SAB - it's Geoff, not Greg (this has been a bit of a sore spot for me over the years...) [Linked Image from softronix.com]

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).]