AMX 2015 Developers Conference Highligts
ericmedley
Posts: 4,177
I thought I might report some of the highlights from this year's AMX Developers Conference.
Hopefully, others in attendance will chime in with other observations as well...
In no particular order:
The week started with a "all hands" meeting of which we were not privy to. But, my week's end we learned that Rahsid Skaf was stepping down as CEO of AMX. http://www.ravepubs.com/rave-scoop-amx-ceo-resigns/
The staff seemed calm about it as basically it seemed that Harmon was just pulling in AMX fully into its corral.
the two organizational highlights had to do with AMX/Harmon going forward and AMX University.
A Cliff's Notes version of AMX/Harmon basically is that AMX will become in large part the Harnmon Pro. But, the gist of it was that AMX wasn't functionally being swallowed up by Harmon but rather Harmon Pro was adopting a more AMX look and feel. There was some lively discussion about what this would look like from a dealer's and VIP's perspective. Details were forthcoming.
On the AMX University side - a similar thing - AMX training was going to move into a more global "Harmon Training" look but similarly - it was more along the lines of Harmon becoming more AMX-ish. There was discussion on how to move forward with certifications and how that would look under the new umbrella. My personal feeling is that Chris's ideas seemed much more fair and "real-world"; basically making certification "mean something" for us long-timers and/or people with unique and/or advanced skill sets. I'm sure we'll get the details later on this year as they feel they can implement the new system in time for 2016.
I am happy to report that the new version of NS has the ability to turn off the pesky "bring up the main file when you hit debug"
The new switcher interface for the DGX looks awesome and has all the nice features of the DVX but with waaaaay more depth of setup and monitoring and some really smart thinking that will make using it much simpler. It's totally html5 compliant so the real-time feedback is responsive and doesn't get wonky with the graphics.
Also, exciting IMHO was the acquisition of SVSI. For those who don't know - SVSI is kind of the front runner in the Video/TV over IP technology. Bear in mind this is not point to point (like a balun or DXLink RX/TX) but rather more like broadcast. (one to many/anyone) Many of us have worked with the technology before and it works nicely but does require a really solid network. The control protocol, while very powerful, is a bit klunky. The hope was that AMX's engineering might be able to smooth out the issues with the control protocol and make it "AMX Native" If this is accomplished, I see SVSI as being a monster and game-changer in video distribution. It will essentially eliminate the need for traditional video switchers in both small single-room and large enterprise level multi-space environments. In addition multi-cell video wall displays can be created without any processing. You simply tell each player to display a section of a stream (addressable by pixel X pixel sections.) I can see the ability to make a video wall with different size cells. That would look cool!
On the "Netlinx Native" topic - I and others voiced our opinion on AMX's current policy. As we all know, when AMX adopts/acquires a new company and/or technology, they can be a bit hesitant to make whatever it is "AMX Native" (in other words - whatever box shows up as a Netlinx device and takes Netlinx commands and so forth...) I feel like this kinda hurts them as it creates a climate of distrust within the dealers/programmers/users as the devices are programmed like an OEM and suffer from the non-AMX-ness that results. Other manufacturers we all deal with (namely C-tron) do not do this. if it has a C-Tron logo on it - it's fully C-Tron. )
This point was brought up several times. Hence, I and others voiced our opinion that AMX should adopt the policy that if it has AMX stomped on it - it should be fully Netlinx Compliant. I feel this does a couple things: One (and most importantly) it forces AMX to think a little longer and harder about bringing new horses into the stable and then forccing them to to be a little more rigorous in development and secondly, makes it much easier to implement the particular product into an AMX solution - thus bolstering the confidence in their product over all. That's my opinion and I'm sticking to it.
There was also some discussion of opening up the conference to more than just the VIPs. I thought this might be a good idea. Perhaps the VIPs could do some kind of forum discussion - kind of a "man on the street" thing or something.
I do have a few negatives as well but I didn't want this post to be negative. The conference was fun and I did get to meet forum folks like icraigie and John from Rocking M was there again.
Eric
Hopefully, others in attendance will chime in with other observations as well...
In no particular order:
The week started with a "all hands" meeting of which we were not privy to. But, my week's end we learned that Rahsid Skaf was stepping down as CEO of AMX. http://www.ravepubs.com/rave-scoop-amx-ceo-resigns/
The staff seemed calm about it as basically it seemed that Harmon was just pulling in AMX fully into its corral.
the two organizational highlights had to do with AMX/Harmon going forward and AMX University.
A Cliff's Notes version of AMX/Harmon basically is that AMX will become in large part the Harnmon Pro. But, the gist of it was that AMX wasn't functionally being swallowed up by Harmon but rather Harmon Pro was adopting a more AMX look and feel. There was some lively discussion about what this would look like from a dealer's and VIP's perspective. Details were forthcoming.
On the AMX University side - a similar thing - AMX training was going to move into a more global "Harmon Training" look but similarly - it was more along the lines of Harmon becoming more AMX-ish. There was discussion on how to move forward with certifications and how that would look under the new umbrella. My personal feeling is that Chris's ideas seemed much more fair and "real-world"; basically making certification "mean something" for us long-timers and/or people with unique and/or advanced skill sets. I'm sure we'll get the details later on this year as they feel they can implement the new system in time for 2016.
I am happy to report that the new version of NS has the ability to turn off the pesky "bring up the main file when you hit debug"
The new switcher interface for the DGX looks awesome and has all the nice features of the DVX but with waaaaay more depth of setup and monitoring and some really smart thinking that will make using it much simpler. It's totally html5 compliant so the real-time feedback is responsive and doesn't get wonky with the graphics.
Also, exciting IMHO was the acquisition of SVSI. For those who don't know - SVSI is kind of the front runner in the Video/TV over IP technology. Bear in mind this is not point to point (like a balun or DXLink RX/TX) but rather more like broadcast. (one to many/anyone) Many of us have worked with the technology before and it works nicely but does require a really solid network. The control protocol, while very powerful, is a bit klunky. The hope was that AMX's engineering might be able to smooth out the issues with the control protocol and make it "AMX Native" If this is accomplished, I see SVSI as being a monster and game-changer in video distribution. It will essentially eliminate the need for traditional video switchers in both small single-room and large enterprise level multi-space environments. In addition multi-cell video wall displays can be created without any processing. You simply tell each player to display a section of a stream (addressable by pixel X pixel sections.) I can see the ability to make a video wall with different size cells. That would look cool!
On the "Netlinx Native" topic - I and others voiced our opinion on AMX's current policy. As we all know, when AMX adopts/acquires a new company and/or technology, they can be a bit hesitant to make whatever it is "AMX Native" (in other words - whatever box shows up as a Netlinx device and takes Netlinx commands and so forth...) I feel like this kinda hurts them as it creates a climate of distrust within the dealers/programmers/users as the devices are programmed like an OEM and suffer from the non-AMX-ness that results. Other manufacturers we all deal with (namely C-tron) do not do this. if it has a C-Tron logo on it - it's fully C-Tron. )
This point was brought up several times. Hence, I and others voiced our opinion that AMX should adopt the policy that if it has AMX stomped on it - it should be fully Netlinx Compliant. I feel this does a couple things: One (and most importantly) it forces AMX to think a little longer and harder about bringing new horses into the stable and then forccing them to to be a little more rigorous in development and secondly, makes it much easier to implement the particular product into an AMX solution - thus bolstering the confidence in their product over all. That's my opinion and I'm sticking to it.
There was also some discussion of opening up the conference to more than just the VIPs. I thought this might be a good idea. Perhaps the VIPs could do some kind of forum discussion - kind of a "man on the street" thing or something.
I do have a few negatives as well but I didn't want this post to be negative. The conference was fun and I did get to meet forum folks like icraigie and John from Rocking M was there again.
Eric
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Comments
Yes, it is a gathering that has been in kind of a transition. Actually, there is discussions on opening it up to all AMX-ers. The name (I beleive) is a hold over from some previous permutation of VIPs. A lot of us VIPs are actually companies with more than one person.
We too saw the upgrades to the DGX platform (Audio breakaway FTW!) and also a live demo of the device firmware update feature of the new RMS4.4 upgrade.
There seemed to be a big push to get more AMX people familiar with SVSI. While I think it is a good product, I'm not sure they(AMX) are ready to fully support it. I too would like to see it become a native product on the the Netlinx bus.
I liked that Chris asked for our opinions and not wait for us to chime in either good or bad. I think the Harman purchase will be good for AMX and us. The other owners just wanted to make money on the sale of AMX and Harman wants to put AMX with their other product lines.
Ericmedley, it was good to meet you. Thanks for all your generosity last week.