CEDIA has today announced that Guy Singleton will resume ownership of The CEDIA Designer (TCD) from 15 March 2022.
With this change of ownership, its name will also revert to The Cinema Designer. The tool will also move to a new URL and existing CEDIA Designer pages will redirect to it. Current users can use their existing login credentials on the new page.
Access to The Cinema Designer will remain a CEDIA member benefit, with the Media Room tier still available to members for free, and the Cinema Room and Cinema Room Pro tiers are remaining available at the same discounted rate.
According to CEDIA, maintaining The CEDIA Designer as a member benefit is very important, but financially, it was a member benefits loss leader and didn't make sense that CEDIA owned the software, as it is not a software company. In order for this tool to keep getting better, and to keep providing the maximum value to CEDIA members, it made more sense to put it back in the hands of the person who created it in the first place.
For Guy, The Cinema Designer is part of a larger product strategy, complemented by his tool The Lighting Designer. He can iterate and innovate on this software, making it even more powerful and valuable.
Thanks to an ongoing strong relationship with Singleton, CEDIA is continuing to provide its members with access to the tool as a member benefit. Hundreds of CEDIA members use the discounted access to the tool, and there are thousands more TCD users who may see the discounts CEDIA offer as an incentive to join the association. It's a valuable program that helps integrators do their jobs, improve documentation, and adhere to best practices and standards.
The tool was created by Singleton as a cloud-based design tool to allow installers to create a ‘technically perfect’ home cinema or media room design with full documentation, a scale rendering of the finished theatre, and a 3D CAD model.
CEDIA acquired The Cinema Designer from Singleton in August 2018 and has since helped to develop the tool by introducing it to integrators and onboarding several manufacturers as partners.