You might remember the conversation that took #AVtweep LinkedIn by storm last month, all stemming from an Aug. 10 marketing email from Aurora Multimedia.

Social Media Recap: Aurora Calls Out Crestron in Recent Marketing Email

This week, Crestron responded by issuing a cease-and-desist order. Aurora then sent out the following second marketing email Sept. 13:

It continues to read,

“Items Crestron did not take issue with the VPX Series:

1. Both companies support 4K60 4:4:4, Security, Scaling, Fast Switching, & Videowall.
2. Crestron does not support Image Rotation, Remote HD Preview at 30 Frames, EPG, PiP, Front OLED, & 4K60 4:4:4 Wall Plate.

Aurora did forget to add to the chart Dual Independent USB 2.0

1. One is for up to a 1080p30 Camera at 200Mbps from Decoder to Encoder
2. The other is for 170Mbps for Mass storage, peripherals, and HID.
3. HID mode will allow for roaming mouse and hot keys in KVM applications

I know this may come as a shock, but Crestron has been making false and misleading accusations about Aurora for years. We usually just make fun of it and move on. These are some of our very entertaining “Cutting Through” videos which were in response to many of these nonsensical claims. My personal favorite is the EMI Test (“Will it Blend” themed), but the one that stands out is the “VLX Setup vs Crestron’s Claim.”

Aurora continues to strive to support the A/V industry and provide solutions to the problems we hear from end users, consultants and integrators. We take that ground floor approach, as we want to solve problems, not make them. Aurora’s intent of the email newsletter was to call out a solution to a known problem in the industry and to show the differences in our product vs Crestron’s to assist when making a decision to make a change.

We strongly believe in partnerships, not just with our dealers but everyone. At the end of the day, if the project prevails everyone wins. Thank you all for your continued support and Aurora will continue to make state of the art products and enlighten you.”

On Wednesday morning, rAVe received the following response from Crestron EVP Global Marketing Brad Hintze:

“Aurora Multimedia issued a rather staged email today; we’d like to clarify. Crestron sent Aurora a trademark infringement and misleading statements cease and desist request. Though we appreciate Aurora’s flair for the dramatic, we must continually police and defend the use of our trademarks or we risk losing them. This kind of action is quite typical for businesses with valuable trademarks. There were a lot of paths Aurora could have chosen to address this matter, including responding professionally as an industry peer. Instead, Aurora chose to send a widespread inflammatory email, so this is how we got here. As noted in our town halls, dealers looking to integrate competitive products, including Aurora, into their Crestron systems can use Crestron Design Services. Crestron’s main priority is serving our customers at a time when they need us most, and that is where we will continue to focus our efforts.”

Hintze also joined rAVe [TV] Wednesday afternoon to address the cease-and-desist order.

“When you have a valuable brand, you have to protect it, or you risk losing it, and that’s really all it is,” he said. “It’s nothing more than that.”

Hintze also mentioned in terms of supply chain updates that Crestron is including estimated lead times for each product purchased, and they are all different depending upon the product(s) purchased. The full interview is below: