Digital Home DesignLine Blog | Opinions and Analysis on Access, Networks, and Applications in the Digital Home

July 31, 2009
A real digital home
By Gregory Quirk

I have to be honest. I have never seen a place that takes advantage of available digital home technology. Sure, I've seen demonstrations at conferences and in stores, and I know a few people that have implemented a few aspects, but none that have an extensive amount of the technology that someone was actually living in. That was, until the other day.

After meeting with a company that installs digital home systems they set me up with one of their clients to take a walk through his house. The home owner showed me his set up, which was fairly extensive. This was his third home built from the ground up, and he wanted to make sure that this one would meet his needs both today, and in the future, plus have a higher resell potential down the road.

There were a number of reasons that went into choosing to integrate a digital home concept. First, he was a techie and loved his gadgets, so he wanted his home to reflect his personality. Second, he was planning on an extensive home network, and a digital home interface was seen as an extension of that plan. Finally, it offered greater integration and ease of use for the home.

But the design was not a quick concept. He spent over two years researching different solutions to find one that would work best for his home. And each component and placement was carefully thought out because once it was set up it would not be an easy matter to change.

There were 8 zones set up. This required four Control 4 systems (with ZigBee remotes) with a UPS back up and a HAI integrated alarm with back up. Connected to the system was a Denon A/V receiver, a five disk DVD player, a BluRay player, iPod and a hard drive with music stored. There were surveillance cameras set up around the house, including at the entrances, which could be viewed from any of the TV sets.

Click on image to enlarge.

Speaking of TV sets, each of the nine sets are capable of operating on their own to watch content. The home theater is designed to drop the screen down, start the relevant source and dim the lights when the trailers start at the push of a button. When the system is paused, the lights turn back on so that you are not fumbling around in the dark.

However, when trying to watch content from, say the BluRay player, which is located in the basement, on a TV on the top floor, the user would have to go down, insert the disk, and then go back up. While the convenience of being able to watch any content on any TV is there, getting the content in the first place requires a bit more work.

Sound in most rooms is provided by a pair of in wall speakers, totaling 29 throughout the home. In rooms with TVs this can also simulate surround sound by using the integrated speakers in the TV as well as two speakers on the opposite wall.

There are a number of security precutions as well. I mentioned the alarm, which will call a cell phone if it goes off, but there are also montiors for water and gas leaks, and sensors to detect if there is a fire or if any of the windows are broken into.

When asked about what the owner would do differently he had a few ideas. First, he said that he would make sure that all of the components would integrate together. There are two furnaces in the home to better control the climate of different areas independently, but these are too new to have APIs available yet.

As well, he mentioned that changing any components out in the future will not be a simple task as it will require him to reprogram large sections of the interface as there is so much integration. For example, if he wanted to change the A/V receiver he would have to spend a significant amount of time to have the whole system work again, or he would have to bring someone in to set everything up for him.

All in all I was told that it was definately something that he would do again and something that he suggested to investigate for anyone, especially those looking at building a new home.

Oh, and just in case you were wondering what the actual house looked like

Click on image to enlarge.

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July 15, 2009
Surround sound search begins!
By Gregory Quirk

The search for a home theater surround sound system is now in full swing. I started at a local big box store, given that I have received a number of gift certificates for my graduation. I knew that the quality would not be as good as a specialty store but figured that any surround sound system would be better than no surround sound system, and I may be surprised by the results and save myself some money at the same time.

After talking to the sales clerk, Chris, he recommended two systems. The first was the Bose LifeStyle V20. I had done a bit of research before going in and had not read a lot of positive reviews about the system, although it did sound very good in the store. I may check it out at some point but not today. The second system was a Yamaha HTR-6260 with Energy Micro-RC surround speakers. This is the one that I decided to test out. Two weeks later it was returned to the store. It was a decent system, given the price, but was not a system that met my expectations or made me feel like I had to call up my friends and have them come over so that I could brag about my purchase.

The start of the set up was quite painful, but only because it took me 3 hours to find a flashlight so that I could run the 14 gauge wires through the walls. After the first night I had been able to run the front and center speaker wires but realized that I had run out of wire and had to wait until the next day to get some more to get enough for the surround sound speakers. For the rear speakers my wife was adamant that I not drill holes in the floor so I actually ran the wire up through the vent against the wall and will staple it against the window frame once I finalize on the speakers that I want to be permanently set up. At least that was a one time hassle and is all wired in now!

Just for reference my living room is about 16.5' x 14.75' with one missing wall leading to the kitchen. I have a 47" Samsung LCD TV mounted above the fire place and cabinets on either side of the viewing area for components and DVD storage. The "testing chair" is my recliner positioned directly in front of the TV. I believe that this is a similar set up to what most people have giving me a "real world" test case as opposed to some reviews that I read where they have a dedicated set up for the systems (which I am sure sound amazing but is not a practical representation of what you or I would experience).

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July 08, 2009
LED or LCD?
By Gregory Quirk

The other day I was at BestBuy looking at stereo equipment (not the greatest selection but some decent deals that I wanted to consider) and, as is customary, I started wandering around the store to look at all of the goodies. One thing that caught my attention was the Samsung LED TVs. I've seen them before, and read about them, but never really took the time to look at them closely before. These are the TVs that are 3mm thick, which is pretty amazing. My last TV was a 60" backlight LED that was about a foot deep. At the time it was pretty impressive comapred to the tube TV I had before that. We wanted to wall mount the TV so I ended up getting an LED TV that is about 3 inches deep.

Thinking about LED TVs got me thinking about OLED TVs as well. About a year ago I did a teardown on the Sony OLED TV. This had an 11" screen and was about 3mm thick. But it also had a base that contained all of the devices for controlling the system. With the LED TVs they are 3mm thick, including all of the devices. Maybe if the Sony TV had been larger it would have had mor space to contain these parts, but it did not. OLED is one of the technologies that was touted to be the next revolution in TVs but very little has been done with it in that application (although it has found a home in other systems like MP3 players). And now it seems that LED TVs are taking over the mantel of being the next solution.

Interestingly, prices have started coming down on these sets quickly already and are starting to reah price parity with LED and plasma TVs. For example, I just jumped over to the Samsung site and the Series 8 55" LED TV is $4K while the Series 8 52" LED TV is $3.3K. Not a huge difference given that this is a new technology. Although the LED TV is only 1.9" deep so they are getting thinner and thinner all of the time as well.

So my question to you is "Will LEDs replace plasma and LED TVs in the near future, are they going to co-exist, or is something else going to come in and take over the industry?".
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June 30, 2009
Samsung BDP-3600 BluRay Player
By Gregory Quirk

Ah holidays. Canada Day in Canada obviously. Independence Day in the US. Time to get some friends over and celebrate!

On the up side, we are going to have a house full of people. On the down side, it is supposed to be raining so we can't enjoy the outside.

But that doesn't mean we can't enjoy, so if the rain does come then we will end up watching some movies... some BluRay movies!

As a precursor to my surround sound purchase I did end up buying a BluRay player over the weekend. I picked up the Samsung BDP-3600 from the local FutureShop (it was Canada's version of BestBuy until BestBuy bought them now it is just one company having two stores side by side to get all of the consumer spending).

The player seems pretty nice so far. It is definitely aesthetic with the curved edges and touch buttons on the top to control the movie. The picture quality has been excellent. And I am going to assume that the sound will be good as well in the next few weeks.

But there are a few issues that I am encountering. First, one of the reasons that I went with this player instead of the BDP-1600 was that it came with a Wi-Fi dongle. But the dongle does not work. It can see my wireless network, but after entering in my security code multiple times in both WEP and WEP2 (just to be sure) it refuses to connect to the internet. The player is sitting right below my PS3, which is connected to the same wireless network so I know that the router is working. I've gone to a few forums and it might have something to do with the fact that there is a space in the network name, but to me that seems wrong. Why can all of my other wireless devices connect to my router if there is a space in the name but my newest purchase is not able to?

The other issue that I have is having the player remember where I was at in the movie when I turn it off. My son and I started watching Ratatouille on Monday. He was good for about a half hour before we switched to coloring. The next day when we went to watch a bit more the movie started at the beginning again instead of remembering where I had stopped it. This I find quite annoying and after going through all of the menu options, and even trying to set bookmarks, I can not find a way to have it save where we left off.

Aside from these two points I find the BluRay player quite good and am pleased with my purchase. Once I can resolve these two issues I think I will be quite happy with it!

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