News Archive
Mon 10 July 2006
B&O at Sheraton Park Tower Hotel
Those lucky enough to enjoy the high life and stay at the Sheraton Park Tower Hotel in Knightsbridge London, can now look forward to high quality sound and vision courtesy of Bang & Olufsen. As part of the Starwood Hotel and Resorts, Sheraton Park Tower is the latest hotel to utilise, preferred suppliers Bang & Olufsen audio and visual systems in their premises. A sizeable portion of the Bang & Olufsen range were installed throughout the hotel including rooms, suites and the lobby.
Related article:
Custom Install v. ‘Off-the-shelf’ home entertainment systems
Mon 10 July 2006
‘Industry Tarot’ predicts Media Server PC to Exceed $44 Billion by 2011
As our equivalent to fashion forecasters here is the latest ‘industry tarot’ from New York. A study conducted by ABI Research has concluded that with the growth in digital entertainment content and the maturing of key industry initiatives for media networking, popularity for digital media servers in the home is on the up. Driven by the efforts of Microsoft, Intel and Apple, the PC media server market alone will grow from $3.7 billion in 2006 to $44.8 billion by 2011 as mainstream PCs become fully functional media servers.
ABI Research believes that the digital media server will evolve into four main categories: PCs, set-top boxes, consumer electronics devices such as gaming consoles or PVRs, and Network Attached Storage (NAS) hardware. While in coming years many consumers will centralise much of their content on a Media Center PC.
It's always comforting to see research backing up what everyone feels is common knowledge, I can comfortably plonk my PC in the front room now and contest being labelled a ‘geek’, they’ll all be doing it soon!
Related article: One box to rule all other boxes
Fri 7 July 2006
New Crestron Remote and Software
Coming new from Crestron, the control system heavy weights, is the TPMC 4X touchpanel. Despite the boring name and using the same chassis as the Nevo remote control, Crestron claims that their new baby is the first two-way Wi-Fi control panel on the market. The TPMC 4X touchpanel controls all AV, lighting, HVAC, security and blinds, delivering direct high-speed wireless communication with any Ethernet Crestron control system. The touchpanel also lets you control an audio server or an Apple iPod remotely and will even show you dynamic graphics such as cover art. Browsing your music collection is also made simple with the on-screen virtual keyboard, so find what your’e looking for quickly by entering the artist's name or song title for example.
For DIYers and custom installers Crestron are also launching SystemBuilder 2.0, a software package for easy start-to-finish design, programming, setup, and troubleshooting of all types of control systems that use any type of interface such as keypads, touchpanels, XPanel controls, lighting dimmers, thermostats, and even cameras. SystemBuilder 2.0 is being hyped as a complete graphical environment for control system programmers and designers no matter if you’re a newbie or a veteran. Hopefully, this will open the floodgates to some seriously impressive and long-winded macro programming as well as some hilariously tasteless interfaces and skins.
Read more on remotes: Control Freq!
Thu 6 July 2006
Budget Multi Room AV from Cambridge Audio
Multi-room AV has traditionally been reserved for the exceptionally affluent however as technology has developed: mp3s, wireless etc there have been a whole host of affordable yet highly functional products being released, Sonos springs to mind immediately but Cambridge Audio have now got their own contendor for budget multi-room AV.
Introducing the new Incognito range a multi-room entertainment system which distributes media throughout the home from a compact central hub. The main audio hub has inputs for six source components any four of which can be operated at the same time. Incognito is also the only affordable A-Bus compliant system to give you the option of installing a video hub as well.
Summary of features:
• Cost effective – totally scalable and upgradeable • Compatible with virtually every type of hi-fi source – any make • Up to six pieces of hi-fi or video equipment can be connected • Keypads or active speakers can be connected to Incognito Ready ™ outputs on new Cambridge Audio amplifiers and AV receivers • Features hi-fi grade components for a purer sound • Learning remote control option • Customise each room with independent volume, treble and bass controls
The system is based on a standard CAT-5 infrastructure which carrys audio and visual entertainment to four zones and four sub-zones in a standard package. Incognito also offers an active speaker powered by an integrated digital amplifier. This has a built-in, wide angle, infra red control which removes the need for in-wall keypads, dramatically increasing flexibility and ease of installation.
To see if the incognito is right for you click the image to go to the Incognito configurator which will design a system for you depending on what level of functionality you require.
