ITC One from SE2 Labs: Audio, Video, Xbox, AMX, Tuners, Power Protection, More

With ITC, Pyle says, "You're only buying one box that has one user interface and one set of inputs and outputs."

He likens his solution to a PC, where everything you need is in a single box. If computers were built like home theater systems, you'd have one box for storage, one for audio processing, one for video, one for the operating system, etc. People would have to mix and match and assemble the parts and buy a costly rack to put them in.

"We [the home systems industry] are asking people to buy a bunch of pieces that don't go together, and we end up with a clunky mess."

Why Doesn't it Overheat?

The very first and most complicated problem in developing the ITC was overheating. Back when Pyle was researching all those home theaters, he sought the causes of system failures.

"It turns out that heat is a major reason for product failure," he says.

And one major reason for overheating -- regardless of how many fans you stick in your A/V rack -- is the horizontal orientation of the components. With components stacked on top of each other, heat cannot escape, even when the individual units have built-in fans.

"DirecTV has a fan, but that fan blows hot air from the back into the chassis," says Pyle. "That can short-circuit it. …The air flow is fighting natural convection."

The problem is exponentially more difficult for the ITC since it packs so much technology within a single box. You might have 1800 watts in there. Normally all of that energy is spread out a across an entire rack with multiple gaps for breathing room.

To mitigate this problem, SE2 built its products with the "components" -- the boards -- aligned vertically. "Cool air comes in the bottom and goes out the top and it can't go back into the box," Pyle says.

Problem #1 solved. Problem #2: This architecture can be noisy.

There's nothing worse than a home theater experience being interrupted by the whirring of fans in the components.

SE2 devised a chassis where a two-inch gap at the bottom of the ITC lets air into the vents. The air goes through a series of acoustical baffles that muffle the internal fans. At the exhaust end (the top) is another set of baffles and a generous space for warm air to escape.

"It can move a ton of air and do it quietly," Pyle says.

The fans are computer-controlled so they are infinitely variable. A temperature sensor tells the fans when to ramp up and down. "There's just a slow, consistent change in speed so you won't hear it kick in like other fans," says Pyle. On the exhaust vent, a glowing light changes colors to reflect the temperature of the box.

Audio & Video

The video processor comes from Vidikron's highly regarded VDP-80, and manages all of the various video sources including iPods, Xbox 360s, and TV service.

You can bring your own display device, but if you choose a Vidikron projector, "they customize them for us," Pyle says. "We have all of these video inputs like iPods and the Xbox 360, and the scaler optimizes them for whatever the output needs to be."

Pyle says that even iPod video looks pretty impressive after Vidikron is through with it.

SE2 preconfigures the ITC at the factory for whatever TV service the customer has. "We can even set up the sources with customer information so they don't need to call DirecTV," Pyle says.

When a system is upgraded or a cable/satellite card is changed, the system reconfigures itself, Pyle says. Newly released cards will need drivers from the Internet, or SE2 can send a Compact Flash card with the new drivers loaded. "The end user or installer does not have to configure anything," Pyle says.

For PVR capabilities, the ITC currently supports DirecTV HD PVR, Dish Network HD PVR, and Comcast HD PVR. More are on the way.

Alternatively, you could tap into a Media Center PC on the network and access it through the onboard Xbox 360, giving you full access to the Media Center's PVR (and pictures, and music…).

As for audio, the surround sound processor is the SP-2 from Bryston. SE2 uses ICEPower digital amps, the likes of which are used by Rotel and other leading brands.

Naturally you can bring your own speakers, but SE2 has worked with Triad to create a system that is optimized for the ITC. "We have all the configurations like EQ set up to match the speakers," Pyle says.