ESSENTIAL HABITECH

UNLOCK THE MAGIC OF CINEMA

The Sonance/CinemaTech cinema at Habitech: just one of a range of awesome experiences waiting for your clients

Habitech’s cinema design services will turn the key to far greater rewards says cinema specialist Craig Wheeler.

The march of tech has played beautifully into the hands of all custom integrators. Alongside amazing functionality, simplicity and reliability, technological advance delivers more predictable outcomes as well. You’ll know for instance that with a little networking nous and the latest hardware, you can send data faster from A to B. That’s a given. It’s expected. You’ll also appreciate that today, home automation success relies almost exclusively on proven third-party innovation and rather less on local programming talent. Even garden sound has a predicable acoustic environment, it’s called free air. For me at least, there is only one frontier in the CI design repertoire that remains freighted with creative bandwidth - and the possibility of failure - and that’s home cinema design. Like herding cats, you’ll need a helping hand, because there’s so much to think about.

To achieve the goal of AV immersion - what THX’s Tony Grimani used to call ‘the willing suspension of disbelief’ - designers need to get many interdependent variables aligned in a harmonious three-dimensional equilibrium. Disturb one element and the illusion is shattered. It’s not simply the choice of speaker types and positions, or the channel count, amplification power, bass management or even the perfect screen for the space, it’s also the size, shape and construction of the room, as well as the seating numbers and positions. Hardware performance is important but not the only arbiter of success, because every room - the biggest audio processor of all - is unique. For this reason, cinema design is perhaps the last theatre of bespoke chemistry available to integrators. Minefield? You bet. Lucrative? Absolutely, when it’s done right.

Media room magic: James’ soundbars are custom made for the display with absolute precision

PERFECT CINEMA, STEP BY STEP

Which is why Habitech has invested so liberally in materials and manpower to support your cinema build projects at every design level, from a small media room to a completely optimised flagship room-within-a-room cinema. We have the hardware, the demonstrations, and the experience to remove uncertainty from the design process, avoiding all the aggro that ensues when a system fails to live up to the billing because it’s too small for the space, or the bass is undercooked, or the wrong

Render Real

Render v Real: take advantage of our new CAD design service as part of our end-to-end support for your project

The Sonance ‘Motion Flex’ Invisible range now includes a 15” sub for serious cinema sound in the ultimate media room context

choice of room fabric has made an expensive system sound like a cheap one. As with every CI enterprise, the best planning and delivery always makes for happy customers and locks-in loyalty, but it’s the size of the challenge that sets the dynamic arena of cinema design apart.

For instance, our new Home Cinema Essentials course lists six room variables for consideration, six further variables for the bass alone, seven for the speakers and four parameters for room acoustics. That’s before you tackle basic system setup, source components, audio calibration and video - with eight categories all to itself.

Whether you’re new to cinema or an established practitioner, our cinema design knowhow will guide you step-by-step toward achieving your goals, but long before a pen meets the contract, we’ll support your sales pitch by winning the hearts and minds of your customers. Bring them to Habitech for a dem. Most will have preconceptions of cinema as a collection of speakers round the telly and no understanding of the meaning of immersion. We’ll show them how it’s done with a generous application of ‘factor wow’ through flawlessly designed system environments serving budgets from £20k up. These residential settings personalise the adventure, as if it were taking place in their own homes and make the biggest contribution of all to our spectacular sales conversion rate, as well as gifting you with the opportunity for even greater rewards.

THE POWER OF PERSUASION

We’ve found that nothing motivates upsales quite like a choice of good, better, best experiences. Very often a client will arrive with a budget in mind and come away spending more, especially if they fall in love with the dedicated cinema rooms. Some have signed up immediately for the entire environment, which simplifies the procurement process beautifully. But this happy outcome for everybody starts with a jaw-dropping experience at Habitech. In the space of a few hours, we can make perhaps the biggest contribution of all to your project, not least because you can bag the signature without having to build your own dem. It’s the first stage of a proven and methodical path to hand-over, and we’ll be with you every step of the way, all variables optimised.

END-TO-END MAGIC

Habitech’s value-added culture provides the attention to detail needed for every project end-to-end. While rivals may offer you a design involving speakers, our service includes everything: complete bespoke AV system design and supply, backed up with CAD presentation and acoustic design packages - even interior design on the high-end systems. The entire caboodle is available from enlightenment to completion.

Media room system designs might involve James’ custom soundbars, which are purposebuilt and colour-coordinated with absolute precision for the TV display: a MicroLED Samsung for instance. Or you might opt for the new Sonance ‘Motion Flex’ Invisible range, now with a 15” sub model for grown-up theatre sound in the ultimate discreet media room context. Meanwhile our integrated room/system environments can offer you the video supremacy of Samsung panels, the new JVC ‘Procision’ 8K projectors and Projecta screens, combined with Sonance Reference Series architectural speakers for serious high impact/low footprint home theatre design. For the highest-end home cinema performance, choose Wisdom’s extraordinary flush speaker models, seamless and box free. All of this supported by versatile permutations of Arcam, Yamaha and Wisdom amplification, Panamorph lenses, Infinity seating, Sanus/ Middle Atlantic racks, SCP looms and the option of full Cinematech room design consultation.

And to make it even easier, our one-stop cinema design resource can recommend readymade room treatment packages optimised for five room sizes (with three ideal AV systems specified for each according to budget), and back it up with a new CAD design service producing system layouts and room renderings for presentation to your clients, cost refundable with supply.

THREE DECADES OF DESIGN EXPERIENCE AVAILABLE

Even if you haven’t had the chance to bring the client for a demonstration, and you’re going it alone (but using Habitech kit), run the design by me to avoid potential issues before they’re installed. Unless it’s a completely optimised cinema space inside a larger edifice, every project involves compromises, which need to be minimised. Sometimes the solution can be as glaringly simple as moving a sub, but it takes experience and instinct to spot it.

So, bring us in at any stage. I’m confident we’ll add value. Whether you’re taking your first steps in the lucrative cinema design market, or a lifer like me, our end-to-end design support will guide your project passed the pitfalls to the moment when the willing suspension of disbelief unlocks the magic of cinema for your clients. And that’s when everybody wins.

Habitech habitech.co.uk

KALEIDESCAPE TERRA 72 AND COMPACT TERRA: RE-INVENTING HOME CINEMA

Pulse Cinemas introduces what the company says are a “game changing set of product introductions and initiatives” for the Kaleidescape platform. Simon Gibbs, Technical Sales Support Manager and Brand Manager for the system at Pulse, explains.

Already the dominant force in high-quality home movie management, Kaleidescape now offers even more reasons for installers to invest. The company has just launched its most advanced movie servers yet, revealing new native compatibility with Lutron HomeWorks and has created an up-grade path that covers the entire range of products!

Available to order now, the new Kaleidescape Terra 72 delivers 4K Ultra HD, HDR and lossless audio and with a massive 50% increase on capacity from previous models, users can benefit from over 1,000 high fidelity 4K Ultra HD movies stored locally. Naturally title capacity increases if the user is storing a mixture of 4K, Blu-ray and standard DVDs. For those users not ready or not in need of that much capacity, Terra is also available with 48TB, or 24TB of capacity and multiple Terras can be combined for more storage. Superb upscaling of Blu-ray and DVD quality content to 4K resolution is also part of the package.

Kaleidescape Terra forms the cuttingedge core of a multi-zone advanced home cinema system and adds storage to existing systems, giving a home to high-quality content on an array of enterprise-quality hard drives. In addition to storing movies, Terra provides high-quality caching, staging and computing services that improve player performance, enable scaling to many players and improves significantly the quality of experience for the end user. This powerful new platform has been created for customers keen to move from disc to digital or to increase their collection through the Kaleidescape movie store.

The high-powered, multi-function Terra movie server can support any number of Strato C players and can serve up to an impressive 10 simultaneous 4K Ultra HD playbacks. Kaleidescape Terra with Strato C players provides the best 4K Ultra HD performance and the most flexibility for future expansion - keeping customers happy as their needs change over time.

For ultimate flexibility Terra can simultaneously serve movies over a standard residential Gigabit Ethernet network to Strato S and Strato C players anywhere in the home. Once a movie is downloaded and stored on Terra, it can be enjoyed immediately from any player, anywhere within the system. For extra peace of mind, Terra has been created to continue operating even in the unlikely event of hard drive fail. Movies will automatically be restored after the drive has been replaced as all content is mirrored in the cloud.

A really important point here is that Kaleidescape’s proprietary kOS operating system enables Terra to provide the advanced content protection required by Hollywood motion picture studios for their highest-fidelity movies, protecting the end users’ investment and also providing the opportunity to take advantage of more commercial/in-home simultaneous releases should that occur.

Another important point here, Terra is fast, downloading at up to 800 Mbps, a 4K Ultra HD movie is completed and ready to play in 10 to 12 minutes. For rack storage convenience, custom rack ears with faceplates are also available. End user price is quoted at £22,305.00 RRP ex vat.

THE COMPACT TERRA

This more compact cousin to the Terra 72, has been designed for customers eager to invest in the Kaleidescape experience, but not ready to commit to a larger movie server. However, this does not mean that owners miss out on the other abilities offered on the Terra 72. Compact Terra also has the power to download featurelength 4K movies in around 10 minutes and provides customers with the same experience as the larger servers, allowing the flexibility to add playback zones and grow movie collections over time by adding additional Terra servers. Compact Terra also offers the same upscaling of titles.

Compact Terra can support any number of Strato C players and serve up to five simultaneous 4K Ultra HD playbacks, and

two simultaneous playbacks for Strato S. It also has the ability to play back and download movies at the same time (with Strato C), which is something the Strato S cannot do. The Compact Terra (7.87in × 1.52in × 14.33in W × H × D) can be mounted beside a Strato C in a 1U rack space, using Kaleidescape’s custom rack mount, saving additional space. Combined with a Strato C, the Compact Terra will provide customers with powerful performance and flexibility for future expansion. The compact Kaleidescape Terra is available with 12TB of storage and up to four units can be combined in a single system for more storage. A single Compact Terra is capable of storing 180 to 360 movies with a typical mix of 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray quality and DVD quality titles and provides the same advanced content protection features for storage of 4K Ultra HD movies as its larger cousin. RRP on this unit is stated as £7,500.00 RRP ex vat.

LUTRON HOMEWORKS COMPATIBILITY

A further exciting announcement, especially relevant for Pulse Cinemas dealers (as we support both these fantastic brands), is new compatibility between Kaleidescape and Lutron HomeWorks. This new development will offer lighting control directly integrated with Kaleidescape’s Strato players to offer seamless interaction between lighting and playback.

This is made possible because Kaleidescape is designed from the ground up for the custom integration channel and is the only company that encodes integrative cues into its movies using proprietary metadata. This is what enables the precise control of lights and shades managed by Lutron’s HomeWorks system. By pressing play, Kaleidescape sends information about the movie to the control system to seamlessly adjust screen masking and lens shift in the projector, in the same sequence, lighting triggers close the shades and dim the lights, and intermission cues transition viewers in and out of the story when a break is needed. When credits roll, lights return gradually to ease viewers back into the real world. By eliminating outside distractions, these mood-defining capabilities captivate viewers through the transportive power of automation.

Oliver Deakin-Faux, our Brand Ambassador for Lutron, says, “Great lighting combined with playback has always been a big part of creating a great home cinema experience, and now with this new initiative it happens seamlessly and natively offering yet another reason to combine these high-performance brands.

COMPREHENSIVE UPGRADE PROGRAM

Announced in June of this year, Kaleidescape revealed a revamp of its trade-up program which was formerly restricted to the Premiere line. This comprehensive new approach offers dealers and end users the opportunity to upgrade any working products to a new unit from the entire range with discounts of up to 25%! The program is operated from one easyto-use system, controlled and administered via Kaleidescape’s dealer extranet site. The process is straightforward, so tasks like executing each upgrade, creating quotes and setting up logistics for moving the products around is all handled from within the site. Within the dealer extranet site dealers can see exactly what products are in the program and what products can be traded up for. The extranet can also be used to live browse customer’s Kaleidescape systems and see what possible upgrades might be appropriate for each system. To qualify, products must be in good cosmetic condition and be working. These units are fed into the remanufacture program and become part of the stock that can be accessed when a customer wants to upgrade to a remanufactured system rather than a brand new one. Return packaging is provided free of charge for every customer. Kaleidescape is also running a service where clients upgrading from one digital storage product to another can have all their existing content transferred onto their new or remanufactured product.

It all adds up to a simple but powerful way to enable logical upgrade paths for all your Kaleidescape customers. Kaleidescape was already far and away the best high-performance content and movie delivery system available. With these recent product announcements, integration initiatives and the new upgrade programme, the best is now even better. Contact us find out how this fantastic brand can take your next project to a whole new level.”

Pulse Cinemas pulsecinemas.com