Crestron & Microsoft to Take Media-Centric Automation to ‘Whole New Level’

Crestron and Microsoft are doing something big together. The two companies are expected to launch some kind of media-centric control platform that will take their offerings "to a whole new level," says Fred Bargetzi, VP of technology for Crestron.

He and Crestron executive VP Randy Klein, however, refused to say just what kind of solution the two companies plan to introduce. They won't divulge their entire plans at CEDIA, but the duo will at least reveal the depth of their partnership, and may hint at their direction.

Crestron has been warming up to Microsoft for years. It started back in 2004 when the company introduced the Isys i/O line of touchpanels running Windows Embedded OS.

Crestron's next generation mobile Web/control interface, the XP-enabled TPMC-8X, introduced in September, 2006, was an even more striking Windows implementation, where Internet functionality was tightly integrated with home controls. For example, a Skype call might trigger a movie to pause and the lights to turn on.

As for Windows Media Center, Crestron demonstrated an automation interface a few years ago, but stopped short of rolling out a formal Media Center-based solution.



What started out as mere standardization on Microsoft platforms, however, has taken Crestron deep into the Microsoft realm. Things really took off when Microsoft decided to standardize on Crestron's RoomView .NET-based resource management system for its thousands of boardrooms around the world.

A deeper relationship between the two companies evolved from that process and now, "We're working with Microsoft to bring solutions into people's homes," Klein says. "Crestron and Microsoft are going to take it to a whole new level."

Again, Crestron won't say what "it" is. We expect at least some kind of clarification at CEDIA, where Crestron will also reveal some equally "industry-changing" initiatives, so they say.

Crestron as Direct OEM

Whatever "it" is, Crestron needed to become a direct OEM partner to do it. Direct OEMs have special access to certain Microsoft-related privileges. We hear the term most often as it applies to CableCard. You need to have a direct OEM relationship with Microsoft to build CableCard capabilities into Media Center computers.

"Quite some time ago, we realized we had to be a direct OEM," says Bargetzi. "If you want to be able to handle DRM [digital rights management] content, you can't build a system without it."

Getting to be a direct OEM provider is an incredibly difficult feat, and only a few of the relatively small PC builders have garnered the status—Niveus, Velocity, and most recently Exceptional Innovation to name a few. A very few!

With Crestron having never built a traditional PC before, and showing little interest in Media Center in the past, the company should have had a particularly difficult time securing a direct OEM partnership.

"It wasn't easy," Bargetzi says, "until we got to the right people."

As it turns out, the right people were thrilled to get Crestron on board. Klein says, "They [Microsoft] recognized that they needed the A/V industry to proliferate, to move their initiatives forward. They looked to us as a leader."

Consequently, Microsoft approved Crestron in record time saying, "We've never done this so fast," as Bargetzi tells it. "Microsoft said: We want Crestron to make a product with Microsoft in it. It's not even about sales. We know you're a leader in this industry."

Again, Crestron won't say what it's doing with Microsoft other than that, "We're working on a technology together, and we're going to bring it out together."

Pure Speculation

So I'll just speculate: Sometime in the near future, we'll probably see a solution in which home automation is an integral part of Media Center. With Vista, Microsoft added some great features that allow developers to "hook" into the Media Center environment.

Some manufacturers have already done a nice job of implementing Media State Aggregation Service (MSAS), which enables a Media Center to respond to different "states," such as the on/off status of a DVD. Pausing a DVD after sunset, for example, could trigger the lights to turn on.

I suspect, however, that Crestron and Microsoft have an even more seamless solution for integration.

I'm hoping, too, that they will have some sort of DRM fix that addresses the limitations of Media Center as a whole-house A/V system. Currently, for example, you can store protected CableCard content on a server, but you can only play it through the Media Center that recorded it. Because DRM has kept many high-end automation players out of the Media Center game, I suspect the issue will play a key role in the ultimate Crestron/Microsoft solution.

While they're at it, perhaps the duo can make Media Center more amenable to whole-house audio in general.

Plus, I bet Crestron will come out with some good user interfaces for Media Center, which is sorely needed. How about some in-wall keypads with Pika (Media Center Extender) technology built in? Perhaps some handheld remotes with SideShow?

And maybe this "thing" that Crestron is doing with Microsoft will allow integrators some leeway to create their own custom interfaces, as Crestron dealers are wont to do.

And, finally, maybe we can obsolete this recent editorial: Media Center’s Identity Crisis: How Vista Undermines the Entertainment Platform