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Perhaps you’ve recently upgraded to a new Ultra HD-capable television or immersive surround audio system, or are thinking about doing so in the near future. The best gear in the world is always going to be limited by the quality of the media sources that you play through it. In this short article, we hope to provide you with the tools to help get the most out of your investment in high-performance audio and video equipment.

Streaming Services
With streaming music and video services being the preferred method of content acquisition for the vast majority of our clients, we thought it important to detail an issue that most people don’t seem to be aware of, but is critical to getting the best experience out of your private cinema, media room, or music systems. Most people are now subscribers to at least a few different media streaming platforms. Netflix, Disney+, Prime Video, Hulu, HBO Max, and Apple TV (the channel, not the device) are the major players in video. Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, and Pandora are the most common music platforms we see people using. What many people don’t understand is that almost all of these services offer multiple tiers, some free and most paid- for their services which offer not only omission of advertisements or additional features, but in many cases can have dramatic impacts on the picture and sound quality they provide.
For example, as of this writing, Netflix offers four different plan options:

For the purposes of this blog, we’re only concerned with the audio/video differences between the different plans, which are pretty dramatic. The “Basic” plans only support 720p resolution video, which falls somewhere between DVD and Blu-Ray quality for picture; the “Standard” tier bumps up to 1080p video, which is close to the quality of a Blu-ray Disc picture; only once you get to the “Premium” tier do you actually get full “4K” video quality with HDR color on certain content.
Most all current model TV’s beyond the most basic models support 4K and HDR color, and it makes a dramatic improvement in picture quality compared to the lower resolution options. However, if you’re not paying for those higher-level tiers with the video services you subscribe to, you’re not going to get any better picture than what you could have gotten from a system 10 years ago.
If we look at the music-focused services: Apple Music currently has 4 different plans, Spotify has 2 plans, and Amazon Music has 3. In all cases, you need to subscribe to the upper-tier plans to be able to play your music in sound quality that even matches what we were used to with CD’s. Most services now offer an HD-audio tier that provides a sound quality that is higher than what was offered via CD…if you’re listening through the earbuds that came with your phone or a portable bluetooth speaker it probably won’t benefit you at all. But if you’ve invested in some better quality audio gear at home, or higher-end headphones, the benefit is worth the extra couple bucks.

Cable and Satellite Service
Most of our clients still utilize cable or satellite TV service in some degree. Both of those delivery methods are having some growing pains with delivering content in full UltraHD quality, and for most people it is worth checking to verify that your cable or satellite receivers can support the better quality signals. Odds are good that if you haven’t changed out the cable or satellite boxes in the last 4 years, you probably don’t have a box that supports the best quality possible.

The best movie experience: Kaleidescape
If you truly love movies, nothing beats Kaleidescape for quality. Kaleidescape is the only download-based product that provides true reference-quality picture and lossless audio. The audio and video have bitrates that are 10x higher than most streaming services, providing truly identical quality to the studio masters of the movies. Kaleidescape actually downloads the entire movie to it’s own storage before starting playback, so there is never any chance of “buffering” or downgraded quality due to internet speed fluctuations.

Physical Media
Discs still provide a great experience, and they also still work if your internet service is out. UltraHD Blu-Ray provides the finest quality picture and sound available (equal to Kaleidescape and better than any streaming service). For many people, the ritual and warmth of vinyl is a great way to enjoy music, and modern turntables have never been easier to get a great experience out of.

Control4 has recognized Evolved Home with the 2022 Pinnacle Lifetime Achievement Award for being a leader and innovator in the industry, delivering high-quality solutions in our market since 2009.  This designation was announced at Cedia EXPO 2022 tradeshow in Dallas, TX.

We at Evolved Home are proud of our continued partnership and heritage with Control4, and creating relationships with all of our wonderful clients in our region and continually bringing others into the fold.

Thank you for the recognition Control4!

Why doesn’t my phone have a Gigabit Wi-Fi connection?

Recently Evolved Home has been fielding a lot of requests for upgraded wi-fi performance in homes.  This is no surprise, given the dramatic increase in demand that remote learning, working from home, and media streaming we are all experiencing over the past few months.

At the same time, we have been seeing a major push from the internet service providers in our area to upgrade folks to Gigabit speed service.  Unfortunately, a lot of people are underwhelmed with the upgrade, as they don’t experience full gigabit speeds on their phones, tablets, and other connected devices.  In this post, we will try to shed light on why that is the case.

The Problem

There is a common misconception that wireless devices such as most phones, tablets,
or laptops have the ability to achieve an actual Gigabit connection to a Wi-Fi access
point. We know through a combination of math, physics and properly engineered
Wi-Fi standards-based safeguards that the achievable connection for most mobile
devices in real-world situations is typically 30-40% of the negotiated connection rate.
So how do we explain this in easily understood terminology?

The Theory

Most mobile devices have a 2×2 antenna setup- 2 antennas send data and 2 receive data at any given time.  Devices negotiate what is called “connection rate” based on distance to the wi-fi access point, interference, and wi-fi standard being used.  This is merely the negotiated, theoretical-maximum connection rate, and doesn’t represent real world speed.  Basically, both the device and the wi-fi system have agreed to talk and have agreed what the fastest speed they could possibly talk will be.  For example, we know that the maximum connection rate of an iPhone 11 is 866mbps on Wi-Fi 5 (assuming some standard configuration settings).

How It Actually Works

When environmental interference and device proximity come into play, we know that the realistic speed is typically 30-50% of the negotiated connection rate.  This speed is dependent on the wi-fi standard being used (Wi-Fi 6 is better than Wi-Fi 5, etc), the distance to the wi-fi system antenna, and the sources of interference in the space (other wireless devices, building materials types, your neighbors wi-fi).  As you move around your home, your mobile devices are constantly renegotiating the connection rate depending on the wi-fi antenna they are connected to.  Devices also have near complete control of which wi-fi antenna they are connected to, and are generally slow to jump antennas unless absolutely necessary.

How To Get The Best Performance

In larger homes, the best way to achieve the highest connection rate is by having multiple wi-fi antennas spread throughout the home to create a blanket of coverage.  Ideally those antennas are hard-wired, opposed to operating in a “mesh”.  Mesh networks can be great problem solvers, but they are nowhere near as capable of passing high speed data as a properly connected system.  Typically, you will want at least one antenna per 1,500 square feet of space- if you have a lot of stone or metal in your construction you will need more, and if you have a very open floor plan you may need less.

Using wireless antennas with higher levels of performance will also yield greater performance.  Evolved Home has been specifying Wi-Fi 5 antennas for all of it’s installations for at least 5-6 years.  The newest generation of Wi-Fi 6 antennas hit the market last year.  Wi-Fi 6 promises slightly higher speeds (roughly 30% higher maximum), but the real improvements are in how they handle multiple devices.  They are capable of delivering more data to more devices simultaneously, help extend battery life in mobile devices, and are better at mitigating interference from other nearby wi-fi networks.

In addition, not all wi-fi hardware is created equally, even if the right acronyms are on the spec sheet.  Evolved Home specifies and implements true commercial-grade hardware with features that improve things like wireless roaming (when your device needs to jump from one antenna to another, the wi-fi system helps “kick” it to a better one), airtime fairness (slow devices don’t get as much speed as fast devices), and higher performing interference mitigation.

If you would like to explore upgrading your wi-fi to get the best performance possible, please reach out to Evolved Home today.

_{*Information provided by Access Networks}