Volume 13, Issue 7 — April 15, 2016
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Control & Signal Processing Projection Cables, Furniture, Mounts, Racks, Screens and Accessories
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Works With Technology, Not Just Nest
By Kris Gamble A tough couple of weeks for the affordable smart home! I’ve finally managed to grab a few days off work during the school holidays after a whirlwind start to 2016 and during this time off I’ve caught up with industry news.
The headline grabber has been Nest with the speculation surrounding its lack of new product developments and the switch off of Revolv services. Revolv never made it to the shores of the UK, despite its memorable crowdfunding campaign. Many professional technology installers and homeowners waited for this multi-lingual trojan horse to arrive here, but U.S. centric focus and the shock Nest acquisition dashed any plans for widespread affordable home automation. Nest are the smart home pin-ups in the UK with widespread advertising, adoption by energy providers, a strong Nest Pro network and availability in department stores.
It’s unusual for the UK press to report on home technology but Nest has peaked their interest. Consumers are a wary bunch when it comes to home tech and talk of impatience with Nest from Google will plant small seeds of doubt. If they dig deeper they will read of slow development with Works with Nest, Thread and Weave, many won’t dig any deeper but two-plus-two may equal five for some.
For the new entrant to smart home installation, Nest has been a great gateway product range with smart thermostats, smoke detectors and security cameras being an easy sell for a tech savvy electrician or AV technician. News speculation surrounding Nest may have less impact on professional installers but it will provide a moment for product review.
Nest have always played nice with the leading automation platforms including Control4, Savant and Fibaro, among others, and herein lies the greater opportunity for the recent entrant to smart home. In many cases you can retain the Nest products for heating control and home monitoring, but now add integration with other home technology services such as lighting management, intruder detection, audio distribution and motorised curtains/blinds on a single home automation platform.
Use the skills gained through Nest installations, from the sales process through to the customer handover and aftercare. Use the access to integration as the spring board for your installation business to evolve. Use any homeowner facing technology press to highlight your professional installation skills and services.
DIY is an aging pastime in the UK, we’re now in the Do It For Me era. However, it is quickly changing into the Do It For Me and Look After It For Me era. Homeowners will use your support services as a big part of their decision making process when choosing their service provider. How to support them is a good point to start another blog….
Keep track of home technology installations worldwide by following @LiveInstall and #LiveInstall on Twitter and catch up with my own business activities with @Customised. Leave a Comment
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Succession Planning: It Isn’t Just For Royalty
By Lee Distad rAVe Columnist
Some business topics get all the headlines, and get written and rewritten over and over. Yet others receive very little attention, even though they can be as important, or even more important than the hot topics of the day.
Succession planning is kind of managerial task that company owners and general managers roll their eyes at, shuffle off to the side, and ignore to go work on something more urgent or exciting.
Yet it’s critical. There’s always a need, metaphorically speaking, to have someone warming up in the bullpen to relieve your star player. If you don’t it can be catastrophic.
A perfect example of a worst case scenario recently happened to one of my customers. Over many years, as the company grew larger and more prosperous, the job roles of one of the senior members of the management team had evolved to take on more and more responsibility for the operations, logistics and inventory control of all the divisions of the company.
Being a driven, Type-A personality, as such managers often are, he worked tirelessly. He was on top of it all. And being driven and focused, he never subordinated or delegated any of his regular tasks to anyone else. He was, in a word, indispensable. Which is why it was such a shock when he passed away suddenly last year.
In addition to their grief over his passing, it dawned on the rest of the team that none of them knew how to do his job.
Believe it or not, none of the administrative and support staff had ever been tasked with logistics and inventory management.
The other co-general manager’s duties were entirely focused on the front-end customer-facing side of the business, and he had to face the ugly fact that he knew literally nothing about the back end systems his peer had built over the years. And the company owner, who over the years had delegated more and more authority and responsibility to his two trusted managers had his own “OH CRAP!” moment when he realized he knew nothing about how to run his company any more.
As tragic and alarming as all this was, the reason I got involved is because they reached out to me and said, “None of us know how to place orders with you!” So I spent time coaching the management team and their office admin staff on how the interface between the two companies works.
I’m happy to say that my customer emerged from these trials stronger and wiser. As a result of their experience, they decentralized much of their management. The newly promoted operations general manager and the front end general manager have both delegated more of their day-to-day duties to office staff who have learned the system.
In the same way that they train up and develop store-level staff to become store managers, finally at head office, they’ve put training and processes in place so that office support staff understand the systems, and are able to do the operational parts of a manager’s job, and in the process identify future office managers for promotion. Now, with cross-training and delegation, no one person is indispensable.
In the same way that you design redundancy and serviceability into your AV systems, so too should you plan for training and development of your personnel, so that your people are able to fill in any sudden gaps in your organizational chart.
Do that, and you won’t be in for a big surprise.
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Comprehensive Intros 3×1 and 5×1 4K HDMI SwitchersComprehensive Connectivity has launched a new series of HDMI Switchers that are all specified at HDCP 2.2 (4K@60 4:2:0). The CSW-HD301K and CSW-HD501K allow for three or five sources, respectively, to be switched to one HDMI-capable display.
Comprehensive’s CSW-HD301K and CSW-HD501K are designed to support HDMI 2.0, HDCP 2.2, 3D, 12-bit Deep Color as well as High Definition Lossless Audio. In addition, the HDMI Switchers scale HD video signals to UHD 4K@60Hz (chroma sampling rate is 4:2:0) and audio signals up to Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD Master Audio with the ability of receiving and transmitting up to 10.2Gbps of bandwidth with no claimed data loss. They are HDCP compliant for compatibility with HDCP protected devices.
Here are all the tech specs. Leave a Comment
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AtlasIED Ships New DPA Series DSP Power AmplifiersThe new AtlasIED Series DPA series of amplifiers are network-ready DSP power amplifiers designed for both 70/100V and 8/4 ohm systems. Available in three models: the 600-watts DPA602, the 1200-watt DPA1202 and the 2400-watt DPA2402, all three incorporate on-board DSP and the graphical user interface (GUI) is embedded into the amplifier. You can configure and operate the amplifier using any standard web browser and does not require a standalone application.
To expand even further on the flexibility of the DPA Series, an expansion slot enables two card options. The DPA-DAC4 card provides four Dante digital audio inputs. The DPA-AMIX card provides 4 more analog input channels. Both increase the inputs from four to eight channels.
Features:
- Configurable for use as two-channel 70.7V amplifier
- Configurable for use as four-channel 4Ω amplifier
- Configurable for use as single channel 70.7V and two-channel 4Ω amplifier
- Networkable with on-board GUI
- Configurable DSP via GUI
- Site manager software with network auto-discovery fault reporting, input and output status, standby
- Status and remote activation via a scheduler timer
- User page with assignable input and output level control
- Mute assignments triggered via audio signal or contact closure
- Audio sense turn-on/off
- Four balanced inputs
- Optional accessory card slot for four-channel Dante receiver card or two mic / line, two aux input card
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Kramer Adds 4K UHD Active Fiber Optic High-Speed HDMI Cable with Removable ConnectorsKramer’s CLS-AOCH cables are plug-and-play HDMI active optical cables. CLS-AOCH cables support resolutions of up to 4K UHD over long cable runs (up to 100 meters) without the need for an external power supply or additional extenders. CLS-AOCH/XL is unique with its removable HDMI-A ends that allows the cable to be easily pulled through small conduits
Features include:
- Video resolution — 1080p full HD, Deep Color 48-bit, 3D, 4K @30Hz (4:4:4), 4K @60Hz (4:2:0).
- Embedded audio — PCM 8-channel, Dolby Digital True HD, DTS-HD Master Audio
- HDMI compliance — HDCP, EDID, CEC
- Construction — four optical fibers and six copper wires
- No external power — Powers the active units via the HDMI connector, consumes only 0.25W (50mA @5V)
- Very thin construction — 3.4-mm (0.13″) diameter
- Small bending ratio — Only 6-mm (0.24″)
- Pull strength — 500N (50kg)
- Available length: 10, 15, 20, 30, 40 and 50 meters
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URC Introduces HomeSet RemoteURC introduces HomeSet, a streamlined system optimized for the home security solutions channel. This is a completely new system build from the ground up by URC — new technology, new hardware, new software. It utilizes cloud-based programming and maintenance, and offers cloud compatibility with other cloud-based systems. HomeSet integrates with Z-Wave devices, Nest, SONOS and hundreds of other popular devices, and can control up to eight rooms. The included HomeSet app is unique and allows rapid launching of up to eight embedded apps including full compatibility with control apps from every major security and alarm panel manufacturer.
Pricing at the time of introduction is $299 (MSRP) for the C100 HomeSet Automation Hub and smartphone app. The R100 HomeSet Remote Control is available for $299 (MSRP) and is the perfect accessory for the bedroom and TV room. HomeSet is not a DIY product; it is simple to install but still requires professional installation.
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New QIP Series of Dedicated Dual-Program IPTV Encoders With H.264 for OriginationContemporary Research has announced three QIP Dual Program IPTV Encoders to its HD video origination product line. The new QIP IPTV Encoders offer the same features as the QMOD series of RF Modulators-IPTV Encoders but add IPTV integration.
The QIP-SDI HDMI, QIP-SDI 2, and the QIP-HDMI 2 have dual encoders that process two MPEG2 or H.264 video streams, each supported by a hardware scaler that can accept and format virtually all video between 1080p and 480i in NTSC, VGA and PAL standards. Audio can be embedded, or fed separately to digital SPDIF or analog stereo inputs. Two NTSC inputs support composite video or video with closed captioning data. The new QIPs are fully convergent and able to output two independent single-program IPTV streams.
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Optoma Launches Ultra-Light, Short Throw Projector Aimed at Both Business and HomeOptoma has introduced an ultra-portable ML750ST short throw WXGA (1280×800) one-chip DLP projector with LED lighting — aiming it for both home and commercial use — but it’s limited to 700 lumens. It’s priced at $550.
Weighing in at under one pound, the ML750ST offers all of the same features as its miniscule ML750 predecessor — plus short throw capabilities projecting a 100-inch diagonal image from only 68 inches away. The 3D-compatible ML750ST has the ability to display 3D content from any MHL-enabled mobile phone or tablet, as well as HDMI input to connect to laptops, PCs, games consoles or Blu-ray players. Microsoft Office, PDF, photo, video, audio and other files can also be accessed directly from built-in memory, a microSD card slot or USB connection. In addition, wireless connectivity can be leveraged via a WUSB Wi-Fi adapter, available for purchase separately.
Specs of the ML750ST include:
- Resolution: WXGA (1280 x 800)
- Brightness: 700 lumens
- Contract Ratio: 20,000:1
- Display Colors: 16.7 Million
- Throw Ratio: 0.8:1
- Projection Distance: 16″ – 135″
- Image Size: 25″ – 200″
- Audio: Built-in 1.5W speaker
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SANUS Launches New Swivel Mount Designed for Enhanced Curved TV ViewingSANUS is launching a swivel mount designed for 4K Ultra HD curved TVs 40″-88″ up to 150 lbs.
Curved TV viewers are drawn towards the center of the TV and if the viewer shifts to the left or the right of the sweet-spot they lose color accuracy and the overall picture quality is reduced. Why limit your curved TV viewing experience by only viewing from one seat your room? The importance of adjustability is key to providing the best viewing experience possible.
The new SANUS VLC1 swivel mount was engineered with 10 degrees of swivel left and right, increasing the ideal viewing range by 20 degrees compared to a curved TV left on its stand. The swivel functionality allows adjustability to reduce glare from lights and windows, which become more exaggerated on a curved TV compared to a flat-screen.
By mounting a curved TV with the swivel functionality of the VLC1 the viewer can get the fully immersive viewing experience from more than just one seat in the room. It also features easy installation and adjustability:
- One full inch of height and level adjustment, allows perfect TV adjustment after installation
- Wide range of swivel offers easy access to jack pack on the back of the TV to connect all components and switch them out without hassle
The VLC1 is available now and lists for $179.99. More information is here. Leave a Comment
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For all you REGULAR readers of rAVe HomeAV Edition out there, hopefully you enjoyed another opinion-packed issue!
For those of you NEW to rAVe, you just read how we are — we are 100% opinionated. We not only report the news and new product stories of the high-end HomeAV industry, but we stuff the articles full of our opinions. That may include (but is not limited to) whether or not the product is even worth looking at, challenging the manufacturers on their specifications, calling a marketing-spec bluff and suggesting ways integrators market their products better. But, one thing is for sure, we are NOT a trade publication that gets paid for running editorial or product stories. Traditional trade publications get paid to run product stories — that’s why you see what you see in most of the pubs out there. We are different: we run what we want to run and NO ONE is going to pay us to write anything good (or bad).
Don’t like us, then go away — unsubscribe! Just use the link below.
To send me feedback, don’t reply to this newsletter – instead, write directly to me at gary@ravepubs.com or for editorial ideas: Editor-in-Chief Sara Abrons at sara@ravepubs.com
A little about me: I graduated from Journalism School at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (where I am adjunct faculty). I’ve been in the AV-industry since 1987 where I started with Extron and eventually moved to AMX. So, I guess I am an industry veteran (although I don’t think I am that old). I have been an opinionated columnist for a number of industry publications and in the late 1990s I started the widely read KNews eNewsletter (the first in the AV market) and also created the model for and was co-founder of AV Avenue – which is now known as InfoComm IQ. rAVe Publications has been around since 2003, when we launched our original newsletter, rAVe ProAV Edition.
rAVe HomeAV Edition, co-published with CEDIA, launched in February, 2004.
To read more about my background, our team, and what we do, go to https://www.ravepubs.com Back to Top |
Copyright 2016 – rAVe [Publications] – All rights reserved. For reprint policies, contact rAVe [Publications], 210 Old Barn Ln. – Chapel Hill, NC 27517 – 919/969-7501. Email: sara@ravepubs.com
rAVe HomeAV Edition contains the opinions of the author only and does not necessarily reflect the opinions of other persons or companies or its sponsors. |
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