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Thursday, December 17, 2015
Tuesday, December 1, 2015
Happy 1st Anniversary!!!!
Today marks the one year anniversary of our blog. Here is to another year of great education
and commentary from Metra Home Theater Group.
Tuesday, November 24, 2015
Wednesday, November 18, 2015
Education Is Very Important
Education is more important than ever due to the hot button
feature everyone is talking about: High
Dynamic Resolution or HDR for short.
With all the hyperbole about this new technology being thrown around,
along with the talk about new cable certifications- one can get confused
quickly. An example of how this
confusion can spread happen in our office last week in the form of an email
from China. It read as follows:
“Dear friend,
Good day. Hope you enjoyed your weekend^_^
Attached is our HDMI
2.0 HDCP 2.2 100m extender (HDBaseT) quotation to you. Please check for your
reference.”
Whoa, wait a minute! HDBaseT has upgraded to HDMI 2.0 and
can therefore now support 4k/60, HDR and 4:4:4 color? Without a clear understanding of HDMI 2.0,
2.0A, 4K and HDR one would think this HDBaseT was something to consider
purchasing to use with the new 4K, HDR components because of “HDMI 2.0” listed
spec. This email could cost your
business money if you do not fully understand the HDMI 2.0A spec. HDMI 2.0 (and HDMI 2.0A) has a range of
performance capabilities and if a product falls within this range, companies
can say it is HDMI 2.0 compliant. Yet
if this product does not support the FULL RANGE of HDMI 2.0A spec, the
product will not support 4K/60, HDR and 4:4:4 color. The specs of this product will tell the full
story of just how much of the HDMI 2.0 spec this extender supports.
After reading the header, a laymen’s translation of the
above email from China is “Our HDBaseT extenders will support anything that you
can throw at it”. Unfortunately this is not the case, HDBaseT will only work
with in the older HDMI 1.4 spec, meaning this product will not support the full
range of HDMI 2.0 spec up to 18 Gpbs and this full range is important because
of HDR. HDR is without question the biggest change to picture quality since the
introduction of High Definition. HDR itself is a technique used in imaging to reproduce a greater dynamic range of
luminosity than is possible with standard digital imaging techniques, this
means that you and your client will see much greater definition in the depth of
the picture and its shading.
To validate my comments look at the data listed below that
were part of the afore mentioned email, the specs listed is not the full range
of HDMI 2.0A you will not see 18 Gbps listed anywhere:
Have any questions regarding this topic? Leave a comment.
Tuesday, November 10, 2015
The Back Story of the M3B
Our Metra Multi-Media Broadcast System (M3B) caused quite
the stir at CEDIA this past October. While
discussing the back story with one of our product developers on how Metra Home got
the idea for this product, I found it extremely interesting. I thought others might find it intriguing as
well. Please let me know
your thoughts.
How did the idea of M3B come about?
Product Developer: I was
standing in a train station noticing how clear the information signage panels looked.
Not being one to pass up a learning opportunity, I looked at the video cables
and I realized that there was only a single coax running from each display to
the next (at one point going through a splitter). This got my attention. Like most old school guys I am familiar with
“RF” modulation products, but I had never seen one look this good. Armed with this knowledge we were able find
and modify the technology for CI needs.
Explain how one would set up this system, how it works and why it is
exciting to the CI community.
The new M3B
Multi-Source, Multi-Display Coax Based HD Video Distribution System is exciting
because it is a great way for the integrator to compete with any central
hardware based Matrix system. It is a
simple solution for CI to broadcast HDMI over coax without rewiring the entire
house. Most houses built in the last 20
or so years are already pre-wired with RG6 coax. This was of course done to
provide cable TV, however it does give us what we need to build Multi-Source,
Multi-Zone HDMI Distribution systems. With
the introduction of our new M3B, HDMI over “RF” technology it is now possible
the same coax infra-structure that has been in our houses since the 1980s.
Here is how you set it up:
(1) take any (or all) HDMI 1080P source(s) with or without HDCP and plug
it or them each into an M3B TX1 encoder(s), (2) on the front of the M3B TX1
your select the RF-ID for the source, (3) you will then connect that unit(s) into
your house wide coax system. Here is the
really exciting part, this system will share the same coax as your off air
antenna or CATV system. Once connected to your coax, the encoded source(s) can
been seen on ANY coax connected display in your home that has one of the M3B
RX1R decoders connected to it. The M3B RX1R decoder comes with an IR receiver
that when plugged in it will allow you to select which of the M3B TX1 RF-ID’s
that you want to watch. It is that simple.
This sounds almost too good to be true.
Is there a down side to this M3B system?
I can only think of two things that some might consider as a down side to
this product.
1. It will take
about 6.5 seconds to change RF-ID codes on the RX1R (on par with any AVR).
2. Audio is PCM 2 channel (this is done because a lot of common displays
will not accept 5.1 audio on HDMI inputs).
Tuesday, November 3, 2015
Why You Need Our HDM-GA1
In previous posts, we discussed our
HDM-GA1 and the three awards it won during CEDIA 2015 in Dallas. Awards are great but if our customers do not
understand WHY this product is winning awards, then Metra Home is not educating
our customers. Education is key to
staying on top of the CI game and here at Metra Home we want to be the go-to
resource for CI questions.
We made our name in the early days of
HDMI by providing the first “Made in America” long distance HDMI cable
solution, and we have continued to develop and refine these capability with our
latest (and still) “Made in America” extender the HDM-GA1.
4K and HDR are real, products will be
shipping this Christmas and in the hands of your clients by the first of the
year. How will this affect you and more importantly how do you plan your
installs to accommodate this expanded bandwidth requirement?
Well… if your jobs are based around
category cable extenders or current Redmere enabled cables, you will be in a
world of hurt as neither of these technologies truly support 4K/60 4:4:4 or HDR
content. If instead you use the older
style passive HDMI cables (up to 15 meters in length) you can take your jobs
forward and include ANY capability that HDMI 2.0A by using our HDM-GA1.
The HDM-GA1 allows
the installer to utilize existing in-wall passive HDMI cables up to 15 meters
in length to upgrade and support the full 4K/60, 4:4:4, HDR signal soon to be
available in many video products. We
know that there are a lot of systems already installed in the real world that
have quality passive HDMI cables in them and we also know that as an integrator
you must build into the job the best possible avenue for future technology
expansion. Again the HDM-GA1 is the solution,
why beat your head against the wall with worry about will a given format
support what is coming when we already have the answer.
Here is what the HDM-GA1 will do for
you.
1: It will take an existing passive
HDMI cable up to 15 meters in length and allow it to support every single
option that HDMI 2.0A can provide. That means 4/60, 4:4:4 Color, 3D, all
available Multi-Channel Audio Codecs and (most importantly) High Dynamic
Resolution [HDR].
2: When (not if) technology exceeds
the HDMI 2.0A bandwidth all that you will need to do is replace the HDM-GA1
with the newer, higher bandwidth model.
3: My favorite, “ESD” damage, if you
have an active that becomes damaged by “ESD” (electro static discharge) you can
just write it off, there is no way to repair this damage and you must replace
the cable. However if you are using a passive cable with our HDM-GA1, when this
type of damage occurs you need only replace the HSM-GA1 and leave the cable
alone.
An easy 4K/HDR upgrade
solution. It. Just. Works.
Thursday, October 29, 2015
CEDIA 2015 Wrap Up
In the craziness of returning from Dallas last week - this post was not posted on the blog. We apologize.
and our first run is all sold out.
Whew! What a
whirlwind CEDIA 2105 was in Dallas. It
was the best show Metra Home has had to date and it is largely due to the
combination of great products and staff.
Seriously, our staff is the hardest working staff I know and no other
company can touch our products. My
co-workers are a great group of people.
As I sat in the front desk during the show, I overheard things being
said by staff and attendees and I made up a list:
- · WOW nice booth!
- · My feet hurt.
- · Don’t lean on the front desk.
- · Who left coffee on the front desk
- · Where is my coffee?
- · My feet hurt.
- · You sure that is the correct price?
- · Are you seriously taking an order on a trashcan?
- · I have not eaten all day
- · My feet hurt.
I also heard from Attendees the
phrase “That’s a problem solver right there” after they saw the demo of the
M3B. This could explain why this product
is flying out of the warehouse. Good
problem to have from where I am sitting.
The HDM-GA1 was awarded three awards
and our first run is all sold out.
The show never slowed down for us
and even though we are home – the pace has continued. Here’s to hoping CES is just a wonderful
show.
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