SVI Magazine

Is this a sign of the times and maybe the start of a trend? When I say it is sad, I mean that from the bottom of my heart. If I look back to the early days of DSE Digital (this being a time when CI companies just did not exist outside of London), you had the likes of Sevenoaks doing a little custom install and Bang and Olufsen catering for the high ground, but none of the distributors of the early 90s liked dealing with the small CI Company.

CSE was different; they listened to the little guy and did their best to look after you. During the 90s, if the local Sevenoaks had a Lexicon account, the CI guy had to buy gear from them – I remember having to buy all my MC1 processors from the Newcastle branch. Times were easier, people were more loyal. But as the recession has started to bite – and I do believe that the wave this year is worse than in 2009 – more and more companies are suffering from the age-old problem of cash flow.

The days are gone when companies pay you quickly, as we are all in a chain. With the margins we are making now, this means that there is less surplus cash in our accounts. Just the other day I was shocked at having to pay nearly £100 to fill up my tank – two years ago this would have cost me £60. We try to pass on some of these costs to our clients, but as the competition is stiff out there, we need to be keen. Like most mid-size companies, you can imagine how our expenses have grown thanks to rises in petrol costs, road tax, congestion charges and hotel accommodation bills, just to mention a few.

true blu
Anyway, time to move on to brighter things. What have we been playing with lately? Well, I love the new Arcam BDP100 Blu-ray player. We have had four of these lovely machines on back order, and when two of them hit our stock room yesterday, I was like a 12-year-old at Christmas, ripping the packaging off to hook one of them up to a high-def screen.

I was not disappointed. What a great picture and pin-sharp sound resounded from the B&W 800 series speakers it was connected to! You still have the annoying Blu-ray side effect of discs loading slower than DVD, but with a noticeable speed increase compared to the Pioneer player that was previously in the room. The clarity of the sound was the biggest leap - I found that the vocals from the centre speaker took on a new dimension, and even the bass had more impact. Hard to believe, as the room had two, yes, TWO REL Studio subwoofers! Another great plus point is that we have a queue of customers willing to pay the £1000 price Arcam have set for this unit, and there is also an upgrade path available for 3D, making it one nice piece of kit.

One other piece of equipment that has recently landed in our demo rooms is the new 7-inch touch screen from Control4, the Infinity Edge 7. This screen is much more sexy than its processor - it is slimmer, and more importantly to us CI guys, it comes with a small back box about one third the size of the old one. With the iPad dominating the control market, it will be interesting to see how many of these we can sell on our jobs, but overall, it’s a great step forward in design, and another reason why Creston should be scared.

now in 3D
It seems that 3D is still hitting the headlines. I read with interest that one of the best 3D demo movies will be a new version of Star Wars, but that we will have to wait a full two years before we can spin it. One upgrade which available now is a firmware update for the PS3 that makes it 3D compatible – but don’t throw out your dedicated Blu-ray player yet. Since the PS3 doesn’t have HDMI 1.4 ports, the picture is in 1080p, but the sound is limited to compressed DTS 5.1. So is it worth all the fuss?

Well, I fired up Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and a message appeared, offering me the option to play the movie in 2D or 3D. The 3D effect definitely worked, as the characters in the movie were in the foreground with the scenery behind them – and as the hamburgers dropped from the sky, they landed on the demo room floor! I do think 3D is still largely a gimmick, though, as I could only deal with the movie for another 30-minutes before going back to the 2D version on my Arcam player with its awesome sound.

I always prefer to be pulled into a movie via a good story, sharp pictures, and most importantly, lossless HD sound in my preferred DTS 7.1 format. 3D has its place, but in my opinion, that’s in the local IMAX theatre. Either way, the firmware update is free, so try it out - but don’t forget your visit to Comet to pick up a 3D-ready television.

So, it’s back to the grind of work - and it really has been a grind lately, as we are starting to find out just how hard it is to work with French electricians and architects. We are still at the planning stage of this job, but it seems that nobody reads my emails or answers the phone. Is it still true that the French don’t like us Brits, or is it just me being paranoid? If things are tough at this stage, I can only imagine how much fun we are going to have when we land at site with a transit van full of screens and a full cinema set up!

There are no boundaries when it comes to CI installations, but I do sometimes feel like I have jumped into the lion’s den without a plan. When you weigh up the issues with unstable power in the south of France, coupled with the hard task of getting out there to put things right, I find myself asking the question, IS IT ACTUALLY WORTH IT?

Dave Slater is MD of DSE Group incorporating DSE DIGITAL

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