The “in-desk” install of URC’s TKP-2000 touchscreen
Sometimes it pays to have good neighbors.
The Source Home Theater shares the 23rd floor in a lower-Manhattan office building with a Wall Street broker/investment-banking firm that also happens to be one of its clients. So when John Thomas Financial CEO Thomas Belesis grew frustrated with cable company alterations affecting the content on his office’s 55 TVs, The Source Home Theater president Todd Anthony Puma showed him a demo for URC’s Total Control System, and he was immediately hooked by the simplicity of the manufacturer’s TKP-2000 touchscreen.
Puma’s team had installed the 55 flat-panels throughout the firm’s 44,000-square-foot office, but the system had lacked centralized control, due ironically to Belesis’s mandate to keep things simple. Only a basic Gefen video switch had been employed along with Bogen preamps to help distribute audio sources to more than 90 speakers throughout the space.
Puma’s team had installed the 55 flat-panels throughout the firm’s 44,000-square-foot office, but the system had lacked centralized control.
After Belesis was convinced of the benefits of URC’s new IP-based Total Control package, Puma used his Roto Zip to cut a spot for the system’s in-wall color LCD controller right in Belesis’s desk and ran Cat-6 cabling throughout the office.
Now, for the first time, the CEO has “all-on” or “all-off” macros available for his litany of TVs and can switch sources via IR from his iPod, cable TV, Dish Network, Blu-ray, or internet radio sources at the push of a button.
“[Belesis] calls me every day to tell me how much he loves his system,” Puma said. “In fact, he just told me wants another controller installed at his VP’s desk. That’s how good URC works.”
After that simple change, Puma said he hopes to install full lighting and HVAC control throughout the office.
