Crestron's Media Manager, RoomView

[carolyn]

We are looking at several types of remote room control systems. Creston is the latest product I am researching. Does anyone have experience with it? We are looking to control several rooms...av control. All are outfitted with Polycom FX's, 512's and VS4000's. Our video displays vary from large screen monitors or plasmas(50" hitachi, mistu, and zenith)..and our pc's are displayed on either large screen plasmas, pc monitors or lcd's (NEC, monovision, nettv). They also have vcr/dvd's.....zenith....I looked on Crestrons sight and am reviewing several docs...

How easy it to deploy...as easy as they say?
How is Crestron's response to adding control for products not listed on their controls page?
Does it really power on/off the av?
I am not so concerned about controlling the Polycom as we can manage it through IP/GMS but I would like to be able to hard boot it and the power control is not listed in theri control capabilities.

Anyone have reviews? Opinions?
It seems to me, from my initial research that it is more complicated to implement than what they advertise.

thanks
Carolyn

[Toney]

We have been using Crestron room control systems for the past couple of years and I can highly recommend them. We deployed in most of our conference rooms some smaller Crestron control processors with one-way 6 inch touch panels while in two of our bigger rooms we used the AV2 control systems and larger two-way touchpanels such as the TPS-5000 and the TPS-6000. In these rooms, we're controlling Tandberg VCs, Sony, Christie projectors, plasma screens, amplifiers and the usual VCR/DVD's, PC and monitors.
For all the rooms, I've had the Crestron web-enabled so that we have remote access to all rooms. I know you can use some sort of Crestron management system.
To deploy, I brought in an intergator to help me design and build the rooms systems. If you or your integrator gets a good Crestron programmer,design and deployment is really easy. I also found that Crestron themselves were very accomodating. You can get quite alot of code for alot of existing products from Crestron's website, so most of the time, you don't need to create your own (I know a lot of the freelance Crestron guys do this).
Adding control for products not listed is easy but depends on how easily you can get control codes from the product manufacturer. Incidentally, because Polycom is so common, you'll probably find lots of existing codes on Crestron website.
For support, I purchased maintenance for all the critical rooms that covered all A/V equipment in them, including the Crestrons. I also attended a Crestron training course, so now, I'm able to do troubleshooting, some maintenance and also reprogramming any changes and additions.
A hint, if you bring in an integrator or use a freelance programmer, make sure you agree with them that you own the code and that you have all copies. It saves hassles later if you need to make changes yourself or with different programmers.
I can highly recommend Crestron. They have a great product lineup and their support is quite good. It's also very easy to learn how to use, support and program them if you choose to do so yourself. Have fun!

Anthony

[AVGeek]

I am a Crestron programmer and find RoomView is a handy tool for monitoring large installs or doing mass timed commands (i.e. turning all projectors off at 9pm etc.). Each room must have a control system and then RoomView monitors and offers some limited control over said room. If you go to crestron.com there is a link to a MediaManager overview which I believe will show you the basic ideas. The e-control feature may be of more interest as that allows you to remotely control a Crestron system by simulating the touchpanel on your pc.

[tom9933]

We choose to go the AMX route and have also been very happy with the results. I would also recommend looking at some of the Extron IPLink products. We typically use AMX in our distance learning rooms and use the Extron products in the rest of our rooms due to the reduced cost and ease of configuration.
BTW I would recommend with any of the systems that you specify the use of direct serial commands vs. button pushes. This can be an issue because programmers tend to use the button commands to walk through the menu structure on the device. Problems pop up when the device manufacturer decides to tweak the ui and you then have a control system that is out of sync.