So I was working on a buddy's Prodigy system last night. Got the remote working, got the xpanel working, but couldn't get my iPod touch to connect to the system.

Somewhere along the line, I unchecked a box marked "enable DHCP" and poof, gone, like the PMC2 doesn't even exist in the home anymore.

No Crestron software can find it... I'm stumped.

Have you tried connecting via USB? Have one in front of me right now. Out of the box I connect USB. Once I give it an IP I'll move to IP com. But when all else fails a direct connection is best.

Alan

Yeah, if you turned off DHCP and didn't assign it an address it can't communicate via IP any more.

Connect to it via USB and either assign it a static IP or turn DHCP back on so it can pull down and address from the router/DHCP server.

You don't need a full reset. It is more than likely fine. It just can't communicate without an address.

Hmmm... makes sense. Thanks for the input guys.

While we're on the topic of Prodigy though, how's everyone liking it so far? Are all the products available? Dist. Audio?

I've regrettably put Prodigy on the back burner for a bit because I wasn't confident enough to put it in a client's home, but I would still love to be able to use it.

I believe the distributed audio peice is a few weeks out.

I have the demo system open and I've begun coding the demo program. Currently have ipod, lighting, HVAC, Squeezebox, weather working--well sort of. I coded the plx2 first. Coding the touch panel and once finished it'll be working.

With all of this snow, I've been doing a lot of development.

Alan

The PAMP-4X100 just started shipping.

I do very little residential, so I've only played with a couple. So far I like the hardware, pricing, positioning, etc. but I'm not impress with the software (Composer) at all.

I tried Composer on the first one, couldn't get it to do what I wanted it to do, tossed it out, and started over in SIMPL and everything worked fine.

I think the Prodigy-only dealers are going to be frustrated for a while, but it seems like a very logical and powerful entry-level line for an existing Crestron dealer.

I think you're right. I'm a Prodigy only dealer. I really liked the idea behind Prodigy, and would love to be able to do a lot of it, but I just can't right now. I'm not confident enough with the installation process to put it in a client's home and tell them that it will work every single time.

A lot of that is squarely on my shoulders though, from what everyone says, composer is out, and you really need to do it in SIMPL... so I guess I have some learning to do.

That's not true. I program in Simpl and I'm coding Prodigy in Simpl. Notwithstanding, Composer and Systembuilder allow you to do an awful lot, including a fairly sophisticated featureset.

I ran Proidigy composer and Systembuilder and my only objection is that I don't trust GUI code. I have had too many systems fail due to database screwups. Secondly, I'd rather not have to send my file in to TB for them to fix once this happens. Thrid, and since I have the ability to code I can do some cool things that separates my Prodigy systems from yours.

Composer is fairly limiting but in 15 minutes you can code a system with lights, HVAC, pre/pro display, distributed audio and sources is not bad. Once you take the project into Systembuilder you have still more control and can perform some very sophisticated features.

Is this the same as Simpl coding? Of course not. But you still can do some cool things.

Alan

I think I may have confused SIMPL and systembuilder... see how new I am to this? :-)

Agreed.

I was hesitant as well, but after our first training, i didn't learn how to do anymore than I already figured out, but I was able to ask questions and start to have an understanding of how Crestron handles programming through SB and the benefits that the composer has.

The composer is a very quick and easy way to get a bunch of the heavy lifting out of the way. Move it to system builder and you can customize with If/Else statements or whatever.

From what I can tell, you can really do a lot with System Builder and its along the same lines as RTI or URC programming software. NO its not the same, but its the same idea as far as configuring a system.

I still want to learn more so that I can customize MY systems, however as the sits, the system is definitely ready for installation.

I'm actually proposing a system today.

Cool, thanks for the input! And good luck today!

Here is an example of what I was talking about.

I did a very basic room with a flat panel, AVR, TV, Blu-ray, and a CD player.

The AVR had an AM/FM tuner in it. Select that as a source and the TV is turned on. A) that shouldn't have been included in the macro to start with, but more iportantly B) I coudn't find anywhere in Composer to tell it to not do that.

SIMPL is a lot more work to start with, but little changes like that are pretty easy.

In the interest of full disclosure, I don't really use System Builder either. I probably could have fixed it there, but for me the jump to SIMPL was the logical "just get it done" move.

Anyone had problems with the iPhone apps? Namely the free version vs the paid version?

The FREE version doesn't work with Prodigy, but I've seen the PAID version working great. I hope try it out this weekend.

I'm going to try the Prodigy in a multi-room system with distributed audio and video. For video switching, I'm thinking about using the Niles piece, which can be controlled by IR. All TVs are going to be connected to a Xantech IR router on one of the processor's IR output ports - this is used just to turn the TVs on and off. Hopefully this can be done with system builder after I import IR codes into the library. I know this is really pushing the system but my only other options are Home Logic (no handheld controllers), RTI (a bit more expensive and no off site control) and URC. Anyone see anything wrong with this?