Köhler Medientechnik

Cutting power via a mechanical switch is always a bad idea in a smart home. According to Hue, the "intelligence" lies in the light bulb itself, so if you just cut power, it can´t send it´s status out anymore, hence it can´t be reflected in the system. This is not a Control4-issue. Even the Hue app itself doesn´t get updated when just cutting power of bulbs. The solution would be to provide permanent power to the bulbs and control them solely via the control system / Hue system.

Hm, shouldn´t be a problem. The AVR is capable of multiroom audio (https://docs.sony.com/release/Help_4587297121.pdf - topic 60+) and it should be no problem to control it via Control4. Don´t see the need for a video matrix, but there might be an obstacle i don´t see....

Hi, what kind (AVR, power amp, brand) of amp is it exactly? And where does the video feed come from (source player)? Which control system do you have? Regards, Thorsten

I understand you already have matrix amplifier, so you don´t need the Sonos Amp, the "Port" (previously known as "Connect", need to get used to the new naming...) is sufficient. However, still costly... How many different streams do you need to stream at the same time? For residential applications, this is usually the number of people living in a home.

Well, i didn´t say it´s great the way it is, i just say it shouldn´t be a big effort to clean it up.

Well, i´ve seen a lot of installations that were much worse. Most of the cabling going into the rack seem to be TV and speaker. And most of the cables (if not all) in general seem to be labeled. I think that´s a good basis and just needs some tightening up.

That won´t work. A USB port is not designed to power lighting. Specification goes up to 900mA for USB 3. Low output LED stripes would have e.g. 9W/m, which would already be double the amount of Ampere (1.800mA) you could get out of a USB port. An higher output LED stripes can easily go up to 40W/m and more. I´d also recommend Meanwell for power supply.

There are modules for Crestron that provide feedback for Hue lighting using the Hue bridge. However, you need to poll for status updates: When changing light using the module, status feedback is updated automatically (i guess it justs sends a feedback poll request after sending the light command), but changes from outside the module (e.g. Hue app) are not detected automatically, you have to poll for it (e.g. via a oscillator every couple of seconds). I´m not suggesting to use Crestron, just pointing out that it seems to be possible to have Hue 2-way.

It´s definitely the subtitles. It depends on the player, not the server. Some player apps can handle the subtitles themselves, so they are rendered on the player device into the video. Some players can´t, so the subtitles need to be infused into the videostream by the server. And that requires transcoding and hits your server (as NAS AFAIR). So it´s an issue of your TV´s Plex app.

That´s the reason why i prefer 24V stripes. 5V only for special applications (pixel stripes).

Second that as well. I put a $500,- bulk of replacement bulbs on storage when i installed my outdoor lighting a couple of years ago. I´m happy i did - it looks so crappy if you have a series of 10 lights in a row and they look different...

Thanks for the quick response, guys. Would have been nice to tell him we could use it, but hey - it is like it is... Regards, Thorsten

Hi, just had a visit at a potential customer for a home cinema installation. We also talked about automation and he said he has a pretty old Neeo in the closet. It´s a very fist generation Neeo from the Kickstarter funding. Is it possible to integrate that as a Control4 Neeo or are there any obstacles doing that? Regards, Thorsten

Contact your dealer.

OK, then it´s really a low bitrate file.

Easiest thing would be just to have a look at the Plex dashboard during playback. There it reports the bitrate and also if it does transcoding (separate for audio and video) or if it´s using direct play for each playback.

That´s really strange. Just tested with my setup - even playing a DVD (Arielle, 480p), i get 10Mb/s, BluRay (300, 1080p) with 31Mb/s and UHD (Men in Black Int., 2160p) i got 81Mb/s. What kind of material are you playing? Could it be that it´s recoded with 8Mb/s? I don´t want to question you, but in my experience it´s really hard to get fully prevent the PMS from transcoding. It often falls back to it if a small parameter doesn´t fit to the playing device (resolution, audio codec, etc.).

Mmh, if it´s only 8Mb/s then it´s transcoded. If you use direct play, then the bitrate is determined by the specific movie and can go up to 50, 80, even >100Mb/s (for UHD).

<SARCASM>I would prefer not to force smart home professionalists to implement workarounds for issues that could easily be fixed by the manufacturer...</SARCASM>

I´m 100% ripping to main-movie-MKVs using MakeMKV in a docker container with a USB-UHD-drive connected directly to the UNRAID-server the MakeMKV-Docker is running. You can even configure it for auto-ripping: you insert a disc, main-movie is ripped, then disc-tray opens. I don´t need all the additional stuff on the discs and i´am tired of all the trailers before the actual movie starts.

But if subtitles degrade performance, that´s a clear sign that your Plex server is transcoding. You can easily check on the server console during playback.

But do you really need transcoding? To which device are you streaming? If you´re going to move the Plex server off your NAS anyway, a Shield could probably a good choice since it has a built-in Plex server and is also a pretty media player.

Yes, subtitles have a serious impact on streaming off a Plex server. At least when transcoding is required. To what device are you streaming? If direct play is possible, subtitles are not an issue since they are rendered on the player, not on the server.

If plugging devices to the same circuit removes hum, then you have a problem with different electrical potential between circuits. Besides hum, you might have noticed electrical voltage or even small sparks when touchung the end of data wires (HDMI, satellite, LAN, etc. We do plan all of our installs to include equipotential bonding (not sure if that´s the right term in englisch) to prevent this.