I am going to HELP you. Sound and Communications readers are mostly made up of professionals in the ProAV market in relation to Systems Integration of AV gear. So, you're the perfect market/reader for this.

I am continuously seeing systems that seem to be overly-complicated or, dare I say, over-engineered. What do I mean?

Some background first and a disclaimer.

As many of you know, I have served as the VP of Sales and Marketing for two of the premiere (in my opinion) manufacturers in the ProAV market, Extron Electronics and AMX (now called Panja). Both are what I term as "glue" manufacturers - glue, meaning, they provide key third-party components that make sources (i.e. VCRs, DVD players, PCs, VTC systems) work with display (i.e. projectors, plasmas) and integrate into the environment seamlessly (i.e. turn lights on and off, dim lights, open and close blinds, adjust HVAC, etc.). But, over the past five years, I have seem simplicity of systems actually decrease in some ways.

Extron P/2 DA2 Plus

Panja and Crestron have done a marvelous job at simplifying their systems and user interfaces as well as integration. They have blended their technology well with the Internet, allowing them seamless control of systems from anywhere in the world, they have lowered the cost of integration by making programming easier and they have even increased dealer margins to allow for a more competitive system for the client. And, they have made us think about the way we might totally re-engineer a system to allow for better control, less expensive control and more seamless control with the environment.

Extron, Altinex and Inline have each, in their own way, simplified systems in a way we may not have realized until just now. When I was at Extron, we had to educate and re-educate our sales people continuously on the merits of one interface over another. And then, we had to make sure they knew which interface to use for which application. Well, over the years, all three of the manufacturers have, at one time or another, introduced the ultimate interface and it not only is simple to use, it's inexpensive too. It's commonly referred to the VGA splitter. That's all you need.

But, why do we continue to use all those boxes in a system simply processing video, RGB and audio signals?

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