Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Off Topic OT: Panja -vs- Crestron

any benefactors or detractors?

there are only a couple Panja dealers in boston. everybody and their brother carries Crestron.

my understanding is that Panja solutions are generally more expensive.

Panja the company is having some very bumpy times (layoffs this past week, discontinued a couple product lines).

Crestron dealers who've used or sell both seem to grossly prefer Crestron (but i'm probably only getting half the story).

i've bumped into a lot of happy Crestron owners ("Throw a rock in here and you'll hit one! And do me a favor, Fink, .... throw it HARD!"). i've yet to interact with a Panja owner (happy or otherwise).

anybody here have experience/opinions on Panja stuff? i'm meeting with a dealer in about a week to see the stuff for the first time. but they've got a hard row to hoe to beat out Crestron thus far.

i'm sure there are other good products out there, but from what i can tell AMX/PHAST and Crestron own/owned this market and everybody else is a distant player. i am however open to suggestions, so don't hesitate to offer, heave, lob, or otherwise get 'em to me ;-)

tia,
sab

In this part of the country (Seattle), choice is frequently left up to who the installer is, and what their preferences are.

I have no experience with Crestron, so I really can't comment on them. I am aware that Crestron has quite the following in corporations, which is likely why a lot of installers seem to know a lot about Crestron and work with Crestron (for whatever reason, Crestron has a good chunk of corporate needs, although it looks like Panja is trying to catch up with their new NetLinx product).

I think pricing looks like this: Panja Phast (very popular, trivially easy to program, but not as powerful) is priced similar to Panja AMX. Panja AMX is much more powerful, since it's "procedure" based rather than "macro" based, but takes more programming skill for that very reason. Both Phast and AMX have pretty "fixed" limits on how much the system can grow. Crestron is more expensive than either Phast or AMX, but is less expensive (I suspect) than NetLinx - which takes quite the price jump for the controller but has the expandability market licked (you can expand NetLinx systems pretty much forever; if you wanted, you could have a NetLinx system controlling millions of devices).

Phast and AMX programming is a "test/perform" kind of model, Crestron and NetLinx is more an event-based model. As do most programmers, I prefer event-based models, as it's generally easier to work with, especially for very large programs. Phast systems are limited in RS-232 flexibility. No such limits exist for either AMX or NetLinx.

Panja recently radically reworked their programming facilities. In the past (at least for AMX), it was a DOS-based compiler. Now they have Panja Studio, which is a whole lot nicer to work with (Windows based). Massive improvement. Panja Studio is sort of a one-stop place to do anything and everything (assign device codes, program, debug, setup special settings, etc).

I'd be very interested in hearing comparisons between Crestron and NetLinx, since NetLinx was designed/engineered within the past year or two, and is MUCH nicer. (Just as an aside, the AMX system was pretty much designed back in the 80's.) But since NetLinx is so new, very few dealers have learned it yet. I have yet to find a dealer that carries both Crestron and NetLinx. NetLinx pretty much started shipping late last year, so it's too new for many dealers to have much experience with it.

Panja has some really cool stuff coming up, but I don't think I'm at liberty to really talk about that. But trust me: some of their upcoming stuff is very cool.

I really like that, when Panja designed NetLinx, they had upgradability in mind. Rather than leaving all their AMX customers "stranded", you could buy a NetLinx controller and use all your existing AMX gear. This would be a fairly inexpensive upgrade, but would give you full NetLinx capabilities. I purchased the Meridian 861 for it's upgradability (and quality), and I like that NetLinx was designed the same way.

As a programmer with a hobby in home automation, I've done a BUNCH of stuff with my NetLinx system. It controls 5 rooms of gear, is integrated with whole house lighting, whole house HVAC, and a bunch of other stuff. It's really quite nice, and I have yet to want to do anything that wasn't possible with a NetLinx system. Pretty much, my imagination is the limit. All in all, I'd say I'm thrilled with my NetLinx system, and I think Panja has done a fantastic job of standing behind their product.

So, if you're looking to interact with a Panja owner, I'm one. I'm also more familiar with the NetLinx system than probably most of their dealers are; it's a hobby, and I've spent a good chunk of time working with it.

If anyone is interested, I can provide either AMX or NetLinx code to drive the Meridian 861 or the Meridian 800 via RS-232.

All in all, to try and decide what to buy: First, figure out what will fit your needs. If multiple systems will fit your needs, determine if you'd like to program the unit yourself. If so, then take a long hard look at the programming facilities, and try and pick something that will:

• Be easy for you to work with,
• will give you the power you need to do things now and in the future, and
• gives expandability well beyond what you'd ever expect to need.

Basically, pick something you can grow with, that you like working with, and that gives you the power you want in automation control.

Good luck. As I mentioned before, I was hesitant to purchase an automation system at first due to cost, but after the fact, I'm very happy I did. Quite simply, I consistently do things that others are unable to simply because they don't have the tools they need. My automation system provides the tools I need to, quite honestly, do whatever I'd like.

[This message has been edited by Jeff Coffler (edited 04-18-2001).]

just a quick followup in case anybody was interested in this topic.

it looks like i'm going crestron. i spoke to a few panja dealers (they are hard to come by) and all but one of them are also crestron dealers and clearly prefer to install crestron. none of the panja folks i contacted actually did netlinx stuff - just the lower-end products. netlinx is too new and complicated (for now).

the panja corporate and regional people were helpful in hooking me up, but their products seem to have minimal penetration thus far. in addition, they have recently gone through some corporate turmoil (layoffs, product deletions, etc.). they seem like nice folks, but i couldn't get any real info on their products.

in comparison, crestron shipped me a couple dead trees upon request and if you throw a rock you'll likely hit a crestron dealer.

one man's experience and opinion, fwiw.

sab

Clearly said by someone that spent little to no time looking at NetLinx. As someone that's worked extensively with both systems, I can say that AMX is no more complicated - or less complicated - than NetLinx is.

Device assignment is pretty much identical. You can write and run AMX code pretty much unchanged on NetLinx systems and it'll work. Or you can use newer programming constructs - that's up to you. So you can't really say the programming language is too complex (since you can use identical code).

It's easy to say "it's too complicated" when you haven't looked at it. That, to me, is really saying "I don't have a clue about it because I haven't looked at it or been trained on it".

Clearly, based on what you said, Panja success is regional. In the Seattle region, Definitive and Magnolia (two Hi-Fi outfits, the former carrying higher end stuff like Meridian) both do Panja and don't appear to do Crestron. They will sometimes contract jobs out to other companies, though, and some of those companies will do Crestron.

While I do really like my automation system, it's clear to me that both Crestron and Panja are far too costly. They're basically special purpose computers that do RS-232, I/R, relays, contacts, etc. For that, both manufacturers charge more than the cost of a small PC-based server for their main control units. Looking at PC prices, that's pretty outragous. Perhaps with more competition, or maybe just someone manufacturing some add-in cards and software to (easily) do that stuff on a PC, prices will come down.

There's no question though, that a powerful automation system can make the most complex systems totally trivial to operate.

interesting observation re: regional issue.

maybe panja's sales team in the New England area just isn't very strong.

as best i can tell, the people i talked to all used to be AMX dealers and then switched to crestron and aren't that eager to switch back to panja.

i TRIED to look at it to ascertain, but i literally could not see or touch a unit - and certainly nothing related to NetLinx at all. corporate purportedly has no literature to send out to customers, which is unfortunate if you have a weak dealer network (at least in this region).

i think the installers feel the control systems are too complicated in general, so the idea of learning yet another complicated system is a big barrier for the sales people to overcome.

one of the largest boston area installers says panja bangs on his door regularly, but he doesn't feel their stuff can do much better and faster and cheaper than the crestron stuff.

one of the most prestigious boston area installers carries both but almost always installs crestron.

i'm betting it has a lot to do with already-trained staff, but who knows.

i tell ya - it's a bummer for the consumer out here, who ends up with exactly one choice :-(

sab

SAB - I'm a Crestron owner in the Boston area. Which dealer are you going to be working with? My experience has been that Goodwins High End in Waltham knows what they're doing with Crestron, while Natural Sound in Framingham doesn't.

I bought most of my Crestron gear from Natural Sound and programmed it myself. I'd suggest joining the Crestron group at Yahoo Groups. It's a fairly active list of helpful people, including a few from Crestron and a number of installers.

If you need it, I've written a program that will convert Philips Pronto codes into a Crestron IR driver file. This would be useful for discrete codes for your devices that the Pronto community has found. For a library of Pronto codes, look at the files section at http://www.remotecentral.com.

Have fun,
Geoff

thanks for the heads-up, greg.

i'm in theprocess of choosing a home-theater/automation company to work with (Media Systems in Boston; Audio Video Design, Wellesley; or Multimedia in Wilmington). they'll do the initial programming, but i fully expect to geek out on it after the fact, so thanks for hte pointers!

i've never been to goodwin's high end - one of these days.

natural sound is a nice bunch of guys, but they're really audio folks. i have negative Meridian experiences every time i go in there, which is a bummer.

sab

Just out of curiousity (never having dealt with Crestron, but knowing Panja quite well), how does Crestron work without discrete I/R?

With AMX or NetLinx, I don't care if the unit has discrete I/R or not. Panja delivers IR files for tens of thousands of devices, so the vast majority of the time, they have IR already (and I don't need to record the IR file). NetLinx has contact sensors per I/R port, so you can trivially sense if the device is on or off (via power sense, or via video sync sense on composite output). So, in the end, for a device (pretty much with discrete code or not), I just do something like:

if (<device not on> ) <turn on device>

This way, it works all the time, regardless of anything else.

Just curious: How does Crestron deal with this? Do they also have IR files for the vast majority of the devices, or do you have to record the I/R signals yourself? I presume it's very easy, with Crestron, to determine if a device is on or off? If so, why does it matter if the device has discrete ON/OFF codes or not?

Thanks ...

Jeff,
Crestron does the same thing- delivers many of the most common devices' IR codes.

Anyone needing some help programming their crestron- I have an IR learner and (schedule permitting) would be happy to have codes learned for you (youd need to supply the remote though).

I can tell you that I researched both systems a little before going with Crestron. Since the people I was working with preferred Crestron, thats how I went- I figured I had the support and contacts if I needed help. I've been to many custom installs in my area (East Coast USA) and so far I've not had the chance to play with AMX/Phast things.

- Jerry

SAB - it's Geoff, not Greg (this has been a bit of a sore spot for me over the years...)

I've found that Natural Sound tends to offer the biggest discount, but the lowest level of support out of the other dealers in the area. I've dealt with Goodwins Audio (Boston, now Spearit Sound), Goodwins High End, and Natural Sound. Goodwins High End is by far the most knowledgeable of the group, but their focus tends to be on stuff outside of my budget. Goodwins Audio is very audio focused - they didn't even know who Crestron was as of a year ago. Natural Sound has the best mix of brands for my needs, but they need a bigger building and need to get better on the service side of things, IMO.

Jeff -

Sure, Crestron has a vast library of IR files. However, this library (as I'm sure is the same with PANJA/PHAST/AMX) usually only contains the commands from the remote for the device.

Many devices support additional commands, such as discrete power on and off, selection of video inputs (instead of toggle commands), selection of aspect ratios, etc. Sure, you can use a power sensor or a video sensor to seek out whether a device is on or not.

However, in some cases this doesn't work very well such as with a cable box that doesn't have a switched outlet - often the current draw difference between standby and off is so small that a current sensor won't work. For other discrete commands, there is often no workaround that will work.

With discrete IR commands, you don't need additional logic to keep track of state (which gets broken if the user uses the original remote or uses front panel controls).

With my program, you don't need the Crestron CNXLIR learner hardware (around $900) to learn Pronto commands, nor do you actually need a Pronto (around $300). You just need the text that represents the code from RemoteCentral.

If you haven't taken a look at what's available for discrete commands at RemoteCentral, you're really missing out on lots of potential ways to improve your system. IMO, using current and video sensors as a workaround is fine when discrete commands aren't supported, but is silly when the commands are available.

Geoffrey Reynolds

[This message has been edited by greynolds (edited 05-07-2001).]

[This message has been edited by greynolds (edited 05-07-2001).]

Wow, nice to see so much New England area chatter here. I too am in the "boston" area, but actually live nearer to Nashua these days, in Pepperell, MA.

I haven't yet dealt with Goodwin's High End, guess I was always a little intimidated by their advertisements and product line-up.

My 2nd generation HT gear was purchased at Spearit Sound in Boston: B&K AVP-1030 pre/pro, AV-5000 amp, Sony DVP-S7000 DVD and B&W Matrix 804/HTM speakers. While I still own all that gear, only the B&W's still live in the main HT, i.e. the family room, everything else has been relegated to the bedroom.

My latest setup of Meridian 568, 562V.2, 596 and 558 (but, of course ;-) were all purchased in Nashua at Ensemble A/V.

Back when I lived in Framingham, I used to stop in to the Natural Sound shop, but never like the feeling I got there, just way too cramped for me, so I never purchased anything from them.

Regards,

Dan W.

I probably can't post my current system config on here, or I'd be banished from this forum, as I don't own any Meridian gear . In case you're wondering why I'm here, there's often something of interest even to us non-Meridian types, such as this Crestron/Panja thread.

Geoff