The long awaited Crestron touchpanel app for the iPhone and iTouch is now available on the iTunes App Store. You can find it in the Lifestyle section, called Crestron Mobile.

This new app turns your iPhone or iTouch into a touchpanel capable of controlling your Crestron automation system.

As with all Crestron touchpanel products, this new app is just the container. You will need your touchpanel programmer to develop functionality customized to your system.

Crestron has the full article.

HDMI has been with us for a few years, but as a video connection standard it is only just becoming practical for use in distributed video systems. It has been possible for a while, but the complexity and limitations in HDCP (Hollywood-imposed copy protection) have made it impractical in a home solution.

A video matrix router is a device that allows several different source devices (cable box, satellite receiver, DVD player) to be distributed to one or more displays. We have used matrix routers in the analog world for years to provide the benefits of distributed video, but a practical digital video matrix router has not been available until now.

Crestron has just begun shipping their DigitalMedia solution which is, in essence, a digital video and audio matrix router. They have gone to extreme lengths to abide by HDCP requirements while still providing a practical solution. There are also a number of other challenges involved in sending HDMI over long distances (say, more than 40 feet), but Crestron has solutions to these problems as well.

One method for addressing the distance issue is to use fiber optics. So if you are building a new home, this is a compelling reason to consider installing fiber cable (or conduit for future fiber cable). The Crestron solution will work via category 5 cable, but only up to 100 feet.

The compelling driver behind digital (HDMI) video distribution is access to true 1080p video. Due to Hollywood restrictions, content is not available beyond 1080i via analog means, and the days of 1080i may be numbered. Although they have not done so yet, the content owners have the option of restricting analog output to 480p at any time. The perceived quality improvement of digital 1080p over analog 1080i is probably incremental, but protection from likely future resolution games is something to consider.

The DigitalMedia system is capable of handling 16 displays to 1080p and 16 high-definition sources of any kind. The only major stumbling block in this solution (besides cost) is the usual lousy equipment provided by the cable TV companies. Nearly all the currently available cable boxes that support HDMI are restricted to a single display at a time. The technical explanation is complex, but the box manufacturers have been uninterested in remedying this problem. Fortunately most satellite TV receivers, Blu-ray players, and other devices have more reasonable restrictions (typically 16 displays at a time).

Because we tend to overkill the cabling in our projects, most of our installations to date should be upgradeable to the DigitalMedia solution.

For more information, see the Crestron web site.

Crestron began shipping a new handheld wireless remote control recently which we have ordered in and are evaluating. We like to order "one of everything" when it looks like a new product might fill a current or future need.

The MLX-2 is very similar to the ML-600 which has been around for a while, but it actually packs a lot more capability than the ML-600. Unlike the one-way (transmit only) ML-600, the MLX-2 is a two-way remote which is capable of receiving feedback from the automation system on its LCD screen.

This two-way capability opens up the possibility that the MLX-2 may be useful for more general automation functions which require feedback to be useful. Examples are heating and air control, security, even pool control. A one-way remote is not particularly useful for adjusting the heat and air if you can't see what the current temperature and setpoints are. With the MLX-2, you would be able to get this information on the screen.

That said, the screen on this remote is pretty small and therefore limited. Furthermore, the wireless range is short, so like the ML-600, the MLX-2 is best suited for single room control.

For now, I'm considering the MLX-2 a good candidate for a TV room controller where the user would also like to have some limited automation capabilities. I will know more after I have finished programming and living with this remote for a while.

As promised last time, here are a few things I like about the MacBook.

1) I figured out solutions to some of the annoyances in Parallels. I complained about the VM capturing discs, but disabling the device in Parallels fixed that. And Parallels released an update which reduced battery consumption quite a lot. I still think the MBP uses battery too fast, but not nearly as bad as before. I also mapped some keys to improve usability in the PC environment, but still can't figure out how to deal with the missing INSERT key (which is an important shortcut in QuickBooks).

2) The MBP is much lighter and comes out of sleep mode nearly instantly. It does not use a lot of battery in sleep mode, so it rarely falls back to hibernate. This is very nice. The fact that it will fall back to hibernate if it runs out of batter while sleeping is also nice. Because it is ready to use so quickly, I find myself getting the MBP out more often to do a quick task than I ever did my PC laptop.

3) I'm learning to like the track pad. I have always used the nub, but the MBP track pad is not too bad. With gestures, it is downright useful. One complaint I have is that the scroll gesture is not consistent across apps. Some are too fast, some too slow.

4) Mail is way more efficient than Outlook. The IMAP implementation is very good and there are none of the horrible Outlook faults like freezes waiting for a server (which often lock up the entire PC). Address Book and iCal work fine too. Tasks in Mail/iCal are a little different, but seem to work fine.

5) Mac features like Expose and Spaces are very useful.

6) IPSecuritas (free VPN client for the Mac) works better than most commercial PC VPN clients.

7) I can easily take a snapshot of my VM so when something inevitably goes horribly wrong in the XP environment, I lose very little.

8) Having the "lifestyle" apps like iTunes and iPhoto handy is nice.

On balance, I'm liking the MBP better overall. There is still some nervousness that I will run into problems in the VM environment that I won't be able to solve, but so far that hasn't happened.

My productivity is probably up a bit due to the much quicker access to email, but suffers some due to the lack of screen resolution. I find that when using symbolic developer tools, small text becomes illegible before I can shrink the workspace enough to see all I want to see. Maybe I should have waited on the 17"...

I have been using my new MacBook pro for a couple weeks. I bought it as a replacement for a 2 1/2 year old Dell Precision M65. My intent is to migrate to Mac apps for email, calendar, and the like (NOT a fan of MS Outlook), but there are a number of PC only apps I need to continue using. To that end I bought Parallels 4.0.

I have used Macs at home ever since there were Macs, so I'm not coming cold to the Mac. So I knew what I was getting into with the mail, calendar, address book, etc. I prefer an integrated app for these functions like Outlook, but Outlook is such a pig I can hardly stand to use it. Outlook is unbelievably slow and its IMAP implementation is (intentionally?) buggy.

So it's not hard to prefer the Mac suite of bundled apps. The problem is going to be in how to take things mobile. I have a Windows Mobile 5 phone which syncs (usually) with Outlook, but it has problems of its own. It's sort of ridiculous to have to connect a phone/PDA to a PC for syncing these days anyhow. My biggest gripe is the Windows Mobile browser is absolute garbage. The second biggest gripe is I don't like Verizon.

The Missing Sync seems to be the only solution if I want to continue using the WM5 phone, but it's not cheap for something I'll probably throw away when I get rid of the WM5 device. So should I get an iPhone, or try a blackberry or Symbian device? If I leave Verizon, there is a big cancellation fee. Hmmm...

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