Managed home gateways in No. America and W.Europe will rise from 16.2 million in 2007 to an estimated 34 million in 2009, says the Home Gateway Initiative (HGI).

“The home gateway is not simply a router, but a service enabler,” explains Milan Erbes, ambassador for the HGI and Business Development and Standardization Manager for DS2. “The HGI focuses on the home gateway itself, but encompasses also the Home Network Infrastructure Devices as well, providing guidelines on remote access, parental control in the home, performance metrics, quality of service (QoS) and security.”

Kurt Scherf, VP at Parks Associates, adds: “The deployment of home gateways is accelerating hand-in-hand with the rollout of triple play services.”  

HGI intends to address support for the SOHO environment, energy saving, extended QoS, diagnostics, Home Network Infrastructure Devices support, the Home Gateway and Network Termination two-boxes approach for Next-Gen Networks, Home Gateway resilience, IPv6 and the evolution of  support to IPTV and IMS.

The HGI was founded and launched by nine telecom operators (Belgacom, BT, Deutsche Telekom, France Telecom, KPN, TeliaSonera, NTT, Telefonica and Telecom Italia) in 2004, and now has members from five continents. 

Go HGI

by Marco Adriaans
Marketing & Communications, PROJECTA BV

Why would a business that invests a small fortune in beamers and laptops (and on people who spend days to create a PowerPoint or video presentation) then project their images onto a surface that would blur and distort viewing?

The answer is that, today, almost every corporate on the FT 500 list owns multiple screens, while many SMEs are still learning…and may (out of ignorance or because they think they are saving money) be trapped in that space known as “Screen-less.”

The “Screen-less” don’t know, don’t recognize that any chain is only as good as its weakest link and-- in an AV chain--a blank wall used as a projection surface easily qualifies as the weakest link. A wall is simply not intended for projection.

Installers of screens must still spend time trying to educate the SME business customers to the fact that a good screen improves communication and enhances presentations. Maybe today, we should call the screen a “high definition fabric display.”

If SMEs weren’t enough of an educational challenge, now comes along a new version of an old problem: the emerging home theater market. Here’s where installers have to ask their customers in Socratic fashion, “Why would you compile a fantastic film collection, buy an expensive high def DVD player-- only to break the chain of quality by adding a dumb wall where a quality fabric component should be?”

More and more people only discover how much more pleasant it is to watch something on a large screen when they visit a sports bar, pub or auditorium where the result of a completed quality chain is so apparent. Exposure to professional solutions is a driving force in the home market where the consumer can inspire to emulate (to his own budget limitation) the video quality that impresses him/her the most.

(In this same manner, (i.e., by exposure to quality systems in pro AV environments), more and more SMEs now also understand that a top-notch presentation calls for a top quality chain of projection components including a screen at least equal to the weakest component.)

The projection screen is an indispensable component of any presentation or Home Cinema set-up, just as important as the source media, player and beamer. A quick look at a screen might be deceptive but the factors that go into a good screen are numerous. The quality of the fabric (which is not a single quality but a multiplicity of qualities to achieve the right formula to build into the screen fabric the many characteristics it needs to display an image), the quality of the black border (which should be there to add to the perceived clarity), the control mechanism (to raise and lower the screen whether manually of electronically), the ease and durability of a mounting mechanism, and even the way to transport the screen to the installer and to the installer’s customers (without tearing or degrading of the screen).

In the home, an image must be projected so several people can see it all at the same time. Each situation is unique and for the best possible projection quality (clarity of the image), the customers need to understand that light output of the projector, size of the projection screen and the reflection value of the screen fabric should be attuned to one another.

Projecta screens use a special black border (or frame) to improve the perceived clarity of the projected image. With certain Home Cinema models, there is even an extra high black border on the top and/or bottom of the screen, allowing the user to choose the ideal viewing height. That makes a difference when placement will be in high rooms and in home cinema viewing rooms.

Dealers, distributors and installers who want to look at the difference a good screen makes can look at web site or contact us.

But any way you look at it… you’re better off looking at it with a good screen!

Go Projecta Screens

by Bob Snyder

Warner Bros. will back Sony's format for storing high def movies and this gave the Blu-Ray camp the urge to declare their rivals HD DVD were “beaten.”

“We’ve heard that before,” insisted executives from HD DVD. But it was scary when the HD-DVD group cancelled their own CES press conference because it followed too close after the Warner Bros. announcement.

If Blu-Ray wins (or HD DVD, for that matter), the question will not be whether or not one group or another had another more thunder or lightning. The real question is whether either camp could ever be a Rainmaker.

With Apple, Amazon, NetFlix, Cisco, Microsoft and others push downloadable content, with cable and phone companies flogging on-demand, all day/all night HD, and with I.T. companies pushing on-line storage and new form factors, the DVD business is looking as promising as the last Dodo bird.

JVC, for one example, showed a flat-screenTV at CES that allows users to simply insert an iPod to watch video content. So any slim media player can become an alternative to digital video discs. And Denon, for another example, is building iPod docks into its AVRs like Altec, third example, is doing for loudspeakers.

IPTV, in fact, was the dominant theme of CES. Sharp, Samsung, and Panasonic all entered content alliances that will let consumers look at headlines or videos from the net on their TVs.

Content will jump full-blown into on-line delivery. Any and every device with an IP connection will be content-ready.

Obviously there will still be customers who ask for high def DVD in their set-up. But more and more you will have to confront customers who will resist in favor of an online content solution. Customers who have already bought and re-bought their favorite music in LP, 8-track, cassette, CD, and then plain ol’DVD may be the first to resist adding any more hardware that requires re-purchasing content.  These same Blu-Ray resistant buyers may be susceptible to sales approaches that incorporate newer ways to access music/movies on line.

In the Old World, we showed households how to hook up Audio and Video in the home in order to play their recorded media. In the New World, we’ll be compelled to help them to throw away DVDs.

Systems LLC brings out the first ever home automation and control platform based on MAC OS X Leopard™. The maker of the ROSIE Coffee Table has created a home control package utilizing a controller called ROSIE and a proprietary configuration tool called RacePoint Blueprint™.

 “For the first time, developers have a control and media platform that enables them to sell their Apple-based applications into the CEDIA marketplace via the Savant product suite,” says Savant president Jim Carroll.

RacePoint Blueprint  provides Apple developers with an application channel into the CEDIA industry. When combined with Quartz Composer and Automator, it provides Apple developers with an automation and control system for many vertical markets. Developers can control flat panel displays, DVD players, AV receivers, set-top boxes, Apple TV® projectors, lighting, window treatments, and other equipment commonly deployed in multi-room residential settings as well as business installations and theatrical productions—without writing a single line of code.

ROSIE has interactive multimedia capabilities such as integration and interaction with many Apple-based applications including iTunes and AirTunes.

Carroll also says, “Developers can now have their applications invoked with the simple push of a button from any of our OS X-based interface technologies that include 5, 7, 9, and 12-inch in-wall touchpanels and a 13.3-inch wireless touchpanel along with Apple’s iPhone and iPod touch.  Savant's touchpanel application takes advantage of the unique user interface of Apple’s iPhone and iPod  touch. The developer’s application can be accessed via Savant’s rich GUI. 

All the Savant user interface can be accessed on the iPhone and iPod touch with one hand.

Go Savant Brings HA to Mac OS X Leopard