Well there are a lot of threads about CEDIA here these days. I figure one more wont hurt anything. The point of this thread is simple. As the subject line says, "What would you like from CEDIA?". Since there are so many complaints from members and non-members I figured we could put together a list of changes we would like to see. Please dont turn this into another 'bitch' thread. Post up some ideas you have about things that need to change and maybe we can get someone from CEDIA to take a look and respond. Lets keep it clean and reasonable. Who knows, this just might work.

1) Online training and testing.
*Similar to ICIA training. Make the testing a timed event. I dont have a good
suggestion for keeping the testing honest at this point. i.e. No open book.

2) A 'grandfather' clause.
*If you have been in the industry, verifiable time, for X number of years you
automatically are awarded a Level 1 certification. I am thinking that 3 years
may be a good length of time.

3) More advertising of the CEDIA name and what it means for consumers.

4) Certification would require testing and logged hours.
*The electrical industry has done well with the Apprentice, Journeyman,
Master scheme. You can only test for these different levels once you have
accumulated a certain number of hours in the field.

5) A way of giving input to the organization via the internet.
*I dont really have a suggestion for this. A forum might be a good place to
offer up suggestion for making the organization better. It would be a way
to get everyone involved, even at the most basic level.

6) A CEDIA Certifed Manufacturer assignment.
*I want to be able to walk into a booth at CEDIA and see a sign that lets me
know that this manufacturer has a commitment to the CI industry. I want
that sign to mean, 'Yes, we have and will provide you with a set of discrete
IR codes, we have functional COM ports with available protocols.........our
equipment was designed with you in mind.


Okay, thats a few of the things on my mind. Lets see what else we can come up with.

A cure for the herpes I picked up at the show last year, first and foremost.

Second, I like your grandfather clause, but believe about 5 years would be a bit more sufficent.

Advertising would be huge. A nice one page spread in Rolling Stone or whereever, but get the word out there, because no one, even people in the industry don't know what CEDIA is.

A big thing, would be to have CEDIA certified manufactures. Manufactures that are installer friendly, have full discretes, factory support, work well with other products. Brands like Denon and Fujitsu. NOT Samsung, Panasonic, Sony etc.

An online database of IR and serial codes supported by the mfgr.
A program like Crestron "IP" called "CIF" (custom install friendly) to certify unit has full discrete codes.

I'm all for the CEDIA certified manufacturer's - why should we be the only ones facing CI regulations?!! And there definitely needs to be some brand awareness!! - who really cares that youre cedia certified? How about an Elite Level CEDIA membership? I think rather than what the organization is doing know to the whole industry, they should introduce a new set of standards that can honestly set the best of the best apart from the rest - HA, that rhymes!

I just want CEDIA to advertise so that we can get the word out!

Ditto that. Succinctly put, and I could not agree more.

"Ditto that. Succinctly put, and I could not agree more."

After this post I talked to severeal mfgrs. who are interested in such a database wedsite but, do not want to carry the cost on their own.
Do you think that it would be worth $50.00 a year to a dealer to have access to this info if the database covered most of the major products and was mfgr. supported as far as accurecy.

The "CIF" certified idea was well thought also.
I think that we could support this with 2/3 people and get equipment sent to verify.

What is the general opinion?

Sure, force the small CI companies to pay hundreds of dollars for certification but the damn manufacturers can't put a website together? Lets see, hmmm, who would benefit by such a site? THE DAMN MANUFACTURERS WHO ARE ON THE LIST.

Come on. If CEDIA had any guts they would publish a list RIGHT NOW of installer friendly companies and products. I mean, they are supposed to serve us, right?

I am not concerned with what CEDIA can't or wont do.
Personally I do not see CEDIA as a viable group for a dealer.
Not overly liked by many mfgr's either.
It has become a trade show group.
However it is the only game in town.
There are mfgr's out there who think that this info should be available.
Yes, they would benefit. But, they would also help to support the site.
Everybody whines that the info is not available, this is a chance to maybe get it.
I will continue to talk to mfgr's thru the show. Who knows it might work.
I am still an intergrater, it sucks when I cant get a code to get a job done
Note; This will certianly piss off someone whos thinks they should be the only one to intergrate a protected brand.
I know that a lot of people here thinks that CEDIA is screwing them. Believe me it is tougher on a small mfgr. For a small to med size company this show can wipe out a whole years budget. And lucky us we get to spend a whole week in Indy.

Well, the IR codes could just be posted here in the Pronto discrete section. Since the .ccf format has become somewhat 'universal', wouldnt it just make sense to post those IR codes here. As far as the Serial Protocol documents, just post them on the manufacturers website, openly. At the very least educate the CSR's that answer the phone and have them email the files out on a request basis. (I have yet to figure out why non-disclosure agreements are needed for consumer electronics serial control protocols.)


By uploading codes to an already existing site and then advertising on this site, the manufacturers can support the integrators, end users and offset costs all at once. I doubt that Daniel would mind the additional traffic and advertisement revenue. I have to disagree with creating additional expense for CEDIA with the need for a staff to update a database on a regular basis. WE spend our money with the manufacturers buying the gear, I am not for spending additional monies to 'join' a site just to acquire what should be freely available. Daniel has spent countless hours building this site and if a database is going to exist for IR codes on a website, I feel he should have 'first dibs' on it.

Sorry. Just my $.02

The criteria for being in the industry would have to be well defined because I can think of a number of electricians and security system installers would make that claim without understanding or caring about standards or practices of any sort (I like the installation I saw first hand where the security system/audio system installer used security cable for speaker cable, not the same gauge for left and right speakers and never mind the parallel run along 120v, hum what hum).


Certification hours requirements could also be adjusted depending on education (i.e. an accredited electronics technician (2 yr program) could be given the equivilent of 2-3000 hours of time in a 5000 hour apprentice program, using the electrical example above.)

We could start with the IR codes but also set standards for discrete functionality. (i.e. I'm thinking about the device with discrete codes for most functions and a legacy on/off power toggle,ugh)

My thoughts were on the line of you would have to have employeers/ex-employeers verify that you worked for a dedicated a/v company for X number of years. I know this woud exclude some people. I dont have a perfect solution but it would be more along the lines of fairness, IMO.


Excellent idea. I would only want to see a Level 1 skip though. Even for EE's. In this industry real world experience is greater than bookwork.


I agree. That is why I would like to see a certification for manufacturers as well as installers.


Good replies so far. Lets see what else we can come up with. I dont feel like any of these ideas/concepts are too far fetched, well, except a cure for herpes. (What did you do, or should I ask who did you do at CEDIA? LOL!!)

agree with avgenius1 no need to get overly complicated, let's just move in the right direction, some companies like Yamaha already make their codes available on their site.

I think what needs to happen, in this order, with manufacturers

1) realize discrete codes are IMPORTANT
2) make sure all your gear have them and make everything possible discrete
3) standardize all codes on your gear, if this is a new concept start with power=1, on=2,off=3 on all your devices and stick with all things common, then make sure all types of equipment have the same value for all models in the group (i.e. all TVs have a 9 so make it the same all TVs, they have at least one tuner so make it the same, all TVs with vid1 make it the same all TVs with vid2, if a handful of models have a vid6 make it the same if there is only one model with vid7 give it a new value but if you ever make an other model keep it the same that you just gave to this one .......)

none of these will cost them anything, will make them more efficient and would greatly help all CIs

4) make those codes available, be it documents that you give to the help desk, on your web site or posted somewhere.


I like your idea and prefer Pronto Hex, also all major remotes (Pronto -and siblings, HTM, RTI, Harmony, there is a Pronto -> OFA tool) can use them, but it does not need to be that complicated, nor limited to something that could be considered Philips proprietary, if they make available the type of code (NEC, RC5, Sony.....) device number and key value then someone will be easily be able to translate it to ProntoHex.

PS I will give two examples. of why I think 4 is more important then the tool. Back in 99 I was looking for a remote for the Tandberg VC system, I decided to try the Pronto and it looked to work. The original remote only had 3 discrete preset buttons and you could access the other 7 using preset + # (or something like that). In the manual for the system it said the system could have up to 16 of them and they could be used discretely. I asked my Rep who was from Tandberg to get the info, but eventually he came back to me that he could not. Luckily there was a good document describing Pronto HEX in the library here and I used to decipher and create all possible codes and found them using the manual process (create a button for each code, a piece of paper with a table, press 1 & write down effect, press 2 & write down effect.....

knowing from the manual that those codes existed helped a lot (motivation) but the problem was I could not get a hint from them where to look because the info was not readily available.

----

about a year ago I looked at a Christie Projector, due to the way we make our installs monitors have multiple duties and so I needed to make sure I could get easily to the different inputs. I send them an e-mail and got a nice answer back, something like no idea but here is a spreadsheet with some codes for our other projectors. So again (luckily this time the paper had that they used NEC codes and so making the list was easier) and did the trial and error and found the codes I needed. It ended up taking a long time , but the codes were there. If they would have been readily available the job would be done in seconds.

Not to say Yamaha is any better than any other company, but they're headed in the right direction. In several products they continue to use the same codes year in year out (i.e. a 10 year old RX-V495 and a ne RX-V2500 uses the same codes to switch the receiver to CBL/SAT).

And as Anthony has mentioned above they post the IR as well as RS232 info on their US web site (could not find this info on the Canadian web site) I don't know about other countries.