Atlona and Fusion Research Establish Partnership for Background Music and Control Services
Integrated solution will enhance local control of a business’s sonic environment and expands the firm’s device database for Velocity Control
SAN JOSE, Calif., April 15, 2021 – Atlona, a Panduit company, has partnered with Fusion Research to strengthen local control of the sonic environment in public spaces. The partnership tightens integration between Fusion Research music servers and Atlona Velocity AV control systems inside businesses, providing local staff with an improved user experience for managing background music streams.
Fusion Research has long specialized in music streaming solutions for residential AV systems, supporting most of the popular streaming services and personal collections for multi-room audio within its music servers. The company also offers commercial solutions that are compatible with SoundMachine, a streaming service that provides access to fully-licensed music (ASCAP, BMI, SOCAN, etc.) that is required for use in most public spaces.
With Velocity control, businesses have greater control over the atmosphere inside their retail stores, restaurants, hotel lobbies, and bars. Staff can browse music libraries, select streaming channels, and control volume across multiple zones using Velocity touch panels. The same user-friendly touch panels also support rich data and content display, showing artist, song, album artwork, channel selection, and other stream metadata in real-time.
The Atlona and Fusion Research partnership provides several important benefits for systems integrators. The comprehensive integration makes it simple for integrators to add background music hardware and delivery services to their commercial AV projects, with assurance that the service complies with Public Performance Rights. The partnership also adds Fusion Research products to Velocity’s supported devices database, which simplifies configuration for a system deployment.
“Our systems integration partners simply search for ‘Fusion Research’ within the Velocity database to find a background music solution with local control,” said Justin Kennedy, Product Manager, Atlona. “Once connected, the Velocity gateways continuously communicate with Fusion Research music servers for configuration, channel, and playback information. Rich data makes it easy for retail managers, bartenders, and other location-based end users to select music and take control of the business’s sonic environment.”
Fusion Research VP Sales Ingo Schmoldt says that Fusion Research is the first company to offer a native music server driver within Velocity’s AV control architecture, adding that integrators and end users alike will benefit from the company’s established line of music server hardware.
“Atlona integrators can now offer background music to their end customers as an ongoing business service,” said Schmoldt. “Users will benefit from a service that includes multiple custom channels at one low price, with complete control over the atmosphere in every zone. This ensures that staff and management can serve the right music for each public space at the right time of day.”
Atlona integrators can also easily specify the service into broader Atlona AV installations with video and audio matrix switchers. “A restaurant can use our HDBaseT or AV over IP distribution systems to drive video to TVs throughout their bar area during a sports event, and seamlessly toggle between commentary and background music,” said Kennedy.
Schmoldt notes that businesses can add prerecorded messages to the music service, which he says is especially useful when streaming content to multiple branch locations. “Our partnership with SoundMachine provides the flexibility to centrally manage music and messaging, which allows larger chains to diversify content and add local messaging for each location. The local business can take control of the service at any time using the Velocity touch panel.”
More information on the Atlona and Fusion Research partnership can be found at: https://atlona.com/about-us/partnerships/fusion-research.
About Fusion Research
Fusion Research is a leading manufacturer of media servers, allowing people to collect, manage, and display their media throughout their business, home or yacht. The company’s products have received numerous awards and industry recognition. Fusion products support UHD, Blu-ray, DVDs, digital music & streaming music services. Fusion is an official partner with most control companies including Crestron, Control4, Elan, RTI, Atlona, Vantage, QSC, Symetrix and URC. Fusion is headquartered in California with engineering in Maryland. More information can be found at fusionrd.com.
About Atlona
Atlona, a Panduit company, is a leading manufacturer of AV distribution, AV over IP, collaboration, and control solutions. Our core brand vision is to improve technology for the sharing of ideas, through innovative AV products used every day in a wide variety of commercial and educational applications. Atlona prioritizes quality, user experience, simplicity, and management in every product we develop. More information about Atlona is available at atlona.com.
About Panduit
Global connectivity leader Panduit Corp. creates innovative electrical and network infrastructure solutions for applications across the enterprise. Headquartered in Tinley Park, Ill. and operating in 112 worldwide locations, Panduit’s technology leadership and robust ecosystem help support, sustain, and empower business growth in a connected world. panduit.com.