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Control 4 or Crestron question about remote programming

I'll separate this into three basic parts: Control4 in general, Control4 with KScape, and my experience with Magnolia.

Control4 in general:
We recently completed the build and moved into our new house. I knew that I wanted to go all-in with whole-home media and home automation with this house. I had extensive pre-wiring done by the builder, however installation of any kind of systems was left to be done after the fact due to incredibly high markup by my builder's low-voltage partner. My background is in IT systems engineering, so I enjoy working on challenges like "build a home media and automation system." I looked very heavily into building my own solution - sourcing speakers, audio/video matrices, sources, A/V control, lighting control, lock and security integration, etc. I found that every open source or DIY commercial solution was lacking in one way or another. So I considered building my own "control plane" to integrate hubs, standalone devices, inputs, outputs, etc.
I put a lot of effort into researching and planning what would be required to pull it off. It got to the point where I realized the amount of time it would take to build and implement such a solution was prohibitive. The alternative is something like Control4, RTI, Savant, Crestron, etc. I hated the idea of being dependent on a dealer to update my system. If I decided I wanted the theater lights at 40% during intermission, rather than 60%, I wanted to be able to make that change myself. If I buy a new XBox for my man cave, I don't want to have to wait for someone to roll a truck to install it - I want to plug in the HDMI cable and start playing!
Control4 is the best possible compromise. They are unique in making available the "home edition" of their programming software. It's the same software that dealers use to program your system, with a few things removed: you can't add or remove devices from the project, and you can't add or remove the physical connections that the system is aware of between devices. There are a few other small things, but that's the majority of the limits. With ComposerHE, I have been able to program my own lighting scenes, create macros to be run when a wall switch is tapped, add custom buttons to the navigators to run my macros, etc. So if you are like me, a technology enthusiast who wants as much access to the system as possible, Control4 is the best by far of any of the commercially available systems.
As far as the hardware goes, it has been rock solid since the system was installed about 4 months ago. It has a very high wife acceptance factor. I am very happy with my decision.

Control4 with Kscape:
Control4 uses "drivers" to define how to control devices throughout the home. There are two drivers available for Kaleidescape in the Control4 ecosystem. One is a free driver provided by Control4 itself. This driver allows you to use the Control4 remote controls as a universal remote with your K-player, and to do basic-to-moderate automation. Dim the lights when you press play, that kind of thing. (I can post a full list of hooks if you care.)
There is a third-party driver, for which there is an additional charge, that really opens up a ton of options. It pulls your full movie list into the Control4 ecosystem, so the same remote/tablet/OSD has a full list of the movies in your K, and you can play directly from them without any fuss. It exposes a ton of additional events you can program off of. So now, my theater works like this:
  • When I walk into the theater I 'double tap' the top of the first light switch in the hallway. This tells Control4 to run a macro that sets all the lights in the theater (4 distinct circuits) to the "seating time" levels.
  • I'll sit down in my chair and use the Control4 app on a tablet to browse the list of movies on my K and pick one. I tap the movie.
  • Control4 turns on my projector, AVR, and Strato. The movie automatically begins playing.
  • The Strato tells Control4 what the aspect ratio of the film it is playing is. Control4 then executes a series of commands to zoom the projector to a preset and mask the screen to meet the movie format. (I have a Scope screen).
  • Control4 listens for a "opening credits" event that the Strato sends, and once it gets it the lights dim to the "take your seats" level. (This usually happens 5-10 seconds into the opening credits)
  • Control4 listens for a "main feature" event and then turns off the lights the rest of the way.
  • My Control4 remote has a button mapped to intermission mode, when I push it Control4 sets the Strato into intermission mode, and slowly ramps up the main theater lights to about 40%.
  • When the movie is over, the Strato sends an "end credits" event to Control4, which then sets the lights (except the lights that are right in front of the screen) to 80% over 120 seconds. (This usually fires about 10-15 seconds after the movie fades to black and the credits start rolling.)
  • When the movie is over-over, the Strato natively exits out to the cover art OSD, and Control4 sees this happens and turns all the lights on to 100%.
It is literally awesome for all that automation to happen totally hands-off. People who come over are amazed the first time they experience it. Control4 + Kaleidescape + The "Chowmein" 3rd-party driver == an awesome theater experience. Heck, I want to go watch a movie right now. :)

Magnolia:
The Magnolia experience has been quite good, though not perfect. I interviewed 2 other dealers before selecting Magnolia. In a nutshell, the people doing the work are incredible. The consultant I work with directly is very helpful, though he often needs to get approval or coordinate with other elements in Magnolia (managers, technicians, etc.) and that is sometimes problematic - I have to stay on top of that or else things fall through the cracks. The pricing was kind of opaque. They charged me exactly what my budget was. Am I happy with the result? Absolutely. Could I have paid less for the exact same amount of kit by going through another dealer? I don't really know. The experience is very much oriented to non-technical people who expect to contract for a service. The service costs a fixed price, and how much of that they spend on materials vs. labor vs. profit is none of your concern.
A good analogy is this: If you go to buy a car you see the sticker and you know the base price, and how much each option is, and you can total it up to get the MSRP. Imagine instead, you walk into the dealership and the salesman says "how much do you want to spend?" You tell him a price, and some basic requirements (4 doors, safe, large cargo space, leather seats) and he says "ah, here's the car for you." On the window is a price tag, not itemized, but just the price. It's exactly what you intended to spend. You test drive the car, it's great, you're happy... but did you get a good deal?
Magnolia did the installation of 17 zones of speakers (mostly in-ceiling, some in-wall or free-standing), 8 video zones, all the Control4 gear, integrated my DirecTV and AppleTV boxes, set up two home theaters, and programmed everything including about 25 light switches, without me lifting a finger. A Control4 system is only as good as the programming, and mine is complex. I'm happy I had experienced and skilled Control4 programmers to set everything up. And the few times that something has gone wonky it's been nice to send an email and not even try to troubleshoot it myself. It's very different for me to go hands-off, but it's refreshing.

Wow... that was probably 1000% more information than you expected. Let me know if there's anything you'd like more detail on.
 
Thank you so much! I find your information to be incredibly helpful, especially since I am aligned with many aspects of your background and your goals for the system. I manage an engineering team and am reasonably technically proficient. I was considering Crestron at one point but didn't like the walled garden approach or the markups (I remember an Ethernet option card for which I recognized the electronic components - and it had maybe $15 of parts and was selling for something like $300).

I didn't realize that there was a Home Edition of the Control4 software. That is a huge plus! I also don't like to be tethered to my dealer for small changes to programming. That alone is enough to swing the decision for me. It's also good to know that you are very happy with the Chowmain driver - we use our Kaleidescape system a lot (and love it).

It's very good to hear that your large Control4 system has been rock solid. I am planning to use Control4 to control the lighting throughout our new home (for which we are just now applying for permits). We are turning our basement into a kind of mini entertainment "complex" with a Home Theater, Dance Club, Arcade, and Lounge - so a lot of lighting to control. On a related note one of my ongoing projects has been figuring out how to contain haze for a proper laser light show without setting off smoke detectors!

I am going to dive deeper into Control4 and figure out a bit more how to optimally take advantage of the system for our new home.

Once again - thanks for taking the time to provide so much helpful information!
 
livitup, thanks for the write-up! There is some good information here.

John
 
Control4 + Kaleidescape + The "Chowmein" 3rd-party driver == an awesome theater experience.
Great write-up, but this is the main thing that stuck out to me. So true. While I'm a bit more of an RTI fanboy than C4, my experience mirrored yours. It's really all up to how good of a programmer you end up with, but with all the cool drivers that can drive a Kaleidescape system plus everything else, seeing everything work in concert is the bee's knees for sure.

People who don't have a control system really are missing out on a huge component of what the K experience is all about. Well, I guess that K is still a portion of the overall experience, but still, I do that think that K is such a vital part of a totally streamlined and seamless system.

Nothing beats simply hitting "Watch Kaleidescape" on the remote, then watching the projector fire up, the screen's LEDs light up, the blinds drop, the curtains close, the lights go to whatever I set them to, and the Kaleidescape cover menu come alive. All in perfect harmony. Then select a movie, and watch the lights go to movie mode, my step lights staying on of course, the sound come to life, and just absolutely melting into a film. A proper "intermission" button is pretty sweet too for sure.
 
I got a NEEO remote. So far its really good for the price, but... lots of irritating quirks. It's like they forgot to do some really basic things related to the software. No IP control of devices, but they released an SDK...
 
Control4 + Kaleidescape + The "Chowmein" 3rd-party driver == an awesome theater experience.

Thank you for the fantastic review. We worked hard to make the best Control4 driver possible. Alot of what we achieved is thanks to the guys at Kaleidescape working with us to make it happen.

As livitup mentions Kaleidescape with the help of Control4 and our driver transforms your theatre into a truly immersive experience like no other. Kaleidescape really shines when integrated properly.

For more information about our driver please see website below.
https://www.chowmainsoft.com/kaleidescape

John from residential systems wrote an excellent indepth review. See it here.
https://www.residentialsystems.com/res-blogs/1192

Kaleidescape-Control4.gif
 
Thank you for the fantastic review. We worked hard to make the best Control4 driver possible. Alot of what we achieved is thanks to the guys at Kaleidescape working with us to make it happen.

As livitup mentions Kaleidescape with the help of Control4 and our driver transforms your theatre into a truly immersive experience like no other. Kaleidescape really shines when integrated properly.

For more information about our driver please see website below.
https://www.chowmainsoft.com/kaleidescape

John from residential systems wrote an excellent indepth review. See it here.
https://www.residentialsystems.com/res-blogs/1192

Kaleidescape-Control4.gif

Alan dumb question maybe, but is control 4 and your driver controlling the K system with IP control?
 
Alan dumb question maybe, but is control 4 and your driver controlling the K system with IP control?

It communicates via IP to both server and client.

Note I am about to go away for two weeks on leave. If you have any additional questions in the mean time please reach out to our support team
 
Honestly, you should try DemoPad at demopad.com.

I had a fully programmed remote system designed in iRule. Now that they are slowly being discontinued I have made the switch to Demopad.

In a weekend I designed an iPad app that can control my Datasat, Sony Proj, Lumagen, multiple KScape devices, Oppo, DirecTV, Roku, AppleTV and lastly my Stewart screen.

Any device that is IP based has built in support. For my Lumagen, I had to have an Global Cache ITach Serial device which is approx 100 at amazon. Outside of that there is a one time charge of approx 30.00 on the apple store for the app. I can update it as many times as I need with the designer software which runs on your pc and is free for all IP based devices.

Anyway just a thought if you want to try to customize something yourself vs having someone design it for you.
 
New follower of this forum, thought I'd chime in:

For the people here- which do you prefer? Control 4 or crestron? All I want to do is control a Samsung TV with built-in apps, an Apple TV, a meridian receiver and a Kaleidescape system with a switch between the Encore and the Premiere.

I have no experience with Control 4. I used to use an AMX system years ago, it was fine, but proprietary control panels (that were clunky) and lack of integration with HDMI switchers and the like (at least at the time) was limiting.

I ended up upgrading to Crestron and like it a lot. But that said, you would either need a good relationship with the programmer, or you could do what I do: Program it yourself (there are some issues here, however, getting the software, DM me if you want the sordid details). I am a software engineer by trade, and Crestron programming is rather different (from a Computer Science perspective), although my wife immediately warmed to the interface (for SIMPL, anyway) from her hardware design days. She even helped me to understand a few of the concepts! :rolleyes:

For simple controls, I think Crestron is probably overkill. But I control a houseload of stuff. Full A/V control in 5 rooms, control of a Lutron lighting control system, control of a security system, control of an HVAC system, power controllers/switchers, etc. The really nice thing is just plain smart integration. For example:

  • With intelligent devices (i.e. Kaleidescape), you can trivially have things light the lights come up slowly at the end of a movie,
  • Hit a movie break button, and the movie pauses and lights are lit so you or guests can find their way to the bathroom,
  • If alarm gets armed in STAY mode (i.e. you're in the house), and all locks on the doors immediately lock themselves. In away mode, most doors lock immediately except exit/entry doors, which lock after 60 seconds in case I forget,
  • Tight lighting integration (i.e. turning on one zone turns on other zones automatically), although some if this is in Lutron's court (my lighting controller). I used to have Crestron do this stuff, and it worked fine too,
  • Smart operation, with a single button, for each room. For example, turn on the Theater room, and the lights dim slowly to off, the drapes close, the projector turns on, your desired source is selected (and the display changes to a source-specific control page). Do the idential operation in the Family room, and a totally different set of steps are done that make sense for the Family Room,
  • I have a NVX system (whole house distributed video), so of course that's fully controlled as well. No matter where you are in the house, you can watch any source device anywhere.

Crestron is nice because a lot of this is in their ecosystem (i.e. I was looking for smart locks for a long time, Crestron came out with a good one and I outfitted my doors with them; DM or NVX Video Distribution; Lighting systems (although I use Lutron instead), etc).

It's also nice to have RS-232 control (or better yet, TCP/IP control if the device supports that) so that touchpanels can have intelligent feedback (progress through movies, etc).

In short, Crestron is sort of the gorilla in the room when it comes to control systems. They do anything and everything, and almost all vendors have modules to interface with Crestron (or you can write your own), but Crestron gear is not cheap. And you either need someone to develop the code for you, which adds expense (although, if you happen to have the skills to do it yourself, then it just becomes a labor of love).

Looking back, I would buy the Crestron again. But I love home automation and smart operation. For a single room (or two), there are a lot cheaper options. Yeah, you don't get the whole house integration, but if you only have a room or two, you don't need that either!
 
I am using Simple Control and AV processor was Marantz AV8805. I changed that to Lyngdorf MP60 and Simple Control is not good with that. As its now IR controlled and not IP there is no two way feedback etc. Will's customer service is yet another thing that I am unhappy with.

Decided to go with C4 and as we speak my solution is getting programmed by a dealer remotely. I found the dealer in this forum.

Cheers

Raj
 
I am using Simple Control and AV processor was Marantz AV8805. I changed that to Lyngdorf MP60 and Simple Control is not good with that. As its now IR controlled and not IP there is no two way feedback etc. Will's customer service is yet another thing that I am unhappy with.

Decided to go with C4 and as we speak my solution is getting programmed by a dealer remotely. I found the dealer in this forum.

Cheers

Raj

I have found that RTI:


is the best of both worlds.


It has the power, programmability, and flexibility of Crestron, and the price equal to, or less than, C4.


Mike
 
Great Choice Raj. Control4 just plain works when its setup the right way. Lots of cools things you can do with the Chowmain driver for Kaleidescape as well.

I am using Simple Control and AV processor was Marantz AV8805. I changed that to Lyngdorf MP60 and Simple Control is not good with that. As its now IR controlled and not IP there is no two way feedback etc. Will's customer service is yet another thing that I am unhappy with.

Decided to go with C4 and as we speak my solution is getting programmed by a dealer remotely. I found the dealer in this forum.

Cheers

Raj
 
What would you like to know. I'm on my second home with Control4 and I'm very happy with it. Feel free to PM me.
 
Jeff, I'd be interested in your thoughts on the NVX system specifically. Are you distributing 4K or HD or a mix? Are the displays 4K or HD or a mix? Any situations where you have devices that want to send HDR but displays that can't accept it? How have you found the quality to be?

Can you tell I'm thinking about some upgrades at my place?
 
One of the really nice things about Crestron (and indeed, one of the reasons I upgraded from AMX), was because they are the gorilla in the room. That means that, from an automation perspective, Crestron has a ton of different partners that work with them to create modules for their components. All this, to me, means that it's easier to interface with products on Crestron - I'm much less likely to need to code something myself for a new component. Kaleidescape, for example, has a kick ass module that works with Crestron and is just fantastic. Kaleidescape, without a doubt, is the smartest device that I have, and thus has a far more extensive control screen on my Crestron system.

@MikeKobb My view on NVX is that it's faster and more stable than the older DM system (which didn't do 4K). I know that DM systems can be upgraded to 4K, but I decided that, since NVX is clearly "the future" for Crestron, it would likely be better to just upgrade to NVX, so that's what I did.

While NVX can upconvert/downconvert, I found it cheaper just to upgrade all my display devices to 4K. That way, I could use much cheaper E-60/D-60 encoder/decoder cards, and everything "just worked". There are a few exceptions to this:

  • My master bedroom has an NVX-351 in decode mode to pull sound from the HDMI signal to drive the in-ceiling speakers (with an amp),
  • My Kaleidescape players each use an NVX-350 (2x Strato, 2x M-500). Each player (Strato for 4K, M-500 for HD/SD) plugs into a separate input on the NVX-350, and the Kaleidescape module has support to drive that directly to select the proper input from the NVX-350 based on the movie that I select.
One thing that was annoying: Occasionally the DM would glitch with an input (generally TiVo Bolt), where I'd need to unplug/replug the device - or reboot if I was too lazy to go downstairs). This never happens with the NVX, it's 100% rock solid with all inputs, 100% of the time.

All of my devices are 4K. But since I don't have up-conversion on the D-60 cards, if I had an input that wasn't 4K, it would just play back at whatever resolution it offered, and the display device would scale accordingly. But this only works if all your display devices can do 4K or less. If that's not the case, then I'd need costlier decoder cards to scale accordingly. Hope that makes sense.

Let me know if you have anymore questions, Mike.
 
Thanks for that. I’ve been contemplating doing what you did — upgrading all my displays to 4K HDR. The sticking point up to now has been my kitchen, where I have a 24” monitor. Looks like Samsung just came out with a 24” PC monitor that accepts 4K HDR signals on an HDMI port, so the only question remaining on that guy is how to control its power, since it doesn’t have a remote control. If it will power back up after having its power removed, I can use a switched outlet, and I’m golden.

I’m glad to hear that it’s as stable as you say it is, and that the Co-Star support in the NVX is working well. Since you’re sending 4K everywhere, my next obvious question is — any visible quality loss with the NVX? My plan would be to still have a dedicated Kaleidescape Co-Star pair in my theater, where I absolutely can’t accept any quality loss, but the rest of the house is more about casual viewing anyway.
 
If worse comes to worse, you could use an NVX-350 card, which will convert to whatever you need, in the kitchen. Then you could use the old (original) display. But when I looked at it, the cost to upgrade my displays (and I kind of wanted 4K anyway) was nominal - TVs are just inexpensive these days, relatively speaking. But a 24" 4K TV would be hard to come by ...

It’s interesting that Kaleidescape calls it “Co-Star” support, but it’s all software. I used to have a physical Co-Star switcher that I was using for the DM, but that isn’t needed in NVX land.

To answer your quality question: NVX is all about bit-for-bit identical video distribution. You will see no difference between hooking a display up directly to the source device or distributing that signal via the NVX - in either case, what you see will be bit-for-bit identical, 100%. That’s the beauty of the NVX system.

When you say “Kaleidescape Co-Star pair”, you don’t mean the hardware Co-Star switcher, right? You just mean that you’ll hook up the two players to either separate encoder cards, or to a NVX-350 card, right?
 
Yes, Co-Star is technically the software feature that enables a Strato system and a Premiere system to cooperate and present a unified library. It was originally implemented using the Co-Star Switch, and then subsequently expanded with a couple of other alternatives for performing the switching between the two players. NVX is one of those. The Lumagen Radiance Pro is another.

Back to the NVX, I thought about using the 350 to allow scaling, but I think the missing piece is still that if the device is an HDR source, the 350 can’t convert from HDR to SDR, so an HD display would still not be able to properly play a scaled-down signal. If I’m wrong about that, I’d love to hear it. But, honestly, when considering an NVX system for distribution, upgrading a couple of displays isn’t a big difference in the cost of the project.
 
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