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| EMagazine Volume 6 Issue 1 Feb / Mar 2001 |
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Toys Article - February 2001 - [HTI Home Page] |
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What
Makes VIA! Different? Technology differences made ELAN’s VIA! Touch Panel an industry darling this year. Here, ELAN Home Systems’ Rick Gratz explains what makes VIA! so unique. VIA! is a full-color LCD touch panel that can be used to control numerous audio/video components and whole-house systems such as lighting, temperature and security. It is also a high-quality color monitor that allows you to view video sources such as cable and satellite TV, DVD, and closed-circuit TV cameras |
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While getting ready to start your day, you reach to where your bathroom’s light switch would normally be located. With just a touch to a 6.4” full-color display mounted in the wall, you turn on the lighting for the house, turn off the security system, select your favorite morning news program and start the coffee perking.
In the kitchen, your spouse uses the touch screen’s intuitive icons to check a closed-circuit camera in the baby’s room. Seeing that the baby is awake, your spouse uses the touch screen to adjust the upstairs temperature and open the drapes. Another touch, and Mozart starts playing softly in the nursery.
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Welcome to life with the VIA! Touch Panel from ELAN Home Systems. The panel began shipping in August 2000 and has already won two of the audio/video industry’s most prestigious awards—CEDIA’s Electronic Lifestyle Award for Best Electronic Product 2000 and the Innovations 2001 Design and Engineering Showcase. Here are some of the reasons why.
VERSATILITY
VIA! is a full-color LCD touch panel that can be used to control numerous audio/video components and whole-house systems such as lighting, temperature and security. It is also a high-quality color monitor that allows you to view video sources such as cable and satellite TV, DVD, and closed-circuit TV cameras. The panels can be flush-mounted in a wall or installed in attractive real-wood tabletop “valets.” With seven different trim plates and selectable screen motifs, each panel can be designed to match the décor of any room. The 6.4” screen allows for large, user-friendly graphics and eliminates the need to scroll through numerous “pages” to control A/V components or house-wide systems. And VIA! is a universal touch screen that can be integrated into any audio/video system.
AUDIO/VIDEO CONTROL
Most touch panels are proprietary to a specific system, meaning that they issue commands only that system’s controller can understand. The controller then translates these commands into a “language” the audio/video components in the system will understand – infrared (IR).
VIA!, however, is a truly universal touch panel. Each VIA! Touch Panel can transmit IR to, and therefore control, each and every a/v source component. This means that VIA! Touch Panels can be used in any type of a/v system, from simple receiver-based systems to sophisticated multi-source/multi-zone systems, without the need of an expensive controller to translate each command. Hundreds of IR commands for dozens of a/v components are already stored in VIA!’s IR Library. And because VIA! has the capacity to “learn” IR, it can easily be taught commands that do not happen to be in the library.
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Universal IR control of a/v components
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Integrates into any a/v system
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No need for expensive, proprietary computer-based controllers
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Learns IR
VIDEO MONITORING
The majority of home control LCD touch panels on the market today use the VGA (Video Graphics Adapter) format to send video graphics to each screen. VGA is the same format that is used to display graphics on a computer monitor. The computer monitor receives signals sent to it from the VGA card installed in a computer. Home system controllers that use VGA touch screens must therefore be computer-based and are subject to the inherent limitations of the VGA card – most notably a slow frame rate which results in jumpy or robotic-looking video images. Computer-based touch screens are also considerably more expensive and almost always proprietary to a specific system.
VIA! accepts a standard NTSC (National Television System Committee) video signal. NTSC video is the same signal that is sent to a television when you connect it to the video output of a VCR. This means that almost any video source (cable TV, satellite, DVD, VCR, closed-circuit television cameras, etc.) can be connected directly to a VIA! Touch Panel – no computers or Ethernet hubs required! And, when using a video switching device, all of the aforementioned video sources can be independently accessed for viewing with the press of a button. Watch the Weather Channel or the stock report while shaving in the morning. Monitor the kids out back in the pool while preparing lunch. Instantly see who is at the front door from any VIA! panel in the home.
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Accepts standard NTSC video – view high-quality, full-color video feeds from cable, satellite, DVD, VCR, CCTV cameras, etc., on any VIA! in the home
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No need for expensive computer-based controllers with inferior quality VGA cards
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Instantly view CCTV cameras located at the front door, poolside, nursery, etc.
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Automatically scan multiple CCTV cameras
SUBSYSTEM CONTROL
Touch screens are often used to control home electronic systems such as temperature, security and lighting. The most efficient method of communicating with these “subsystems” is via RS232 serial communications. This is the same method used by a computer to “speak to” a printer or scanner. To control subsystems, the touch screen must know the subsystem’s RS232 “protocol,” a list of all the commands for all the different functions of each subsystem, written in ASCII computer language. Writing this protocol into a controller is an arduous and time-consuming task that can drive programming costs through the roof.
With the release of its VIA! SC-4 Subsystem Controller, ELAN Home Systems will be offering pre-written RS232 protocol for a number of popular lighting, climate control and security systems. Little, if any, additional programming will be required for VIA! Touch Panels to control these systems – simply choose a system from the protocol library and load it into VIA!. And since ELAN wrote and tested the protocol for each subsystem you can rest assured that it works.
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Cut programming time and costs with pre-written RS232 protocol
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Fully tested for functionality
PROGRAMMING
Speak to any custom a/v installer about touch screen systems and the one gripe you’ll almost always hear is the inordinate amount of time it takes to program a system. The cost of this lengthy effort (and we’re talking days – even weeks!) is, of course, then passed on to the consumer. Not true with VIA!.
VIATOOLS is the setup software for ELAN’s VIA! Touch Panels. This Windows-based program is so intuitive, so easy-to-use, that an entire system can be configured in a matter of hours.
VIATOOLS’ cookie-cutter approach allows you to import pre-designed screens for just about any source component you are integrating into the system. Installers also can create and save their own templates (or modify and save any of the pre-designed templates).
To top it all off, these templates can be saved with all the associated IR commands. For installers who repeatedly sell the same CD changer, TV, DVD player and tuner with each system, this means that it can take only minutes to set up an entire touch panel! Entire panel configurations also can be copied and used for panels in other rooms. If the décor of the new room is different, various décor-matching styles or “motifs” are easily selected, giving each panel its own distinct look.
These technological innovations explain the praise VIA! has received this year. Future products will expand the VIA! product line – and, no doubt, the number of awards.
Each VIA! Touch Panel is assembled and fully tested at ELAN’s research and development facilities in Lexington, Ky., and has a two-year manufacturer’s warranty.
