Thanks to our AVAD account manager Kevin Ezzell from AVAD South East, I along with two of my senior managers was able to meet with Mike Everett, Eastern Regional Sales Manager and Kevin Marty CTO of RTI this weekend at the EhExpo in Orlando.

I had a brief discussion with them concerning the development schedule for 2 way RS232 and how it would be implemented. I expressed to them that our use of RTI was not just for remote control use and that we had high hopes it would become a full blown control system when we started using the line. I expressed to them that I was very happy overall with the products but was frustrated with the slow development progress. They were very receptive to my comments and were eager to share some general information. As the meeting concluded, Mike asked me to post a thread on this forum to discuss what we had talked about. Mike specifically indicated to me that they read this forum but do not post.

I was told that two way RS232 is scheduled to be ready by CEDIA 2008. The initial release will include pre-written drivers. The devices that will be included first will probably be AVAD distributed devices such as Lutron and Marantz but they were open for suggestions. Mike asked me to send him a list of devices that were of interest to us but I am willing to compile a list from the user community if anyone is interested in providing input. See instructions for submittal below.

Kevin Marty mentioned that a development environment would follow at a later date (no specific timeframe) to allow the user community to develop two way drivers.

I asked specifically about string processing and it was mentioned that javascript would be used as the processing language on the front end.

As to the drivers you would like to see developed first, send an email to rti2way@gmail.com. I will compile a list by number of requests and post results on this thread. Please list the equipment with manufacture and model in the order of preference. I'll weight them by scores and publish results. I will send a list sometime after April 1 so send your information before then.

Example:

1.Lutron,Homeworks
2.Elan,System12
3.Elan,System8
4.Ademco,APEX
5.Yamaha,RXV2700


I left the meeting with a sense that RTI does care deeply about providing a great product and that they do care about their customer base. I have a much better sense of where they are headed.

Thanks for passing on the info vbcodep. It always nice to know that manufactures occosionally drop by to see what is being said about their products. I look forward to seeing two way by CEDIA 2008 but I won't hold my breath.

Also, you may want change that email address to read something like rti2way at gmail dot com to stop the downpour of junk mail.

i'd like to see 2 way for ADA products.

it would be nice to use nice rti panel and remotes and get feedback from tuners and media servers et'al

i say make it easy enough so that we can write our own 2 way 232 stuff

Ed,

I would be nice to know that you have the output muted as you keep cranking up the volume on a Suite16.

:)

mine goes to 11

1)Pioneer displays
2)Denon-Marantz
3)Audio Control
3)AutoPatch
4)NeoPro
5)Sonance 875D
6)Aprilaire and many other HVAC systems
7)DirecTV

Thanks for all the feedback.

Please provide specific make and model numbers and email them to the address. Denon/Marantz is a pretty broad stroke request. They probably will develop a handful of drivers initially.

Thanks,
John

I'm afraid the amount of development time involved in making serial parsing easy enough for ed would put RTI out of business.

I would really like to see:

1) HAI OMNI(s)
2) Russound CAV, CAM, and ST* line of tuners.

Niles ICS System
Integra DTR 5.8, 7.8
Teac TR680RS
Nuvo Grand Concerto
Escient Fireball

I second these.

LG Displays
Pioneer Displays
Neopro
Aprilaire
Yamaha
Denon
JVC Proj
Sim2
GE Sec
Russound
Escient


Then just when you get that done do it all again for the next year product mix.

Denon AVRs and DVDs
Lutron Homeworks
Vantage Infusion
Kaleidescape
Planar Projectors
Niles ICS
Escient
Request

They mentioned Javascript for a front end so this would make string parsing pretty easy to format a string that was pulled as a query string.

really tony, do you know me well enough to bust my balls like that? =)

its sad but true.