CES 2012 - Savant integration with iTunes match

[dgbrown]

No scanning required.

http://www.cepro.com/article/savant_smartsystem_hits_cloud_with_itunes_match/?utm_source=CEPWeekly&utm_medium=email

[wappinghigh]

That's actually pretty cool and quiet big news..

Who's next? Sonos? C4?

Maybe that is what Tuesday's announcement is....:cool:

[WillEV]

It's just as possible with Control4 - all Savant is doing is using iTunes behind the scenes, so it's iTunes doing all the work, just as it would be when using our iTunes driver.

[wappinghigh]

Hey, that's neat..

But I guess that's only your itunes driver right? Not the Sonos driver (as this doesn't actually directly sync with the itunes cloud.. (yet)

[well_armed]

This has done nothing new.

Savant is also probably the worst HA system out there....especially considering the price.

[nikon]

I think there are definitely worse systems out there. Savant does have some nice features. But at the same time other things I am not too crazy about. The biggest key to their success in my in my opinion was effectively taking advantage of Apple's cult following and marketing Savant as the Apple based home automation system.

[Neter66]

Depends how they are doing it... Yes, iTunes is pulling the content from iCloud, but let's not forget that with iTunes Match ( iTunes in the cloud ) all content is DRM free. So, you can scan the iTunes library onto a controller for example, then play directly with C4 media tools.

You'd only need the network driver to mount the device that is holding the iTunes content.

Thanks

D.

[alanchow]

Savant haw some crazy hardware. Its HDMI switching products are second only to Crestron in my opinion. From our tests both the Crestron DM and Savant smart media products switch hdmi within 1-2 seconds which from what we've seen is by far the fastest.

Savant is using a modified version of itunes to do all of its audio output and library work. In fact they have managed to make 1 hdmi output output both 1 stream of video (for its onscreen overlay. kind of like navigator but it doesn't interrupt what you're doing) and do 4 streams of audio at the same time.

Other cool things about savant (it can browse metadata on both appletv1 and 2 with ip based control). Utilises applescript for scripts so anything your apple can do it can do as well.

Another cool thing that i like is the mac overlays intergration. Extremely easy to add in snippets of webpages, images, etc to your onscreen ui.

We fit in Savant somewhere between control4 and crestron in our product range. It provides the fast programming control4 offers but also provides customisation of UI and touchscreens.

[nikon]

Yeah I love their interface, that overlay is great. I almost find it too big though as in videos showing it you may as well pause the movie as you cant see enough of it. I really have to see it more in person and get a full understanding of its capabilities.

I am currently looking for a more high end automation line to offer and Savant and Crestron are the only ones currently on my list. I will be spending a lot of time with Savant at CES to get all of my questions answered.