Chris Lanier's Blog

VidaBox Partners with Charmed Quark Systems to create vAutomation™: Complete Media Management & Automation Solutions for the Mid-to-High-End AV Market

Westbury, NY - September 2nd - VidaBox LLC proudly presents its new line of automation and media management packaged solutions called vAutomation™, powered by Charmed Quark Controller (CQC), the popular control and automation system from Charmed Quark Systems, Ltd.  As an extremely powerful, professional-level software package, CQC allows mid-to-high-end custom integrators to offer automation solutions with the features, flexibility, and extensibility formerly found only on more expensive and proprietary systems.

"One of our goals has always been to simplify every AV project as much as possible for the custom installer & integrator," says Steven Cheung, President of VidaBox.  "By preinstalling CQC with our VidaBox systems, our dealers can now offer complete solutions where users can access their entire AV media library while controlling any automatable system in the home - right at their fingertips - through a single, easy-to-use, customized touch screen interface.  CQC can control or accept feedback from devices via TCP/IP, RS-232, IR, and other standard communication protocols, making it compatible with a myriad of AV and automation hardware - not just VidaBox equipment."

CQC can come preinstalled on VidaBox hardware, and includes a set of pre-defined templates that can be used as-is to control music, pictures, videos, movies, and TV playback on any VidaBox server or extender.  Very powerful solutions can be created in a purely point-and-click environment starting with these pre-defined templates, without the need to do any coding.  However, a trained integrator can customize these templates and add control of other equipment by using a WYSIWYG interface editor to add/remove buttons, change graphics, backgrounds, what each press action does, etc.  Completely customized solutions can be created and designed using CQC's extensive customization capabilities.

"We are very happy to join forces with VidaBox," said Dean Roddey, Chairman and CTO of Charmed Quark Systems, Ltd. "Their experience with delivering solid media systems and high quality hardware, combined with the powerful automation and media management capabilities of CQC, will make for a very robust, cost-effective, and flexible solution for custom installers and their clients."

"By choosing our pre-designed vAutomation packages with CQC," Cheung continues, "dealers can take advantage and offer comprehensive AV solutions from a single manufacturer.  Every standard package we offer can be tailored slightly and customized for each individual job to cover any unique needs, providing tremendous time savings by eliminating tons of design work, compatibility problems, and other potential headaches."

For more details on Charmed Quark Controller, please visit Charmed Quark Systems website at charmedquark.com.  For more details on VidaBox's vAutomation™ and their comprehensive line of media servers and extenders, please visit the company website at vidabox.com, or visit them in Sound Room 17 at CEDIA Expo 2008!

About VidaBox LLC

VidaBox LLC is a digital entertainment and control systems integration company focused on manufacturing premium Media Center systems & complete home control solutions.  VidaBox is on a mission to create user-friendly, stable high-performance entertainment that work right out of the box.  For more information, visit www.vidabox.com or call 1-516-730-7500.

About Charmed Quark Systems

Charmed Quark Systems, Ltd was founded to address looming changes in the automation industry, a move towards the use of standard computing hardware and a greater emphasis on software as the differentiating factor in automation solutions. The massive economies of scale of the computer industry, the ubiquity of home networks, and the fast growing power of PCs, operating systems, and hand-held computing products, allows CQC to provide very powerful, robust and scalable automation solutions for a reasonable price.