URC's Total Control home-automation system, including the new Total Control 2.0, has been able to control Kaleidescape media servers for quite some time. But the communication has always been one-way — enabling basic control through URC devices, but no feedback from Kalediescape products.
Now the software-development firm Chowmain has created a driver that enables complete two-way communications over IP. Launching at ISE 2018 in February, the solution enables real-time feedback such as cover art, as well as richer controls through a Kaleidescape GUI.
“For example the home owner can browse and select content directly from their URC TDC-7100 portable touchpanel,” says Chowmain principal Alan Chow.
But it's not just about the interface. Kaleidescape is famous for the rich metadata it tags and exposes, down to specific scenes in a given movie.
With this information now exposed within URC, smart-home integrators could program a system to dim the lights, set the projection modes and adjust the screen masking to correspond with the characteristics of a movie.
Likewise, scenes could be programmed to ramp up the lights at intermission or when credits start to roll — data all presented through Kaleidescape.
Furthermore, if you're multitasking while viewing, you could have URC Total Control flash the lights when iconic scenes start to play, whether those scenes are bookmarked by Kaleidescape itself (a claim to fame for the manufacturer) or hand-picked by the user.
In addition to URC, Chowmain develops drivers for Control4, Elan, RTI (coming soon) and Crestron (coming soon).
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