The Great Audio Experience

Last year I blogged about the very audible difference between MP3 and uncompressed (WAV) audio file formats, particularly when it comes to good quality home speakers and audio systems. I must say I am extremely humbled to find so many in the artist community that support this idea of great quality audio. Compression really does ruin their work. Artists spend quite a lot of time in the studio working on the sound and ambiance of their creation, and when they do hear their songs played back over a compressed format, it can be downright demoralizing.

And now they're starting to do something about it.

The band 3 Doors Down has joined forces with the Consumer Electronics Association to promote what they call Great Audio Experience. They just launched their website today and it was very interesting to hear from them how they view audio quality.

Check it out by clicking the link below:






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Is it Christmas yet?

Last week we released a new version of DigiLinX Dealer Setup software to our authorized dealers that takes our DigiLinX system to a whole new level. Our NetStreamers have been working very hard and the result is very exciting. The following is an outline of the new products that we introduced recently or began shipping.

Favorites – This is the feature set that we have all been waiting for. Favorites allows dealers to setup ‘one button’ macros for their end-users, so that can launch a host of actions by the selection of onscreen buttons. i.e. An Evening Favorite button tells our Lutron lighting system to set the lights to a predetermined level and it turns on our jazz music. Our HBO Favorite turns on the TV, selects the correct channel, dims the lights, and sets the system to a predetermined volume. Favorites takes DigiLinX to a whole new level and it will only get better from here as our NetStreamers add more customization to Favorites and DigiLinX over time. A very cool feature introduced is that I can make Favorites my home page and even change the name to something else.

Streaming Music Manager (SSM) – This product is a rack-mount or set-top product that plugs into the network, then auto-discovers PCs, MACs, network storage or other devices that touch the network, which contain uncompressed (WAV / PCM) or compressed (MP-3) shared audio files. The SMM then proxies up to six uncompressed streams of music.

My nephew and I just installed my SMM a couple of weeks ago. In my house, I have my music and video stored on a network storage device and this product is exactly what we needed. The most exciting feature for me is that the SMM finds the music on our home network, no matter where it is stored, PCs, MACs, or Linux machines and network storage, and consolidates all of our music so that my family and I don’t have to remember where a particular song or album is stored. We see one list and we can chose our music by Song, Album, Artist, Genre, or Playlist. I am told that, in the near future, we will be able to create playlists, dynamically, by just clicking on songs that we want. I can’t wait.

One final SMM feature I want to tell you about is that when we plugged our iPod into one of the SMM’s USB ports, we were able to auto discover it on the network and extract up to six (6) streams from the iPod, along with its meta-data, so that each family member could listen to their own song from the iPod, at the same time as other users were listening to their song of choice. Very cool indeed.

DoorLinX – This is going to be the world’s first IP-based ‘door intercom’. I am told that this starts shipping this month (Nov-2006), and it can’t come a moment too soon. My wife is tired of the hole by the front door and our visitors having to knock on the door very loudly in order for us to hear them. However, I believe that it will be worth the wait.

Our IP Intercom system is the best intercom system that I have ever heard because it comes out through the room speakers and not a $2.00 speaker on a wall intercom or on a phone. Besides the obvious ding-dong, DoorLinX will give us some additional features. We will be able to select any MP-3 that we want to use as a ringer and tell it what rooms or hallways to ring into. In the future, DoorLinX will be able to play different ringers at different times of the day, or different days of the year. I can’t wait until it can also ring my phone to let me know that the UPS guy is there when we are not home. I could then answer the door and ask him to place the package on the side of the house or in the garage, after I open the door for him remotely.

MediaLinX Pro (MLA4000) – Today to integrate a legacy source product (an audio or video product that does not speak TCP/IP such as CD players, tuners, DVDs, etc…), and have that available for listening on the network with native products (music servers, PC, etc…), a NetStreams dealer must connect that source to the network via a media converter product, which NetStreams calls MediaLinX. Until now, an installer had to purchase one MediaLinX per source. NetStreams will soon bring out a 4-channel version of MediaLinX that will also bring with it some new features that dealers will be able to take advantage of to create more cool and compelling applications. This includes controlling curtains, screens, and more.

Well… that’s it for now folks. Although Christmas is less than two months away still, it sure felt like Christmas this week. You can expect that I will be playing with all of these new options and features this weekend.

In my next blog entry I plan on telling you about wiring for the house of the future – today. This allowed me to build a full IP-based home, ready for all of those wonderful IP products on the way. I am especially excited to see and ready for IPTV (more about this in another future entry).