Timarron Country Club - Southlake, Texas

This country club is situated in one of the most affluent areas of Texas... Southlake. The people in this town are great and some of my best clients come from Southlake. Best not because of how much they may or may not spend, but they are just so nice!

We were asked by the manager at the Timarron Country Club to update their distributed TV system that their guests use throughout the club. They have access to DirecTV HD satellite service on everyone of these TVs. The new satellite dish, 16 HD DirecTV boxes, and televisions were all cleanly and properly installed by us!

What they had was some of the old tube TVs hanging from the ceiling. They were poorly placed and took up valuable square footage. Also... they were not HDTVs! So here are some pictures of their brand new TVs in this great country club!

Allen, Texas... part two...

So you have a nice fireplace? You decide you want to put a TV over that fireplace, but then you really do not like the look of a rectangular black box where your art used to hang. I have the solution. Cover the TV with art. In this application we had a custom art frame made by VisionArt. What is also unique about this piece is that we are hiding a Digital Sound Projector by Yamaha. So, not only does the client have an awesome 52" 1080P LED-LCD by Samsung, but the client has incredible surround sound in this room as well. With a push of the power on button, the art goes up. With the push of the power off button the art goes down. Pretty neat!

This system is on the 1080P video distribution system fed by Crestron's DigitalMedia system. DirecTV, Kaleidescape DVD management system (soon to have Blu-ray management), the security DVR, etc are all available to this local media room... and it is easily controlled with a Crestron TPS-6X.

Allen, Texas.... house FULL of technology!

We at EPIC AVi love technology and home theaters. This is a gorgeous house in the Twin Creeks area of Allen, Texas. The client loves technology and wanted to implement it in his home. The best way to manage a home full of technology is with the best automation system out there... Crestron. The Crestron system controls all essential functions of the home such as security, HVAC, lighting, audio and video distribution, and security cameras. It also controls the functions of the theater palace. With strategically placed control touch-panels and remote controls around the home, the client will be able to access audio, video, and/or security cameras with a touch of the button. So, I am going to start in the theater room with this post and then we will move into other areas of the home and system in subsequent posts.

The theater room was designed and installed by our partners Cinema Design Group Int'l. They are an award winning designer, manufacturer, and installer of custom luxury home theater interiors. They have designed and installed luxury home theaters in Russia, Israel, Dubai, and of course here in the US. They did an impeccable job of helping the client out and worked hand in hand with the home builder. The room started as an extra space in the attic area and was built as a "room within a room". This means that the theater is isolated from the rest of the house and does not "connect" to the framing to transfer sound. This room is an acoustical heaven. CDGi's engineered the plans to make the room itself an instrument. Lots of people spend tens of thousands of dollars on audio equipment only to put it in a room that makes it sound like a hundred dollar home theater in a box from your local big box store. The room is key!!

After their installation of the room, the equipment started to go in... Runco VX22D projector Cinemawide with Autoscope, Stewart Cinecurve 2.4:1 filmscreen, Meridian 861v4 and HD621 with Meridian DSP speakers, Kaleidescape movie server, Sony PS3, Xbox360, Nintendo Wii, DirecTV HDDVR and a kick butt gaming PC. We also brought in our good friend, Danny Mann, to modify the fiber optic star ceiling to incorporate an Auton projector lift. The room will be controlled by Crestron and a TPS6X wireless control panel.

The room also has a Crestron DVPHDPRO. This will allow the client to watch up to 8 video sources on his screen in the theater. How about some Sunday football on 6 of those screens, ESPN.COM, and Madden 2K10 all at the same time!! Sounds like heaven on earth to me!

How about this for neat and green? The room's lights automatically turn on in the room when the client walks into the room. This is made possible by a Crestron Green light occupancy sensor connected to a Creston Green Light CLS-C6RF wireless infinet integrated light system. This controls the ceiling star-field, the sconces, can-lights, the floor step lighting, entrance lighting, and the drapes for the front of the theater. The system will have preset settings for different lighting scenes depending on what is being watched in the theater room... TV, computer, movies, or gaming will all have different light levels.

Here are some pictures of the progress in this room... take note... we are not quite done, but it already looks great! Can't wait to finish and crank this baby!!

Lake Whitney media room

WOW... Lake Whitney is pretty. Just under two hours away from Dallas is rolling hills, gorgeous vistas, wildlife, and a pristine lake. The one thing they do not have is a local audio video integrator. The client hired us to setup a media room in his living room. He has a beautiful rock fireplace that he did not want us to drill into. The solution... run a pipe from the ceiling down to the flat panel LCD TV to mount it to. The client acquired a brushed aluminum pipe for us instead of the standard black or galvanized steel version. This made a huge aesthetic difference. The brushed aluminum looked great! All the equipment was moved into the pantry in the kitchen. All the video and audio cables are run through the ceiling and then down to the subwoofer and the pipe to the TV. We mounted Artison speakers on the TV which gets the client the front left, center, and right for surround sound. We used his existing in-ceiling speakers for rears. We used a Focal subwoofer for the LFE (low frequency effect; the .1 in 5.1). The client uses Dish Network and a Bluray player for his sources. The Onkyo receiver supplies the surround sound for the media room and also allows for a different source to played out on the patio. All of this is controlled by an easy to use remote control. (Get rid of all the remotes on the table... use one.) The result... awesome sound, 1080P high definition video, and a happy client. They blessed the system with a Texas Longhorn game in high definition with some friends.