Continuing on with the CEDIA 2008 coverage…

Sooloos had an impressive display on the show floor this year.  They have been working on several new products and had working prototypes of all of them.  I can’t definitively say any one was better or more exciting than the other as they are all great product offerings.

Stores: The two box storage solutions (Store:One and Store:Two) have been discontinued for three new models.  All models now feature removable hard drives giving you the option to buy a disk drive from Sooloos with your order, or you can purchase it on your own.

Ensemble: Single disk drive with all space being dedicated to storage, backup via ControlPC.
Twinstore: Two drive solution with automatic backup; one disk for storage, one for backup.
Quadstore: Four drive solution with automatic backup; two disks for storage, two for backup.

Source: The Source:One and Source:Five remain with no changes. However, it was announced that new versions of these units, with significantly upgraded DAC’s, will be available soon. As you may or may not know, the DAC’s have been abused in recent reviews and it’s great to see Sooloos taking action. There will be an upgrade program for all existing sources.

Control: The Control:One, with its outstanding user interface, still remains the highlight of the product line. The 17″ touchpanel will soon be joined by a wireless handheld, which has been talked about for many months. ControlPC, the desktop software application, remains in the line up with a UI update due shortly. There have been several updates in recent months and the software now includes the ability to import music from your computers hard disk or internal CD or DVD drive, backup and restore, edit metadata and, of course, manage music and playlists.

Additionally, you can now control your Sooloos music server with an iPhone or an iPod Touch. Finally, the new Control:Bridge is used for seamless integration with Crestron.

Software: There will be new skins available for the UI in the next couple of weeks, which is really cool, but the major announcements from CEDIA are the addition of the DVD and Blu-ray support as well as a photo collection interface. These will use a new product called the Cinema which will process the audio and video from the store and send it to one display and audio source. The Cinema is only compatible with the Twinstore and Quadstore. Ensemble owners will still have photo access, management will be done via ControlPC and images will be displayed on the Control:One touch-panel.

The last big announcement for the software is the integration with the online digital music service Rhapsody. While the exact details have not been fully released, this will make the Sooloos system even more attractive to own.

So, that’s the latest on the new releases, here’s my take on everything. First, all of the new products and features are very exciting and will secure Sooloos in the music serving market. The DVD and Blu-ray support remains to be proven simply because they are getting to the dance a little late. The industry has seen a number of companies getting into the market segment in addition to the ones who were already there. The good news for Sooloos is they have the luxury of seeing what others have successfully (and unsuccessfully) accomplished and will hopefully use this a guide for releasing they solution. The preview looked great but until we get a chance to actually use it in a live environment the jury is still out.

The photo management software and display looked great. The ability to easily manage your entire photo collection and share it to TV’s through out the house could easily be one of the leading selling points of the system.

So, Sooloos (btw: it’s pronounced sue-loose) had a very good showing at CEDIA. I stopped by the booth at different times throughout the show and they were always busy with attendees. We’re definitely excited about the new products and I’ll report back as they start hitting the streets.

Well it’s time for the annual CEDIA Expo and once again it’s being held here in Denver.  I actually had a chance to get on the show floor a little early this year to help a couple of manufacturers setup their booths. In doing that I was able to get a sneak preview of a couple of interesting technologies and products that are coming out.  I’ll definitely be reporting on everything of interest over the next couple of days, in the meantime here is a quick preview on a couple of technologies I’ll be looking at and what we might expect.

Blu-ray – still the topic of major discussion even though HD-DVD is out of the picture.   McIntosh has announced it’s new player (due later this year) and several other manufactures have 2nd or even 3rd generation players announced for the show.   I suspect we’ll see a bunch of inexpensive players by Christmas and probably some expensive, high-performance models too.

OLED and SED – these are new display technologies that will change the flat panel industry from thin to very, very thin. This will be an interesting market segment to follow.

Projection – now that the initial wave(s) of 1080p players have reached the market we’re going to see a bunch of high-end projectors hit the market.  So far, the buzz is about Meridian, Wolf, Christie, JVC and, of course, 8250’s personal favorite,  projectiondesign with their new avielo product line.

Whole house distribution – a lot of new products are recently out or coming out which do various forms of HDMI distribution throughout the house as well as some innovative audio products as well

Media servers – another growing market segment is media serving. Obviously 8250 Theaterworks is interesting in Sooloos and their new product offerings as well as Kaleidescape.

If anyone out there is interested in any other technologies, manufacturers or products, let me know and I’ll be sure to check it out and report back.