More from a touch panel
jazzwyld
Posts: 199
So with all the new advances in touch panels and PC in the last few years
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqDQ0wUcSPQ (Windows 7)
http://www.apple.com/ (watch the Oct 14th Event about multi touch touch pads)
The new Ipod Touch is $499, Iphone $599, new 15in MacBook Pro 2.53 Ghz ? 4GB RAM - $2499
This is definitely not a bash, but how can AMX be new and inventive for $5k for a touch panel. If you ever played with a Ipod Touch?they are freakin? cool. I bought one for my wife. She loves it.
Just some of my ideas for interesting integrate features:
Multi-touch (zooming)
Integrate a photo viewer in the touch panels/master. So instead of going black it becomes a photo gallery with no code needed.
Higher Resolution (standard resolution for every TP in the line)
VOIP standard for every TP
Bigger/Better processors ? let?s say I want my touch panel to run Microsoft Office and look at my calendar/email/tasks/notes?it would be great to easily use it.
MSRP - $800 for 5.2in with all the current features.
I know there are some things that are possible via code like e-mail and RMS can help with scheduling. Just wanting more out of a 5k TP
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqDQ0wUcSPQ (Windows 7)
http://www.apple.com/ (watch the Oct 14th Event about multi touch touch pads)
The new Ipod Touch is $499, Iphone $599, new 15in MacBook Pro 2.53 Ghz ? 4GB RAM - $2499
This is definitely not a bash, but how can AMX be new and inventive for $5k for a touch panel. If you ever played with a Ipod Touch?they are freakin? cool. I bought one for my wife. She loves it.
Just some of my ideas for interesting integrate features:
Multi-touch (zooming)
Integrate a photo viewer in the touch panels/master. So instead of going black it becomes a photo gallery with no code needed.
Higher Resolution (standard resolution for every TP in the line)
VOIP standard for every TP
Bigger/Better processors ? let?s say I want my touch panel to run Microsoft Office and look at my calendar/email/tasks/notes?it would be great to easily use it.
MSRP - $800 for 5.2in with all the current features.
I know there are some things that are possible via code like e-mail and RMS can help with scheduling. Just wanting more out of a 5k TP
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Comments
Apple iPhone on market for 200 days - sells 4 million units worldwide
http://www.intomobile.com/2008/01/15/apple-on-market-for-200-days-sells-4-million-units-worldwide.html
How many days do you think it takes AMX to sell 4 million touch panels?
Furthermore, the "other company" has more functionality on their touchpanels (biometric fingerprint scanning, outlook, internet explorer, powerpoint, etc).
Why would you want to use "zooming" on a touchpanel? How often do you look at pictures using your touchpanel?
Isn't the resolution high enough? what do you reckon should be used? 1680x1050? on a 8,4" touchpanel?
VoIP is going to be standard for every touchpanel, look at the current product line.
Do you think the processor really is the bottleneck for not being able to run Microsoft Office? Maybe it's the fact that a Modero touchpanel runs on VxWorks, not Windows XP Embedded.
And to be honest, an iPhone is pretty sweet, but even an iPhone is over priced...
Conclusion:
Yes, AMX touchpanels are expensive, but so are cars at the moment, and petrol, and designer clothing, and, and, and, and
What i would like is more of an open-source system, where you could make adjustments yourself, i think Vince agrees with me here
But since the EL-Panel-Times (about 10 years ago) i would like to have Multitouch to create more realistic audio mixers on the panels. It would be very useful to change two or more faders or mutebuttons at the same time.
I asked both AMX and the "C..."-Guys, but it seems that nobody is at least thinking about Multitouch on their panels.
Maybe a license problem with some apple patents...
But Yuri does bring up a good point: how much is just expensive flash and glitter, and how much is really useful? The applications where multitouch would be useful on a control panel are fairly limited right now, and probably not worth the expense of the technology. Eventually it will become widespread and cheap enough that it won't matter, and we'll get it if we want it or not (like cameras on cell phones, or power door locks on cars).
How about a touchpanel where you can still get to the stylus even if its in the wall dock? Or a large wireless touchpanel that doesn't feel like its made of cheap plastic and going to break everytime I use it? Maybe the ability to use the kickstand AND dock the panel?
Some of those complaints are solved with the 5200 series panels, but where are they in the bigger panels? I simply don't recommend wireless panels to clients because there are so many connection issues and other such that I think shouldn't be there given the money they cost.
Multitouch and all would be nice, but I'd honestly rather have it be more affordable with the existing features, and a little better designed. Seriously, right now I don't have any AMX in my house at all because its so cost prohibitive. I'd like to think that since I don't have to pay for programming or service, I should be able to at least get in the door, but there's just not an affordable panel to do that with.
J
Okay - I gotta chime in. Who would use a multi-touch on an A/V panel? I could probably think of a reason why someone would want to, and it's not a very good one . . . "because I can." Multi-touch would be great for presentation but . . . on an 8.4" panel? Or a 5.2"? Or even a 17"? Not likely.
Photoviewer? Like a screen saver, right? Even in Windows you have to set up what you want it to display instead of the screen shutting off. So asking for a "no code needed" feature . . . again, not likely.
Higher Resolution? I absolutely agree with this one. 800x600 on a 12" panel looks like crap when you've seen an 800x480 on a 5.2" panel. Those new 5200s - amazing resolution and display.
VOIP - ehh . . . again, just because you can doesn't mean you should. Yeah - it'd be cool to make a quick phone call here and there from a touch panel, like maybe dialing extensions - but making a call for more than 2 minutes? I couldn't see myself talking to a touch panel - and I'm 25! [RANT]The "youngen" group who wants more technology and who just has to text everyone instead of picking up a darn phone to talk to someone!! [/RANT]
And as for a bigger processor - yeah, I'd want that too - but not to run Office or anything like that. When was the last time you saw a super solid system run off of Windoze?
Great ideas, just stuff I would not expect AMX to spend anytime on, except the higher resolutions and more processing power. AMX does a great job in general and can always improve on things (as can anybody - that's just life!) except their a company and just like most companies, most likely put profits first, and dealer's & customer's wants/needs second until it cuts into their profits or can make more for them. As I see it (and I'm sure AMX does too), they have a product that works - why try to fix something that's not broken? I don't see them actually fixing these "problems" with the current products, but instead expect to see some new models in the near future (year or two?)
My two cents . . . but then again if ya only give me a penny for my thoughts, I'm still at a loss.
The buttons I can deal with, but it sure would be nice to be able to set a panel to do 200 or more ports if necessary.
J
Ok, I'll bite. What are you doing with more than 4000 buttons or more than 100 ports??
For example, I have a module (that someone else at my company wrote) that controls a Biamp Audia device. I use it for volume control. We've defined buttons 1 and 2 as volume up and down, 3 as mute toggle, and so on. There are about 10 buttons, I think.
When I declare the module, I tell it volume 1 is instance ID 12, and volume 2 is instance ID 14, and volume 3 is instance ID 35, etc. The module currently can handle up to 40 different volumes, which we occasionally have when we deal with large systems and clients who want individual volume control over lots of mics. I send an array of tp devices (all the same device with different ports) to the module so it gets 40 different ports sent to it.
Basically all I do then, is have a single set of volume buttons on the panel that are button 1 (up), button 2 (down), button 3(mute toggle) and level 1(display volume). I can copy that set of buttons and place it all over the panel, and I just renumber the port and it works perfectly.
I have similar modules for VTC, ATC, Cameras, etc. It means I can do a decent sized conference room in less than a day, spending most of my time on customizing the GUI layout and less time on writing code.
I know I could do it differently, and I could rewrite the module to use only one port, but then I'd constantly be renumbering buttons and trying to figure out which button numbers actually end up being which volume, etc. etc. This is stupid simple and quick, even if it does mildly abuse resources
J
thread hijacking here, sorry about that...
i like your idea, i too hate having to renumber buttons, this makes it alot easier, thanks!
However, I'd like for AMX to get away from using the WIFI band. It's just too crowded and has really hurt the reliability factor quite a bit in our world. I never hear the client say, "Hey the WIFI band is so jacked in my house and it's interfering with my AMX control system..." I usually here, "My Touch Screen locked up again."
I've often thought that AMX should develop some kind of tunnel protocol to move network traffic.
I'd suggest they come up with a wireless system from Panels to a box that is not in the 2.4 ghz range and than plug the box into a wired IP network to communicate the rest of the way to the Netlinx master.
That way they can still keep the IP network features and needs they want but move the wireless part somewhere where it's safe.
And, if they use my idea I'd like a cut of profits. (or at least a nice NI-3100 or something...)
sheesh, I didn't even get my T-shirt from them for taking Prog III - part duex... :P
And yeah - I want my shirt too!!