Paul with Design Engineering Group discusses emerging Green technologies on a Home Tech segment for the Texas Top Builder tv show in north Texas. These products not only improve a homes energy efficiency but also improve ease of use and overall aesthetics in a residence. Products from Savant Systems, Lutron lighting and shade systems, Nest and others are featured.
Apple iOs 9 Preview page 
Apple has improved on the ground breaking features in iOs8 by focusing on App feature enhancements. Adding new multitasking features, Siri updates, operating system performance updates, etc. Apple has moved the bar in mobile device experience. Many of these new might be implemented into Savant control using your iOs devices to make controlling your home even easier! Click on the link above for all the details. Older news and Posts
Apple has created the world’s most advanced mobile operating system with iOS 8. New features such as complete photo editing for all photos on all devices, adding voice messages to texts, iCloud Photo library, updated Notification features, smarter keyboard, Family sharing of iTunes, iBooks and App Store purchases, iCloud Drive and Mac Connected to your iOS devices. Click on the link above for all the details.
We are honored to announce that Cinema One has won the highly coveted Red Dot Award for Best Product Design. The Red Dot Award is one of the world’s most prestigious design awards, given for
aesthetic forms, well thought-out innovations and groundbreaking trends.
Cinema One was designed in collaboration with Whipsaw, an industrial design and engineering consulting firm located in the heart of Silicon Valley. “The goal was to create a device that was fresh, contemporary and exuded a level of sophistication that would stand out among other audio/video components in the living room,” said Cheena Srinivasan, founder and CEO of Kaleidescape. “With Whipsaw’s help, we were able to create a product that not only delivers the highly acclaimed Kaleidescape Experience but also looks good and is super easy to use. It’s a product that people will want to display rather than hide.”
The Cinema One design deliberately rejects the austere black box aesthetic. Wrapped in a sleek aluminum-finished case, it features a white faceplate on which the backlit Kaleidescape logo animates when the system is turned on and when music is playing. Status indicators and control buttons glow from within only when active and recede into the background when not in use.
The product also features a slot-loading BD/DVD drive for a cleaner, more elegant look as compared to more common tray-loading players. Combined with the Kaleidescape Movie Guide, Cinema One delivers the best Blu-ray experience, taking the viewer directly to the start of the feature film in six seconds or less. “Cinema One features a clean, light and graceful design that subtly communicates a sense of refined technology. We strove to make Cinema One the ultimate companion to the brilliant Kaleidescape Experience,” said Dan Harden, CEO and principal designer at Whipsaw.
Kaleidescape will be recognized as a winner of the award at the Red Dot Gala, to be held at the Aalto Theatre in Essen, Germany on July 7.
Kaleidescape’s Cinema One player has been many things to movie buffs, but “accessible” isn’t one of them — limited distribution and an emphasis on custom installs has kept it out of reach. The company is widening that scope with a redesigned Cinema One that’s almost as easy to install as an off-the-shelf Blu-ray player. It’s a tad more advanced than that, of course. The Cinema One integrates with most home automation systems, and it stores up to 100 Blu-ray quality movies (including Kaleidescape Store downloads). Viewers who need more storage can attach a second player or the older DV700 Disc Vault. The revamped Cinema One is still expensive at $3,995, but it’s at least easier to buy than its predecessor — Kaleidescape is selling the new media server direct on it’s own online store (see below) or through it’s dealers like Design Engineering Group.
The Cinema One comes in a beautiful form factor that is easy to set up in any family room or existing home theater, and is the company’s first product designed for retail distribution.
Cinema One lets consumers store and instantly access up to 100 Blu-ray or 600 DVD-quality movies in the highest audio and video quality available. With this new form factor and price, the renowned Kaleidescape Experience is no longer limited to just high-end custom installations.
“Magnolia has been demonstrating the Kaleidescape System in the theaters of our design centers for years,” said Bill Beverley, vice president of retail sales, Magnolia Audio/Video. “But until now, Kaleidescape’s products have been installed in large home theaters and whole-home integrated audio/video systems. With Cinema One, we can now offer the same experience in a simple-to-install and easy-to-use movie server to anyone who wants to have a truly theatrical movie experience.”
Cinema One provides a better home theater experience by letting viewers watch their Blu-ray and DVD movies without the delays of previews, menus or ads. Cinema One connects to any home automation system. So when you press Play, the lights go down, the masking is set, and the movie starts instantly, creating a truly theatrical movie experience. And with the unique CinemaScape video-processing mode, Cinema One is the best source devices available for a 2.35 home theater.
A second Cinema One can be added to double the storage capacity and enable viewing of the combined library on a second television. And a three-year standard limited warranty ensures customers can enjoy their movies worry-free.
With Cinema One, viewers can download movies directly from the Kaleidescape Store, which offers movie downloads with the same audio/video fidelity of Blu-ray discs. Downloads include all special features, audio tracks and extra content otherwise available only on the physical disc.
“Today, Blu-ray discs are the reference standard for the discerning viewer, but they’re not as convenient as streaming,” said Doug Blackburn of Widescreen Review. “The Kaleidescape Store is currently the only way to download movies with precisely the same audio/video fidelity as Blu-ray. With Cinema One, anyone looking for the ultimate home theater experience without the inconvenience of physical discs will find Kaleidescape to be the best possible option for a theater system that will impress the owner, family and friends.”
The Kaleidescape Experience is powered by the company’s comprehensive Movie Guide, which contains nearly a quarter million titles. As viewers browse their collection, the onscreen user interface highlights similar films based on genre, director, actors and more. Kaleidescape experts have handpicked thousands of the most memorable scenes in films, concerts and musicals so viewers can jump directly to the best parts of their favorite movies.
“The excellent video displays and sound systems found in homes today create a real need for a device that makes it easy to instantly view Blu-ray quality movies,” said Michael Malcolm, Founder, Chairman and CEO of Kaleidescape. “High-capacity hard disk drives, increasing Internet bandwidth, and the new Kaleidescape Store have made it possible to deliver the Kaleidescape Experience to anyone who enjoys watching movies at home.”
Cinema One is the first component in Kaleidescape’s new Cinema line, designed for smaller systems and featuring simple onscreen setup. The flagship Kaleidescape product line—which can serve collections of any size to a virtually unlimited number of rooms using rack-mountable hardware—is now called the Premiere line, and is intended for professional custom installation.
Cinema One is now available to experience and purchase in all of the Magnolia Design Centers. It can also be purchased from any of Kaleidescape’s 1,800 dealers worldwide or directly from store.kaleidescape.com (U.S. only).
Watch this video from USA Today Tech’s Mike Snider with the Kaleidescape Cinema One
Apple has created an all new simpler,sleeker,faster user interface with iOs7. All the features you have come to know and love are in iOs7 as well as tons of new and exiting ones. The noticeable differences are flat one dimensional icons and transparent layering. A new approach to animation and motion amplify the user experience and makes simple tasks more engaging. We will no doubt be following the Apple lead in developing our own Savant user interface taking cues from what Apple has done and implementing those ideas into our systems. Be sure to click on the link to learn more about the new iOs !
