Harman International are pleased to announce release of a major update to HiQnet System Architect - the control software for devices equipped with the Harman HiQnet communication protocol.
System Architect v2.0 is a quantum leap forward with a new system design philosophy centered on intelligent workflow and the use of a diagrammatic representation of the installed or live sound venue.
Devices are arranged by both their physical and logical placement allowing the designer to 'educate' System Architect about how they are to be used. In return the software is able to provide automation of many of the laborious system design tasks for free. For example, once the user has defined the layout of the venue and informed the software about which areas of it the amplifier outputs logically serve, System Architect provides embedded control panels which are automatically tied to the correct devices and provide source-selection, level, mute and metering, instantly accessible for each user-defined space, directly from the main Venue View. The factory-supplied panels can also be edited or completely replaced with fully-customized user control panels. The use of the user-defined spaces also provides feedback to the user by informing of any errors or warnings of the devices contained within by turning yellow or red, depending on the level of the condition. Combining this functionality with control panels for each space within the venue is the beginning of a long-term plan to merge the boundaries of system design with system control and monitoring.
System Architect 2.0 also provides tour sound professionals and fixed installation system designers with considerable additional organizational benefits: adding the ability to create racks and arrays directly in the workspace, further enhancing the mechanisms of grouping devices. And by understanding more about the responsibilities of a certain device and its physical location within a rack, an array or a room, finding a specific device is made easy with new comprehensive list filtering techniques.
In interviews with industry professionals, several complicated or time-consuming system design elements became common threads of conversation. The philosophy behind System Architect 2.0 is to speed up system design by tackling the organization of devices, the grouping of devices for control, system-wide routing of networked audio and creation of custom control panels. Importantly for the future, the underlying mechanisms by which these common issues have been addressed in version 2.0 also provide the foundations for several more considerable time-saving system design tasks to come.
New in version 2.0:
- Completely refreshed workspace, optimizing screen real-estate
- Workflow-centric operation tailoring the workspace to the function
- 'Venue Designer' enabling a graphic representation of the venue and both physical and logical placement of devices
- Embedded automatic monitoring of devices by zone placement
- Embedded control panels for level, meter and mute of all audio output zones
- Racks for organization of rack-mountable devices
- Arrays for organization of line array loudspeakers
- Filtering by device location, rack and type in new search tools
- 64-bit Windows support
For more information click on the links below or call us on 01462 480000.
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