03.15.2007 — As far as structured-wiring vendors go, Channel Vision is one of the more innovative when it comes to electronics.

At EHX, the company showed three products that had dealers talking.

First was a Cat 5-based intercom system that provides many of the same functionality as most of the intercoms out there--broadcast and room-to-room communications, doorbell chime option, outdoor station, relay for door strikes, etc.--but this one has as couple of novel features. Most notably is the system expandability. Simply snap on the modular Station Expanders to increase the number of stations from standard six to up to 24.



The system comes with an IR remote to activate the TALK command, so you can yell to your children from the comfort of your bed.

Yeah, I'm not crazy about the aesthetics either, but they say they're making some changes, including the color of the (now gray) buttons.

Next, Channel Vision demonstrated a new solution for modulating video sources onto digital cable systems: the Affinity Digital Cable Combiner.

Getting CCTV, DVD and other sources onto a digital system has been the bane of integrators. With traditional modulators, integrators have to filter out digital channels in order to allow both digital and modulated channels to coexist on the same system.

Customers lose some digital cable channels, and integrators may have to return to the home every time the cable company changes its channel lineup.

"We gave up a year ago trying to modulate cameras due to the cable companies' changing the channel lineups and obliterating the channels we had set up and programmed our customers remotes for," says Andrew Finkel, an integrator with Diversified Technologies Inc., Westminster, Md. "I would consider using this on an existing client that has analog cameras and also wants digital cable."



Channel Vision's Affinity product is not so much a modulator as it is a "combiner" or A/B switch, switching between digital cable and the other sources that share the line.

Sources are switched via an IR remote, which sends signals down the coax.

Finally, Channel Vision showed a HomePlug-enabled multiroom audio system that uses the powerline to distribute music. The system's HomePlug technology is enabled by chipsets from Arkados.

A live demo was not available at EHX; however, Channel Vision did have an illustration showing a HomePlug powerline adapter (shown at top) plugged into the audio source(s) at the head-end, and powered speakers (or amplifiers) at the listening locations. The existing AC wiring would carry not just the audio signals, but in the reverse direction the IR commands for controlling the source equipment.

The powerline audio system accommodates up to four sources and eight zones. Lest there be skeptics about audio quality, the sign above the illustration said, "Digital Encoding Technology Maintains Music Quality." There you have it.

Channel Vision chief Darrel Hauk says we won't see the powerline audio products anytime soon, but it's a start.

We've seen many products that use HomePlug powerline technology--namely the HomePlug AV spec that offers a 200 Mbps throughput (theoretically)--to distribute HD video over the powerlines, but there has been little activity on the audio front.

Audio should be just as good as an opportunity as video. It seems Channel Vision is on to something.

Now, how about screw-in speakers that replace bulbs in recessed cans?