Savant AV is among the most ambitious of the new companies trying to get a foothold in the AV industry.

An outgrowth of the breakup of AT&T during what Savant founder and CEO Jim Carroll calls “the first telecom era,� Savant is sowing seeds for what may be a bountiful harvest in years to come. With home entertainment/information/automation/integration products planned for March 2007, the company intends to offer “value pricing and mainstream solutions,� including a Unix-based media server with redundant hard drives, according to Carroll.

Savant products will accommodate any type of content—from analog audio and S-video, to HDMI. “Anything in, anything out—that’s out motto,� Carroll asserted. With prototype touchpads in production now, and a target market that encompasses the upper end of the AV niche, Savant plans to leverage “easy-to-use click’n’drag interfaces� that won’t require installers to obtain PhDs in computer science.

“Our goal is an open, programmable system,� Carroll stated, pointing out the convenience, for example, of connecting security cameras to a router, and thus to a Savant “brain box� for distribution to touchpads throughout a networked home. The company has no plans for a DVR at this point, Carroll said. The company’s website is simply a placeholder at the moment, despite widespread advertising here at CEDIA.

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