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...