Our Metra Multi-Media Broadcast System (M3B) caused quite the stir at CEDIA this past October. While discussing the back story with one of our product developers on how Metra Home got the idea for this product, I found it extremely interesting. I thought others might find it intriguing as well. Please let me know your thoughts.

How did the idea of M3B come about?

Product Developer:
I was standing in a train station noticing how clear the information signage panels looked. Not being one to pass up a learning opportunity, I looked at the video cables and I realized that there was only a single coax running from each display to the next (at one point going through a splitter). This got my attention. Like most old school guys I am familiar with “RF” modulation products, but I had never seen one look this good. Armed with this knowledge we were able find and modify the technology for CI needs.

In previous posts, we discussed our HDM-GA1 and the three awards it won during CEDIA 2015 in Dallas. Awards are great but if our customers do not understand WHY this product is winning awards, then Metra Home is not educating our customers. Education is key to staying on top of the CI game and here at Metra Home we want to be the go-to resource for CI questions.

We made our name in the early days of HDMI® by providing the first “Made in America” long distance HDMI cable solution, and we have continued to develop and refine these capability with our latest (and still) “Made in America” extender the HDM-GA1.

4K and HDR are real, products will be shipping this Christmas and in the hands of your clients by the first of the year. How will this affect you and more importantly how do you plan your installs to accommodate this expanded bandwidth requirement?

Well… if your jobs are based around category cable extenders or current Redmere enabled cables, you will be in a world of hurt as neither of these technologies truly support 4K/60 4:4:4 or HDR content. If instead you use the older style passive HDMI cables (up to 15 meters in length) you can take your jobs forward and include ANY capability that HDMI 2.0A by using our HDM-GA1.

In the craziness of returning from Dallas last week - this post was not posted on the blog. We apologize.

Whew! What a whirlwind CEDIA 2105 was in Dallas. It was the best show Metra Home has had to date and it is largely due to the combination of great products and staff. Seriously, our staff is the hardest working staff I know and no other company can touch our products. My co-workers are a great group of people. As I sat in the front desk during the show, I overheard things being said by staff and attendees and I made up a list:

• WOW nice booth!
• My feet hurt.
• Don’t lean on the front desk.
• Who left coffee on the front desk
• Where is my coffee?
• My feet hurt.
• You sure that is the correct price?
• Are you seriously taking an order on a trashcan?
• I have not eaten all day
• My feet hurt.

If you have made it this far in the series you have seen how important each part of the cable is at least in our option. The real question is, how can this be validated as truth and not just be set aside as the ramblings of a PR/Marketing department?

Let us return for a moment to a contributing factor in what triggered this series, Still More Reasons Why All HDMI® Cable Are The Same and "4K HDMI Cables Are Nonsense". The issue here for us is the testing methodology, all that was done to verify the quality of a given cable was (A) borrow a tone generator/scope and sweep/Eye pattern test one channel at a time of the three video channels and (B) plug the cables in between a source and a display. This is not a good or accurate way to test as timing of the 3 channels together is critical and without this concurrent channel testing results will be skewed.

So, how can you know if a cable is worth a damn? DPL testing that’s how.

By CE Pro, Jason Knott, October 2, 2015

Driven by a passion for the industry and for its customers, family-owned Metra Electronics, parent company of well-known Metra Home Theater Group, makers of Ethereal HDMI® cable, might be the most unassuming company in the custom electronics business.

Indeed, the 69-year-old company’s stature is something it should be shouting from the mountaintops.

Metra Electronics was founded in Brooklyn in the 1940s when they designed and fabricated a bracket for taxi cabs to be able to hold radios and meters. Soon, Metra Electronics was making brackets for police vehicles and other cars.

But what does all that have to do with Metra Home Theater Group, the division familiar to integrators that makes Ethereal premium cables, Helios retail cables, TV mounts and accessories, EHD Cables with exclusive long-run cables for integrators, and Spyclops surveillance systems? A lot.