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Automation Integration
Introduction
Part of the joy of a great home theater is that you don’t
have a tray of remote controls staring at you whenever you
want to watch a movie. Hidden away behind the scenes is a
workhorse that takes care of the mundane tasks of turning
on all the components, lowering the curtains, dimming the
lights, popping the corn, etc. This faithful servant can take
the form of a simple learning remote control or a system as
capable as a whole house automation system with touch-
screens. There is a wide variety of theater controllers avail-
able.
There are two means of remotely controlling the Mae-
stro M2e: With Infrared (IR) Remote control and with the
RS-232 Serial Port. Both of these methods feature a very
extensive library of commands. It is really up to the sys-
tem designers choice of user interface as to which of these
methods will be used. It is possible to use both of these in
the same installation depending on your needs.
Infrared Control versus RS-232
Infrared remote control systems are typically less expensive
than RS-232 controllers. Their main limitation is that Infra-
red is strictly line-of-sight. That means that there has to be
an unobstructed view between the controller sending the
infrared commands and the IR sensor or front panel of the
Maestro M2e. When you try to send long groups of com-
mands (macros) such as: Turn on the TV, Turn on the Mae-
stro M2e, Turn on the DVD, Select the DVD Input on the
Maestro M2e, Play the DVD; everything can easily get out
of sync if you sit down the IR controller or somebody walks
in front of you before all the Infrared commands have been
sent. Infrared is also typically a one-way communication.
There is no way for the IR remote to know if the command
was received correctly.
RS-232 Serial control is a hard-wired connection. There
is usually a wire connecting the user interface (keypad or
touchscreen) to the controller system. Then another wire
connecting the controller system to the Maestro M2e. RS-
232 is also a two-way communications scheme. This allows
Automation Integration
Summary of Contents for Maestro M2e
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