Crestron iSys panel prices?

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Gee, every DLP uses the same off the shelf chip sets so I guess all projectors must be the same and priced accordingly. Every plasma uses the same ( more or less ) glass so there should be no differences between that fabulous Dell or Gateway and the Fujitsu or Pioneer, right? How many different surround chip sets exist? Two? So why pay so much for that Meridian when the Bose must be as good.


And I am most curious how you got hold of the source code or on what evidence you base your conclusion that the software ( and is it the graphics package or the firmware you are referring? ) is off the shelf? Having spent countless hours with all sorts of proprietary graphics packages from most every other manufacturer there is little doubt that Crestron's, despite its limitations, is so far ahead of everyone else's that it is hardly worth the effort typing this statement. Compared to Photoshop--well there is no comparison. But if you compare it to any other manufacturer's graphics package it comes across rather well with a much less steep learning curve. And of course you can import graphics that you build in your favorite graphics program like Photoshop so you are not forced to rely on VT-Pro if you are so inclined. With respect to firmware, I look foreword to seeing the firmware in your touch panels. Oh, sorry, that option is not available on Charmed Quark. I do love these control systems that rely on home computers. I just love lugging my computer monitor over to my favorite chair so I can change channels on my TV. So convenient. Saves so much time from having to visit the gym. So easy to run the output of my video switcher into that computer ( got to love the latest NVIDIA or Radionics video card ), as well as analog gages, indirect text. Sure, you can use a web tablet. I guess that is why that a selling so fast as control systems. Yes, most consumers have the IT acumen of Mr. Roddey and have so little trouble setting up their computers to do any of these tasks.


Finally, I am a Crestron dealer and I rarely sell the larger, high priced Isys panels. Nonetheless, I believe a touch panel blows away any controller based upon mouse clicks. Be my guest and use a stylus on your PDA or continue to use your mouse on those lovely screens you have developed to run on your computer. Crestron and AMX are developing expensive hardware that is more reliable than and easier to use than any Windows machine and no amount of your testimony that XP is superior to Linux ( Mac ) or a proprietary OS will challenge those of us with field experience that runs contrary to your vested interests. I look foreword to seeing your picture next to the definition in a marketing text for niche market.


Do I agree that these panels are expensive? Yes. Will they come down in price once competing platforms arrive on market? Certainly. So why is it that competitors have been so slow to enter the market and take advantage of these overpriced products? Perhaps because it is far easier to write code then to develop products that work.


Alan

Alan


Dean stays in the dark. Doesn't even venture out to CEDIA to see what control systems are out there. I as well as others strongly suggested to him to see other systems but Dean seems to be better off being in the dark.


Every smart business person should know his/her competition and market. Dean (smart guy- complement) isn't a business guy but a programmer. Hence his very limited knowledge of other systems.


Dean please prove me wrong.



Dave

I guess I touched a nerve... They act like I insulted their mothers or something.


Accuse me of not knowing the compeition, but I've been looking into this area a lot, for our own potential purposes, and I've read a good bit on these iSYS devices. I would be pretty suprised if they have even $500 of hardware cost in these guys at any kind of volume. Yes, they are loading some of their own custom software on it, but the bulk of it is standard Windows OS and other software, on top of which they are building a front end, much like what we are doing.


If you think that the custom software they load on them is worth the other $9K, then knock yourselves out. But don't act like I don't know what it takes to build such a box, because I've spent a lot of time on this subject. I may not be a business genius, but I certainly know what it would take to create a product like this, and unless they are the most innefficient company in all of history I believe that they are making monsterous margins on these things.


Add in that you still have to buy the back end system to put behind it, and it's pretty ridiculous.

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Many if not most of our customers use something like the ViewSonic 110, which is light, powerful, and finger driven.

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That must be why the iSYS devices run on Windows Embedded XP? So I guess you'll be telling your customers not buy them? You accuse me of not knowing what I'm talking about, and take cheap shots at me and my product, but you don't even know what's in these boxes.

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It is a dual platform, combining the features of an Isys with embedded Widows applications. In other words a Crestron OS is embedded with Windows apps. Can you stream uncompressed audio/video to and from your favorite Viewsonic tablet? Can you use your Viewsonic as a White Board? Keep in mind this was built to be a presentation device located at lecterns. It will load the applications for that presentation and control the a/v devices simultaneously and seamlessly via Cresnet. It has dual scalable video windows. Video and RGB signals received via Crestron's proprietary Quickmedia system can be displayed full screen or windowed on the touch panel display. Composite, S-Video, and component video formats including interlaced and progressive scan HDTV, and non-interlaced RGB computer signals with resolutions up to 1600 X 1200 pixels at 60Hz are all supported. Audio from microphones or traditional sources can also be fed via CAT5 cables to or from the panel. In other words not only can it send and receive both audio and video it has a built in scaler. And it works. Nor is it susceptible to viruses or Trojans as is your Viewsonic because it will not allow you to download those files.


I am not a commercial contractor so this is not a product featured in my mix. But having a presentation device that allows a presenter to drop his presentation into the unit via compact flash and launched directly from the panel with the ability to draw over the files in the presentation is not a trivial feature. Nor is the ability to transmit balanced video including VGA, stereo 24 bit audio and mic channels form built in microphone. What is different is that you do not need to launch an application to use the tablet to control your system. No browser required. No executable file needed. Bidirectional information from the control system directly to the panel without needing any other software. Indirect text fields, analog displays whether bar graphs, sliders or display fields are native to the panel.


I suspect you have never had to install a system in a board room. You probably have no idea how much space is found on a lectern nor the intricacies of displaying any laptop on to a projector for the audience to see, nor the seamless integration of presentation with control in one device. Given that white boards, A/V control, Excel and Power point presentations will be given with the requirement to get the amplified ( mic'ed ) audio back into the system for the audience and all of this over 2 CAT5e cables coming out of the very same panel. I doubt your Viewsonic 110 does half of what is outlined above. Or have you integrated Charmed Quark into Windows to the point that you do not need to launch an app to launch the control program.


Alan

You are comparing Apples and Oranges. The Viewsonic is the equiv of the Crestron hand held touch screen, or the small iSYS panel, which doesn't do all those things, for probably the same reasons that the Viewsonic doesn't, becuase they depend on standard wireless connections and battery power.


For the bigger ones, they are not portable, and they are no different from CQC running on something like a Nobu or a Planar integrated computer/touchscreen system, and yes on those platforms, since they use wired networking, they can stream video and audio and all the other things that desktop computers can do now. And Crestron didn't do anything to create a video scaler, that's part of Direct-X and standard video cards, and it's the same scaling that all software video players use. And their acceptance of various video formats is nothing that people aren't doing with their HTPCs with standard video input cards.


The only real difference is that they are using Embedded XP (and, BTW, there is no 'Crestron OS' on this thing, it's just front end software of theirs that talks to their back end), which allows for a very stripped down environment, more so that you can achieve with standard XP. But you can strip down stand XP pretty extremely, and yes when my system boots up it boot up into the interface viewer.

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Yes, there most certainly is an application. You just don't see it being launched, or it is auto-launched on startup of the panel, but that's it. It's clear that they are just running their own client side software, nothing more. They aren't part of the OS, they are just another application. Embedded XP is the OS.


They have just created what is no different from what we can provide, they have just put it together into a nice format that we cannot afford to do at this time (though we can use things like the Planar or Nobus integrated machines.) And they are using Embedded XP (on the larger two boxes, CE.Net on the smaller one AFAIK), which allows them to run a diskless configuration. We will be addressing that before too much longer, in exactly the same way.



I'm not claiming it's a piece of trash. It's a good box, but there's no technology in it that is unique in any way that I can see. It's just a collection of technology that anybody with a reasonable R&D budget could field, well packaged into a slick enclosure. But it's using straight off the shelf technology, and other than the diskless e-XP configuration and pretty enclosure, it's nothing that an HTPC running CQC couldn't deliver at this time. And they are just charging a ridiculous price for what is effectively a slick integration and packaging job.

Alan, Please stop trying to educate this guy. He will only understand what he wants to understand. He doesn't see anything but "Crestron is ripping people off and I am going to put them out of business with my software." He will be a legend in his own living room.






"Some Scientists claim that hydrogen, because it is

so plentiful, is the basic building block of the

universe. I dispute that. I say there is more

stupidity than hydrogen, and that is the basic

building block of the universe." FZ

studiocats, I honestly don't think it's a case of stupidity. Rather, I suspect the ranting is due to the syndrome that affects all of us nerds at times, wherein our passion for a given technology blinds us to the bigger picture.


Sort of like the subject in Billy Joel's "Angry Young Man" :

And there's always a place for the angry young man

With his fist in the air and his head in the sand

He's never been able to learn from mistakes

He can't understand why his heart always breaks

His honor is pure, and his courage as well

he's fair and he's true, and he's boring as hell

And he'll go to his grave as an angry old man.



IMHO, the cure is to teach our left brain to let our right brain drive every once in awhile...

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Even if that were the only difference, slick integration and packaging have value. There's a reason why Adobe gets to charge $600 for Photoshop, even though a determined person can achieve similar results using public domain or shareware utilities.


The home automation marketplace is littered with companies that developed "building blocks", even well-architected ones. It takes a lot of work to make things "slick" and to package things well, and IMHO it's the failure to do that work that's holding back many packages like CQC and even MainLobby (which is slick for the end user, but amazingly clunky for the developer).


Dean, my advice would be to stop obsessing about what people *can* do with CQC, and focus on what they can do *easily*, withOUT a huge time investment up front. I realize I could implement a complete automation system using just NAND gates, but that doesn't mean I *want* to...

I was a Crestron customer before I was a dealer. As an IT guy buying stuff for conference rooms (lots of conference rooms) I was offended at the cost of the stuff - why didn't all this stuff just exist on PC?


As a dealer, I would love a decent, foolproof 6"-9" touch panel that's PC based. Doesn't exist. Nobu? Only 12", was something like $2200. Then I need Cinemar or something like it on top....Where is a fanless 4" PC based touch panel? I'll take linux....there are no vendors...Correction - there is are a couple of vendors taking these off-the-shelf components and turning them into in-wall controls..AMX and Crestron.


Have you tried actually substituting a touch panel from the car video world? First, you can't mount one in a wall cleanly - the bezels don't work right for drywall, there are no back-boxes available. Second where can I get an in-wall mountable PC that can be remotely powered?


The PDA world is equally at a loss. Making a PDA work as a controller is miserable. All of them suck battery life to keep the wifi alive and once it's dead, it takes 2-5 seconds to come alive again. Sort of sucks when you want to fast forward the tivo.


I'm with Alan...you can't just look at this as slick packaging, there is actual engineering out of the same raw materials we're familiar with. There is a reason a Porsche costs more than a Taurus (or even a Corvette) and it's not the cost of the steel. Without working with Crestron, you look and see packaging with little substance. If only they had decent marketing!?! Everyone there is dealing with all the little (and big) issues that come up in a home envirorment. They actually have 8-10 engineers dealing with making WinCE and WiFi work well in an home envirorment. Isn't that problem "done"? Not really, not to the standards of our customers. Without their work, this stuff wouldn't work at all and there are very, very large scale integrated houses running anything else (i.e. Crestron or AMX.)


-Aaron
www.al.net