NetStreams Builds ‘World’s First IP Home Theater’

Best known for its line of IP-based audio and video distribution systems, NetStreams is demonstrating "the world's first IP home theater," according to VP of marketing Petro Shimonishi.

In SR-7, NetStreams will demonstrate IP video and surround sound audio distributed to IP speakers.

NetStreams' DigiLinx IP-based video distribution system debuted at CEDIA 2006, and is now shipping.

On audio, company has been partnering for a few years with Polk Audio, which makes IP speakers based on NetStreams' StreamNet technology.

But the hallmark of the new home theater solution is the new CinemaLinX surround-sound receiver, demonstrated for the first time here at the Expo.

The receiver takes in Dolby or DTS surround signals, and converts them into discrete IP packets, delivered over the IP network. The IP speakers simply connect to the home's network and pick up the appropriate streams. "You can stream each channel to specific speakers," Shimonishi says.



NetStreams makes this possible (or at least bearable) with its proprietary StreamNet networking technology which synchronizes audio and video streams throughout a network. The company claims that latency with StreamNet can get down to 1 millisecond, virtually eliminating the echo effect that plagues other whole-house IP-enabled music solutions.

Why Bother with IP?

The benefit of IP-enabled speakers, Shimonishi asserts, is that their built-in intelligence makes them infinitely more tweakable than their unintelligent counterparts. Polk's LC265IP in-wall speakers are powered, and feature digital signal processors, allowing EQ calibrations to be conducted right at the speaker locations.

"You can just place microphones by the speakers, and they will autoconfigure themselves (for EQ)," Shimonishi says. Because settings for each audio device can be adjusted with such precision, the speakers can be positioned virtually any place in the room, and still deliver a pristine surround-sound experience, Shimonishi explains.

"There are more parameters you can adjust with digital speakers," Shimonishi says. "The dynamic range expands because there is so much tweaking you can do."

The built-in digital amplifiers, furthermore, enable an end-to-end digital stream with no degradation from analog/digital conversion.

In the NetStreams Sound Room at CEDIA, the company will demonstrate two different home theater environments -- traditional analog and all-IP. Shimonishi swears the digital demo will blow away its analog counterpart.



In addition to the IP video, IP surround sound and Polk IP speakers, the demo room will feature new IP speakers from Sonance and Triad. Sonance has not announced which of its speakers will ultimately be IP-enabled, but Triad has committed to going digital with its entire line of speakers.

"They believe, just like we do, that everything is going IP," Shimonishi says.

Another benefit of an all-IP system is that it doesn't matter where source equipment is located. It can be all in one place or distributed throughout the house or a little bit of both. A solution like NetStreams "really opens the door for multiroom home theaters," Shimonishi says.


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