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Digital Media Me

Last week I attended the Crestron Digital Media Certification – Design course (DMC-D) with 15 others. It was an all day course and the two days after that was the engineering course DMC-E. I would have liked to have stayed for the other two days but could not afford three whole days away from the office. About five others did only the design course.

The day started at 9 am. I received a massive reference guide folder with copies of the PowerPoint presentation and sample system designs plus all the brochures and even a complete glossary. Our instructor was very good, not at all boring or monotone. He made the info interesting and he obviously had great knowledge. Had to laugh about his story of when he went to InfoComm with his Crestron shirt on he was checking out competitors’ stands but they wouldn’t talk to him. The next day he wore a plain shirt, visited the stands again and was able to check out all the products and ask them curly questions.

The first half of the course was background about analog signals and then moving onto digital signals and the differences between analog vs. digital. Then they went through HDCP, HDCP Keys and how to use DM tools when identifying problems with HDCP. They also covered EDID including troubleshooting. In the afternoon, we went over cabling and Crestron Digital Media product range and system designs, also going through some interesting jobs that the instructor had designed for both commercial and home. They were amazing jobs that I could only dream about getting in Brisbane – we don’t have as many opportunities as Sydney and Canberra do, but great to know the capabilities of the Digital Media product and how it can work in with other Crestron products.

The exam was a multiple choice test done on our laptops. Each test brings up a different set of questions so it is no use checking out the person sitting beside you. If you got more than 20% wrong you had the chance to redo the test again. The exam gave you feed back after you answered each questions so you knew if you had answered a question wrong.

So that was a very brief overview of the Crestron DMC-D course. I got heaps out of it and learned a lot; it was also interesting to hear about the latest trends in regards to digital technology and the background to HDCP.  It also helped to motivate me to specify digital options as opposed to analog (the majority of our commercial installs are still analog). It also gave me some ideas to suggest to my existing clients that have Crestron systems to look at upgrading to a digital system.  I like to get to as many training days as possible but unfortunately we don’t get the opportunity very often as they only do them once a year, at least locally anyway. Oh and I forgot the other thing I learned about was RTFM… if you don’t know what it means, I’ll let you know next blog.

Now I am now motivated to get studying the CTS exam guide I recently purchased so I can prepare to do the CTS exam, as if my life is not busy enough as it is…

Oh well. In my next blog, I’ll write about the unique personalities of an A/V tech and looking back to the “years 1995 to 1999 “ and how successful some of those AV people have been.

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