Why USE HC1000?

I found the truth，most people like use a HC1000，even the Project just have one HC300， why？

Only your dealer knows for sure

A good reason for this if the customer has a large media collection, for over all speed and performance, also if the customer is planning on upgrading their system overtime it is wise to install a HC-1000 into the project.

What is a large media collection?

You can't beat the speed of an HC-1000.

Digital Media takes most of the resources of your controller, HC-1000 has been especially designed to increase performance of digital media.

If you are not using digital media, hc-200 - Hc-300 will run whole house without any problem.

Digital Media takes most of the resources of your controller, HC-1000 has been especially designed to increase performance of digital media.

If you are not using digital media, hc-200 - Hc-300 will run whole house without any problem.

But how many gb's or tb's are we talking about before we call it LARGE

Personally I've got 5gb of music, 20gb of photos and about 4tb of home video but I do not think that is large by most people's standards. Would having mutiple controller help e.g. 3 or 4 HC300's maybe?

And would it just slow down the system when you are accessing media files or is it going to slow down the system all the time?

Letran, unfortunately you can't cluster HC300s like that to increase all around speed. The most you can do is balance some duties between 2 of them and strip out certain functions but that is about it. That said, it still won't come match the performance of a 1000. The 1000 is a dedicated processor which is very streamlined and efficient in what is does as its sole purpose is to make the system go fast. The size of your library I would say that it is bigger than most, but the overall size of your system has a lot to do with it as well. If you have a large library but only have an HC300 and 1 TV it probably wouldn't make sense to get a 1000. On the other hand you have 30 dimmers, 8 TVs, 16 audio zones, a large media library and have a lot of customization, I would say a 1000 would be something that you should seriously look at.

At times I have installed 1000's for demo in clients houses that I really believed should have one. At the end of the 2 week demo period my clients always gave me a cheque rather than the unit back. That in itself says a lot.

I have about 3 TB of movies on my NAS -- and recentliy had the HC-1000 installed. Best $$$$ I have spent on the system to date. Load times for movies, room switching, everything is 100 times faster.

What is a large media collection?

100+GB of MP3s, 1000+ ripped movies and 2 Sony 400 disc changers more then 3/4th full. My system just choked when I went from 1.7.4 (a little slow) to 1.8 (slowed to a crawl) and just had to get a HC1000, now on 2.0.6 without problems.

Also, the use of a connected tv to a 300 eats up resources significantly if it is the master controller as well.

Offloading the bulk of the director and other services to the 1000 makes EVERYTHING much faster.

Light switches respond faster, remotes list stuff faster, just frankly everything is faster with a 1000.

If you can afford it, add it, I highly doubt you will regret it. I was a big skeptic prior to adding my 1000, but going back isn't an option. Frankly if you have multiple rooms, use any 2 way drivers, or want on screen navigator on your tv, you really want a 1000.

@pstuart - please could you tell me what services you had running on what devices prior to your HC1000 and then what services you moved to the HC1000 to speed up your system?

I have heard so many stories about the HC1000 and what should be running on them, and why, so I am trying to build a picture of what is best?

I had a 300 as the master controller running everything on that, zigbee server, director, navigator, rhapsody, etc. FYI, it is one of the newer 300's with the faster processor.

The 1000 became the master controller, running everything it can, but it can't be a zigbee access point or a navigator, so the 300 runs those duties only.

CPU usage on the 1000 is barely tapped now, and the 300 is down around 25% when pulling up the navigator.

I also have a 200 that was in the mix before, but I didn't offload anything to it. I'll be putting it back in the mix once the basement is finished.

Anyway, bottom line is, go with the 1000, you will not regret it. The 300 can run an entire system, but the lag is not acceptable in my opinion. Plus with the memory leaks, you will have to reboot the 300 on a regular basis, at least once a month, whereas the 1000, even with the memory leaks, has so much horsepower, it will barely ever need to be rebooted.

As a user of Control4, I think it *should* be mandatory to have a 1000 in a system that is of any reasonable size. However, the cost of having a 1000 and a 200/300 to handle the zigbee stack, can be costly, but it is well worth it.

However, without trying a 300 first, it is very difficult to judge the benefit of a 1000. So if you don't want to take my word and the other here, try it with a 300 and then see if you can live with the lag, delays and loading times, missing commands sent, buffering of ir commands, etc. all because the system is overloaded.

I would love to blame control4 for not having the 300 being able to keep up with a whole system, but honestly, they have a solution with the 1000 and are very clear in their dealer training as to when a 1000 can and should be used. So it comes down to dealers that just don't understand the need for a 1000.

Thanks pstuart, very much appreciate you giving good detail, and taking the time out to reply.