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Discussion of new CA-10 controller


jfh

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On 10/9/2019 at 9:07 PM, South Africa C4 user said:

the first 2 digital audio paths and then to my EA5 and then to one of the other controllers. Is there any way to change the order as I assume using the EA5 for digital audio would be the better option than the HC800?

 

Im not exactly sure, but i am pretty sure the HC800 effect the use of the advanced digital audio limiting you entire project to its capabilites. I might suggest removing it completly and use the two analog and two digital outputs on the ea5. its has some of the best dacs c4 has to offer. Control4 picks audio streams based on something. What that is i am not sure. You can try changing the order of the connections. from experience it tends to choose the last available connection to stream first. hence if 1 and 2 are both connected it will prefer to 2 for audio on the first stream.

 

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3 hours ago, Mr. Daniel said:

  I can't see where the redundant network connections will come into play in 'smaller, residential' networks but I'm guessing it makes sense to those of you that deal w/ business networks.  

its more or less just another redundant feature of the ca10 should you a NIC card fail you have a second one. Or if the primary switch fails could have a second connection to the router just to maintain some form of control.

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  • 8 months later...

Installed my new CA-10 and my dealer got everything migrated over for me (shout out to @chopedogg88 for awesome service).  Took less time than I thought too.

 

All I can say is WOW!  Compared to my EA5, this thing flies.

Project loads faster.  Backups might be faster.  T3 response is near instantaneous except for the full camera view (and then only like a beat and a half).  When someone rings the doorbell I get the doorbell sound faster and the camera snapshot actually gets taken before they move away.  iOS ap loads almost instantly.  Ditto pages of Album covers and Experience Buttons.  I have some work to do on getting some camera streams tuned, but they load quickly enough to be useful.  My Chowmain Event Logging files load instantly in my iPad browser rather than taking forever to finish.  Rebooting the controller no longer takes 8-10 minutes for the system to stabilize.

I really wasn’t sure I was going to notice a difference, but I have been very pleasantly surprised In the limited testing I’ve done so far.  
 

Yes, the CA-10 is expensive but it will probably pay for itself in reduced frustration.  Good job C4.  But don’t stop improving OS3 performance... ;)

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On 9/12/2019 at 3:38 PM, therockhr said:

I always find this pdf interesting. If you dont use the AV components, the EA-1 and EA3 have the same processing power and even the EA-5 is just slightly better. For this reason, I just dont see why I would need anything other than an EA-1 right now.

The EA-1 is the best deal out there right now.

Except the EA-1 should be called the EA-0 because it doesn't really have a proper audio output. That makes it useless in any instance where you want to use it as an audio source. (He says 9 months later!) 

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Why doesn't C4 occasionally update the CPUs on their controllers while still selling, essentially, the same model?  A 1.6GHz dual core Atom CPU is pretty woeful these days when you can get i5s or i7s for a reasonable price.  Make the controllers modular enough that you can easily put in the next gen CPU or at least a much better CPU that uses the same socket and therefore the same mobo chipset for I/O, video, etc. 

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22 minutes ago, zaphod said:

Make the controllers modular enough that you can easily put in the next gen CPU or at least a much better CPU that uses the same socket and therefore the same mobo chipset for I/O, video, etc. 

Making it modular to upgrade the CPU would add additional cost on top of the already fairly expensive controller, and CPU swaps are likely beyond something Control4 would want dealers doing 'in the field'.

RyanE

 

P.S.  This is my personal opinion, I don't speak for the company, and I'm not in Control4 hardware engineering, etc.

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I’m not a big fan of having a box that just runs the project and I probably would have preferred a beefier EAx box.  
 

It would be awesome if you could just build your own box and upgrade processing power without spending a fortune or getting rid of perfectly good hardware but I’m sure the subset of owners that would actually do that is small and C4 wouldn’t make the huge margins they have on their controllers.

But, now that I have a CA-10 with an EA5 and the original HC-800 for Audio and connections I hope future product lines will have project-less options for whatever new audio/support comes down the line.

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I don't mean a dealer CPU swap, I mean that C4 would change to a newer faster CPU after a couple of years.  Kind of like a Dell computer will keep almost all components the same for many years for their corporate model, but they will move to a newer CPU.  Everything else could stay the same except you get a more capable CPU.  So you would have a EA-3v2 that is a 2.4GHz CPU that is 50% faster than the original EA-3.

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29 minutes ago, zaphod said:

Why doesn't C4 occasionally update the CPUs on their controllers while still selling, essentially, the same model?  A 1.6GHz dual core Atom CPU is pretty woeful these days when you can get i5s or i7s for a reasonable price.  Make the controllers modular enough that you can easily put in the next gen CPU or at least a much better CPU that uses the same socket and therefore the same mobo chipset for I/O, video, etc. 

Yeah, I’m with Ryan.  Nice idea in concept but probably not workable for a host of reasons.  And it would likely increase rather than decrease controller costs.

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You guys are wetting my appetite on the CA-10. If I do add a CA-10 to my rack, do I need to keep the EA5 in the rack for audio? I do my current EA-5 to feed Amazon Music, XMRadio, Doorbell announcements, and other generic announcements into multiple AudioControl matrix amps. Yes I have some EA-3’s in my system, but they are not near my AV closet and i do not want to run audio from these locations back to my AV closet.

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6 hours ago, C4 User said:

You guys are wetting my appetite on the CA-10. If I do add a CA-10 to my rack, do I need to keep the EA5 in the rack for audio? I do my current EA-5 to feed Amazon Music, XMRadio, Doorbell announcements, and other generic announcements into multiple AudioControl matrix amps. Yes I have some EA-3’s in my system, but they are not near my AV closet and i do not want to run audio from these locations back to my AV closet.

Strongly recommend the CA10.  Massive step up.

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For those using a CA-10 at home - how are you connecting the Ethernet ports?

 

 I have only one ISP and right now have both ports connected to my router.  When I move the CA-10 into the rack I was thinking of running one to the router and one to my main switch but not sure that buys me anything useful unless the switch dies (which pretty much takes most of the system with it snyway).  I got the CA-10 for processing power.  Is there much other benefit to a home user?

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3 hours ago, eggzlot said:

Out of curiosity how big is your c4 install if you don’t mind sharing?

SA has posted his before.  700 some driver instances if I remember.  Mine is nowhere near as big and I’ve never counted mine but will post a summary later.

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2 minutes ago, jfh said:

SA has posted his before.  700 some driver instances if I remember.  Mine is nowhere near as big and I’ve never counted mine but will post a summary later.

Thanks. I know his system is large.  Curious as to your size. 

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17 hours ago, zaphod said:

I don't mean a dealer CPU swap, I mean that C4 would change to a newer faster CPU after a couple of years.  Kind of like a Dell computer will keep almost all components the same for many years for their corporate model, but they will move to a newer CPU.  Everything else could stay the same except you get a more capable CPU.  So you would have a EA-3v2 that is a 2.4GHz CPU that is 50% faster than the original EA-3.

For something like the CA10, that would probably make sense.  For the EA series, enough features on the board would likely change that it wouldn't be worth it.

RyanE

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