"It's a legacy thing," said Ian Gregory, product manager at BSS Audio. "The development cycle for SoundWeb London just predated HiQnet, at which point it was decided that a completely new software application would be written from the ground up. This would then be the central control software for all the Harman Pro products. So SoundWeb London is a HiQnet product, but at the moment it's got its own control software."
Gregory's two buzzwords at the moment are automation and integration. "Some of the processing objects, like the Automixer and the Leveller, take away the need for manual control. That means that more of the technical stuff gets moved over to the pre-engineering stage - the design and programming - and that makes the user interface a lot quicker, and changeovers more streamlined.
"With things like room combining, furthermore, there's no reason to stop at the audio system. Using the serial trigger, for example, you can start to integrate projectors and plasma screens. So, based on the room partitions, you can, for example, lower a screen using a control port, and turn a particular projector on. You know where the partitions are, you know where your projector is, you know where your screen needs to be - there is a whole load of things you can determine through contact closures and room partitions. So there's no reason why you can't automate them.
"There is a move within the industry to start integrating more of the sub-systems, like video and projection, into one system with central control," added Gregory. This was confirmed by Stardraw, whose Rob Robinson put a hatful of "smart little boxes" into perspective. Calypso Control Systems have one such box, with an event database that can issue command instruction sets to control devices whether or not they are plugged into a computer. "Calypso approached us because they didn't have an easy way to create a custom user interface," he said, "running on any touch-panel or display device, to control other hardware from lighting and projection to audio. Our StardrawControl solution enables their customers to generate UIs for almost anything."
Suggested but embargoed at AES New York last October, networking protocol Ubiquity was finally and formally previewed by Loud Technologies. Three new products are, in fact, Ubiquity-enabled: EAW's NT mini line array; a new range of fixed installation loudspeakers; and a rackmount processor with which you can now apply the much-touted 'Gunness focusing' to existing line arrays such as the KF760.
"Why another networking protocolΩ" asked Ken Berger. "Because our technology - especially since the merger of Mackie and EAWback in 2000 - has been converging around DSP solutions. Both DSA beam steering and Gunness focusing have dealt with previously very difficult problems inherent in horn-loaded loudspeakers, and of course the UMX.96 console has become the hub of a highly integrated system.
"The next evolution is how you bring all that control together in an easily accessible way, but with extreme granularity of control right down to individual component level. And when we looked, there were no networks out there capable of doing that - so that's what Ubiquity is all about. Not just another network for the sake of it, but one to match our cutting-edge technology."
Loud also announced Mac support
