had nothing to do with it, we have a quad (2 Cat5 + 2 RG-6) at every TV location and throughout the house; 23 in all. And he didn't want a matrix switch - we tried to explain the benefits but it ended up sounding more complicated than it is. He had ordered the 10 Fios boxes before I was done figuring out how I could sell him on a matrix. So now I get to put this together:

Another ERK-4425-AV rack
OCAP-3 shelves (x8)
Proficient IR Plasma sensors (x12)
Xantech 795-20 4 zone IR hub
Xantech 796-20 6 zone IR hub
Audio Authority DuoDrive component Send baluns (x4)
Audio Authority 9880(?) receive baluns (x8)
Audio Authority AVP-11 send & receive balun kit (x3)
(That's 4 boxes split to 8 TVs and 3 boxes straight to 3 TVs. The 8th box in the rack will be plugged directly into the Theater AVR sitting next to it)

That's a LOT of jumpers in there. Not to mention the Cat5's from the rooms land in a structured wiring can that is probably 10' away from the rack. So I'll be pulling around 25 Cat5 jumpers from the can to the rack, then I have to plug in 5 RCA component video and audio AND power for the baluns. Should be fun.
I decided not to do custom AV cables in the "cable box rack" because it would be too time consuming. I figured since I essentially have 8 of the same thing repeated over and over, I'll just use a bunch of pre-made 1m 5RCA jumpers from Ethereal. I think we ordered 18. Geez.


And I'm done...
I'm excited to get this theater finished. Carpet isn't in yet, and I just found out I have to drop the projector another 6" to clear a bulkhead that was added. I'd say we're a Mid-Fi house, but I think we're pushing our way up a bit with this job.

Sorry for the boring post! I'm tired and am a bad writer on a good day. I promise some pics to come!

Will work for AV gear . . .

[yesterday]
Worked from 4-8pm on adding some equipment to an existing system. Have to return one night this week to finish - not all the cables and power cords were moved with the equipment.

Payment? A new-in-box Pioneer BDP-51FD blu-ray player! I'll take it!

Last night I hooked it up to my old H/K receiver that doesn't have HDMI - wanted to use the DACs in the Pioneer anyway - via the 6 channel analog outputs. Futzed with the speaker settings between the AVR and the Blu-ray for a while, but didn't have a BD to test it with. SD picture looked worse than my xbox 360 when I tried 28 Days Later and Flight of the Conchords for some reason, but looked stunning when I put Lord of the Rings III in. Wow. Plus I could already tell the audio quality was better through this player.

[today]
Picked up The Dark Knight on BD this morning. Finally got to hear uncompressed Dolby TrueHD audio through the Pioneer's "high quality Wolfson DACs with 117db s/n ratio" yadda yadda yadda.
Incredible. It sounded like I had upgraded my amp. I can only imagine if I DO upgrade my amp and if I get some better speakers.

Also ripped out the OEM speakers in the rear deck of my car, "Motorjoy" brand that looks like the driver is made out of a Dunkin Donuts napkin and has a tweeter that I swear is brown construction paper. My personal truck is on its last leg and has been sitting unused for weeks, so I took out my good-old Cerwin Vega 6" door speakers and put them in the car. What an improvement! But of course now the OEM head unit doesn't drive them properly, they don't match the crappy front speakers that are still installed, I need a 4 channel amp and only have a 2 channel, etc. So I think I just started a new spending spree. :)

Anyhoo, here's my stuff. Complete with Spongebob "Imaginaaation" lunchbox, stuffed bat, sushi bandaids, and 12" Gumbi & Pokey.

First day with RTI 2-way equipment

Finally... Got back to the office at 3 p.m. and we had already received the XP-8, ZM24, and T2-CZ that we just ordered yesterday afternoon. Sweet!

I've got an upcoming system with a total of 3 Marantz receivers, 2 Escient FP-1 iPod docks, as well as some Sherbourn amps, a Sim2 and a Velodyne SC-1250. It sounds kinda funky, but one receiver is for the theater, one is for the 1st floor Family Room and in-ceiling speakers, and one is for the basement Family Room and in-ceiling speakers. So I'm using feedback from all 3 Marantz FM and XM tuners and the two Fireballs. Today I set up the AV8003, one of the SR5003s, the FP-1 (but didn't have an iPod with me), the Sim2, and all the RTI gear. Here are my first impressions:

Volume "pop up" feedback was a little slower than I wanted. I may have some timing issues I need to figure out, but considering pressing the Volume button first sets a flag on the XP-8, the XP-8 sends a command to the remote to make the Volume Pop-up buttons visible, then go back to the XP-8 which has to request send the volume command to the receiver, which then has to send out volume status rs232 feedback, which the XP-8 has to interpret, then has to send to the T2-C, which has to display the new info... I should probably just be happy with whatever I can get. I'll probably tweak it a little and see what I can get.

The FM tuner feedback is quick! Change a preset on the front of the receiver and the T2-C screen updates almost instantly. Very cool. I don't have an XM antenna setup to test that feedback, but I hope it's just as quick. Getting more info than the station number will be very impressive. [I know you've been able to do it with other control systems for a long time, but this is the first time I've gotten to do it on a handheld, ok? :) ]

As I said, I didn't have an iPod to test the FP-1 with, but I went ahead and set it up on the network and got it up and running. The "Artist, Genre, " etc. headers weren't visible for a split second when you go to that page on the remote, so I'm assuming that the headers themselves were feedback. If so, it was fast. IP feedback from an FP-1 to a T4 via WiFi was painfully slow, so I was surprised. Tomorrow I'll see how it is with an 8 gig iPod Touch.

Before I knew it, it was 5:30 and I wasn't hanging around anymore. But I had control of 2 receivers, 1 iPod dock, and the Sim2, so I was happy. Now it's just a matter of finishing the programming (now that I know the feedback and "drivers" work - I was worried about the AV8003 not working with the SR series driver, even though Marantz has kept their protocols the same for years...)

By the way, I found 2 funky things with ID 7.0. First off, I put a "toggle button" that was linked to the Multi-room A Power status and had a power toggle command on it. If the Multi-room was off when you navigate to that page, the button would not appear. Once it appeared it issued the command and tracked the power status perfectly. Secondly, somehow all my page links, which were all built inside System Macros, got shifted down by 1. So I had to go back through all my macros and change all the links. I definitely didn't do anything to cause that; in fact I don't think there's any way I could have done that. I'll be posting that over at RC in the "7.0 bugs" thread here in a sec.


Have fun, kids!

Second post? More old pics!

These aren't as old as the others. Just finished this job a couple weeks ago. Really cool building. You can see it here. (I'm in slide 15...)

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These pics don't do it justice. That projector is mounted to a floating beam that is about 15 feet off the ground. We also had to put a 125 lb. motorized screen on an identical beam on the other side of the room. We had 3 ladders and 5 guys for that one. Turned out great, though!

Nice little "pod" of JBL Control NOW speakers. Nice and funky looking in this modernized historical building.

We wanted to hang this TV on an articulating mount on the brick wall, but the 150+ year old brick wasn't having it. I was told it was like drilling into butter. We ended up hanging it from the poured concrete ceiling, which took about 4 trips to Home Depot and almost 2 days altogether to get it done.

First post? How about some old pics!

Journaling. I keep reading about how great it is for you. It's stress relief. It's a few minutes each day to clear your mind. Over at The Art of Manliness they even dedicated one of their "30 Days to a Better Man" segments to it. So, what the hey! Here we go...

I really need to invest in a small point-and-click camera. I'd like to start taking tons of jobsite pictures, but I only have the camera(s) in my cell phone(s). 1.3 megapixel? I don't care how many pixels it has when they all look like they're coated in vaseline. These pics are from a little Kodak that now kills batteries faster than you can snap a pic. Anyhoo, here are some old wiring pics.

View from the back of the house.

Doesn't look like much, but that is 22 green "Quad" cables. They are about 3/4" thick and are really stiff. It's like trying to dress up 22 garden hoses full of water. Yes, the bundle coming down from the top has to pass right by the structured wiring can, down into the crawlspace, and back up into the can from the bottom.



Getting these wires straight took two of us about 45 minutes. You can't tell from the pic, but they're following a cathedral ceiling joist. I had to stand on top of a ladder with the whole bundle on my shoulder while we both tried to untangle them so they would be straight. It's hard to say how much that bundle weighed, but it had to be 50+ pounds. All that and it just got covered up by drywall. Sad...