Archive for December, 2010

Samsung Apps, courtesy Samsung

In early December, Samsung hit a remarkable milestone with its apps marketplace on its HDTVs. Since they became available to consumers in March 2010, one million applications have been downloaded. And while there are not nearly the number of apps available as there are for the iPhone (134k+) or Android (100k+), reaching one million downloads for only 200 available Samsung apps means that sales are strong of Samsung HDTVs and that users are liking what they find.

According to Samsung, the most frequently downloaded apps include Hulu Plus, ESPN Next Level, CinemaNow and Texas Holdem. Other popular apps include MLB.TV, Vudu and Netflix. More than half of Samsung’s 2010 line of HDTVs are app-capable, and company resources say they expect more than 6.5 million app-capable units be sold before the end of the year. And by 2012 that number could grow to 20 million.

Samsung’s major competitor in the smart TV market is Vizio, which also offers its own line of app-capable TVs and line of apps. Vizio is the leader in LCD TVs, holding 19.9 percent of the market by the end of the third quarter. Samsung, however, is a close second, controlling 17.7 percent market share. However, Samsung is really growing in terms of number of TV units sold in the U.S. because its line of plasma TVs are doing so well. Samsung plasma TVs represent 19.3 percent market share, which beats out Vizio’s 17 percent market share.

While these two companies continue to battle it out in percentage points, it can only mean one thing for consumers – good deals on TVs getting better. And app producers will only be creating more enticing and useful apps for both manufacturers.

No matter which TV manufacturer you choose to side with, Samsung or Vizio, your LCD TV or plasma TV will look amazing in an ImportAdvantage TV lift cabinet, which is the “smartest” piece of home furniture to ever house a smart TV. Imagine, with the touch of a button your TV will quietly rise from a handcrafted TV lift cabinet and be ready to download and install all the latest apps on the market.

Bermuda Run TV Lift Cabinet

Not your traditional TV entertainment center or your traditional cabinet, one ImportAdvantage’s newest TV lift cabinets, the Bermuda Run TV Lift Cabinet, is a perfect reproduction of an antique luggage trunk use by ocean and rail voyagers of the past.

Hand-constructed of wood and hand-cut wicker matting, the Bermuda Run TV Lift Cabinet features ornate leather accents on the handles and cabinet perimeters, fitted by hundreds of antique nail heads and finished with a distressed patina, and since it is finished on all four sides it can be used at the foot of the bed, against any wall in your home or as a free-standing centerpiece.

The Bermuda Run TV Lift Cabinet will house most TVs between 32” and 47” and the heavy-duty rack and pinion TV lift comes pre-installed. Attaching your TV to the TV lift takes only minutes!

The pop-up TV cabinet also comes with three power outlets for a TV and two pieces of AV equipment, which fit snugly and a safely under the TV on their own media trays.

The Bermuda Run TV Lift Cabinet is truly a unique work of art, as no two are identical and each one is individually crafted. Whether you’re placing it in a beach house, mountain cabin or urban living room, the Bermuda Run TV Lift Cabinet will always be a treasured home furnishing that you and your guests will adore.

Just got a new flat-screen TV, or thinking about getting one, and want to protect your investment? Do you know how fragile the screen is? Well, the answer is that it depends on what kind of television you have.

In the world of flat-screen TVs, LCD and plasma sets are the two types currently being produced (and either will fit into a TV lift cabinet). But as far as fragility is concerned, one is definitely more fragile than the other. Plasma TVs are much heavier than LCD TVs, primarily due to the extra glass screen and components, and this heaviness contributes to it being more fragile than an LCD. However, a heavier TV could also make it harder to tip over.

LCD TVs, being lighter, means they can also be made thinner than a plasma screen, and many LCD TVs are commercially available as thin as 2” thick. A thin Plasma TV is about 3” thick.

While a discussion of fragility and TVs does little good if you’re planning on mounting and storing your TV in a TV lift cabinet, especially since the TV is attached directly to the TV lift and is virtually impossible to tip over. Also, the smooth rack and pinion lift system that is standard in the Uplift TV lifts means the mounted TV experiences no shaking or rattling when it’s lifted out of and lowered into a pop-up TV cabinet.

However, the main reason you should be aware of how fragile your flat-screen TV might be is to know that if you order your TV online and have it shipped, you may experience some increased costs getting a plasma TV to your home. In most cases, it’s recommended to have it shipped overnight. Also, if you buy a plasma screen at a local store, you should prepare to get your new investment home as quickly and smoothly as possible. Even one pothole could damage your plasma set. The plasma TV screen is really two glass screens with a layer of light-producing cells between them that react to an electrical charge, and any damage to either glass screen or the cells will make your TV useless.

So while it doesn’t matter how fragile your TV is if you keep it in a TV lift cabinet, you should use caution when purchasing and mounting your TV in your home.

The TV lift cabinet is now being regarded by many as an important development in home furnishing. As more homeowners are becoming design-savvy and want their homes to be the “best on the block,” many are turning to the value they find in TV lifts.

TV lift cabinets represent the growing trend in home technologies. As so many TV manufacturers are rushing to produce the sleekest, thinnest and smartest flat-screens in the world, the TV lift cabinet is becoming the number one choice for displaying the technological investments. Sure, you can impress your guests by turning on a 3D movie, but imagine their surprise when first your TV rises from nowhere with the touch of a button.

The real reason the TV lift cabinet is a true value for your home, however, is that we all look for things that can do more than one task at a time. And if you can save space in your home by having a cabinet that can hide away your TV, media players and yet display several of your keepsakes or books, you have a more space-conscious piece of furniture than a bulky entertainment center which stretches from ceiling to floor.

So consider bringing a new, handcrafted TV lift cabinet in your home today and see how much space you save with this value-packed piece of fine furniture.

If you are shopping for a new TV this holiday season, especially a flat-screen to fit in your TV lift cabinet, and you have a naturally bright living area or den, it is important to know which kind of television works best for rooms with lots of light.

Between LCD TVs and Plasma screens, both will provide outstanding picture quality and major advances in technology, such as app-capable systems and 3D-viewing. However, each TV will give you entirely different results based on their environment and viewing angle.

If you plan on viewing your TV from an angle, an LCD screen is not the right choice, as the LCD screen uses backlight and pixels, which open and close like a shutter. The further you move to the side of this “shutter” the greater the variations in picture brightness across the screen.

Plasma screens are self-lighting, which means they contain two transparent glass panels with a thin layer of pixels between them. Each pixel contains three gas-filled cells – one for red, green and blue colors – and a grid applies an electric current to each cell causing them to ionize. This ionized gas (plasma) emits UV rays that glow in the desired color. And this translates into a screen that can be viewed from nearly any angle since there is no “shutter” effect, and it makes the plasma screen better suited for displaying dark colors in dark rooms.

LCD TV screen are much brighter, in general, and therefore better suited to brighter rooms. Additionally, they have less reflective screens than plasma TVs, which means less chance of reflecting the light from a lamp or window. As a viewer in a bright room, our pupils are smaller than they would be in a dark room, limiting our ability to discern finer shades of light. It’s why we can see a lit candle much better in a dark room than if it was outside at midday.

Another bonus to LCD screens is that they consume much less energy than plasma screens. This can be a benefit for anyone who prefers to minimize the use of overhead lights and lamps for the purpose of saving energy and instead open windows and draw back curtains to maximize natural light.

So as you shop around for your next TV, it is certainly worth understanding how much ambient light will be present in your viewing room. You wouldn’t want to invest in the latest and greatest TV and not be able to see it well at home.

Do you consider yourself a “trendy” TV-owner? Do you get a couple goose-bumps every time you raise your flat screen TV out of your TV lift cabinet? Are you also either planning to upgrade your TV or give one as a gift this holiday season? If you said “yes” to any of these questions, check out this list of the Top 5 Trendy TVS for 2010!

Before we launch right into the list, you should have a basic understanding of what makes a TV worth its weight in pixels. As you know, TVs range in price and quality, and if you don’t know what all those numbers and refresh rates mean on the sticker, you might get more than you need or, worse, not enough bang for your buck.

So let’s start with contrast ratios. Especially for larger TVs, resolution is highly important. The contrast ratio is the difference between the darkest and brightest colors the TV can display. It’s important that this number be very high. Good televisions offer at least a 6,000:1 contrast ratio.

Another important factor for buying a good, trendy TV is resolution. The resolution is measured in the number of pixels that can appear on your screen at one time. If you have a lot of pixels, the image will appear much clearer. Additionally, some TVs may use interlacing to display images; while others use a progressive scan. It’s important to know the difference.

Another important component of a quality television is its refresh rate, which is the number of times the TV reconstructs the image on the screen each second. If you have a low refresh rate, your TV will have trouble displaying fast-moving images (think of all action sequences in blockbuster films!). This measurement is in hertz, and most HDTVs have a refresh rate of 60 hertz, but some go even higher. High is good.

So let’s get to the list:

5. Westinghouse TX-52F480S – Offered as Westinghouse’s largest LCD HDTV, it is also highly adjustable in terms of sound and image quality. Also, if you want to save energy, it can be set to a standby mode, consuming only about watt of power.

4. Pioneer PRO-151FD – This 60-inch flat-panel is one of Pioneer’s finest achievements. It has a terrific contrast ration and a 72 hertz refresh rate! Its coolest feature is an Optimum Mode setting, meaning it can automatically adjust the quality of the picture based on ambient light and temperature.

3. Mitsubishi Laservue L65A90 – First launched in 2008, Laservue technology uses rear-projected lasers as its light source, and its effect produces twice the color as any competing HDTV. It also boasts a 120 hertz refresh rate.

2. Sony 70-inch BRAVIA XBR LCD Flat Panel HDTV – If you want a true theater experience, this massive beauty allows you watch films at 24 frames per second (the standard speed for film). It also features a 1080p resolution and a 120 hertz refresh rate.

1. Pioneer’s 9-millimeter Thick Television – A 50-inch flat-panel screen that measures only .9” thick! It may not even be available to everyone, but it is truly a feat in trendy TV technology.

Antiquity TV Lift Cabinet

One of ImportAdvantage’s newest TV lift cabinet designs, the Antiquity TV Lift Cabinet is an ornately crafted cabinet built with a wood console covered in hand-cut distressed leather and finished with hundreds of individual hand-hammered antique nail heads. The result is an accurate throwback to antique steamer trunks used by the wealthy to travel around the globe.

The versatility of this finished-on-four-sides TV lift cabinet makes it perfectly suited for the foot of the bed, against a wall or standing alone in the middle of a room. The corners of this unique pop-up TV cabinet are precisely-stitched thick leather with horizontal oak slats complementing custom-made cast-metal antiqued hardware fittings.

The Antiquity TV Lift Cabinet can house most TVs between 32” and 47” and weighing up to 80 pounds. The electronics tray holds two media players directly under the TV. The pre-installed rank and pinion TV lift will raise and lower your TV and devices in near silence with the touch of a button.

All you need for this handcrafted, scratch-resistant TV lift cabinet is a standard wall outlet and the desire to add a true hallmark of craftsmanship to your home. No two cabinets will be the same, as each trunk is uniquely handmade for each order. Check out the Antiquity TV Lift Cabinet today!

No one can deny the convenience of a television remote control these days. And now they seem to be able to do most anything – from changing channels to initiating recordings. But what is the technology behind these little devices that make them magically bring up the TV guide or raise and lower your flat screen television in your TV lift cabinet?

Remote controls were first used in WWI by German naval vessels to direct them into Allied boats. Then in WWII, remote controls were used for detonating bombs. Now over sixty years later, remote controls have a much more peaceful use.

For at-home use, most remote controls are powered by infrared (IR) technology. Infrared light is also referred to as “heat,” and remote controls rely on the use of light to carry its signal from the control to the device it directs. On the electromagnetic spectrum, infrared light falls on the invisible portion, between “visible” and “microwave.”

The signal sent out by the remote control is in binary code; that’s how the media player or TV knows whether you are telling it to turn up the volume or switch the channel to your favorite show. Binary codes are built by ones and zeroes, and they leave the remote control via transmitting LEDs. They are received by the media device or TV’s microprocessor. However, if you own a TV lift cabinet, the remote control’s signal is first captured and resent to the media player through the Infrared Relay System, standard on all ImportAdvantage’s pop-up TV cabinets.

Different TV manufacturers use slightly different binary codes for basic functioning, and this is why universal remote controls have to be “programmed” to your specific TV brand before they work. An example binary code for a Sony TV to make the channel go up is “001 0000”.

Even though infrared remote controls have been the industry standard for the last 25 years, they are limited by their range, first and foremost, which is only about 30 feet. While it is not necessary to “aim” your remote control directly at your device, you do have to point the LEDs on the remote control in the general vicinity of your media player or TV in order to get the signal across. If you are in a highly sunlit room, it could cause some interference with your remote’s signal.

To advance the technology behind remote controls for home theater use, some niche manufacturers are moving toward radio frequency (RF) remote controls, which are what directs a home garage door opener. The major advantage of a RF remote signal is that the exact signal for the function you powering (channel up, channel down, etc.) is emitted directly from the remote, so there is no need to point an LED to a microprocessor. However, the downside is that there are a lot of competing RF signals around the home (cell phone, Wi-Fi, cordless phones, etc.). But their range goes as far as 100 feet.

So hopefully you now have a deeper appreciation for your remote control; we just can’t help you find it between the couch cushions!

Whether the acoustics in your room are not top-notch, or you suffer from a hearing-impairment, closed captioning is a helpful tool that aids in the enjoyment of movies and television. But do you know how it works? Does it come through your television, antenna, satellite dish or cable box? If you have a TV lift cabinet, do you have to do any additional wiring or keep your media players in view to keep your closed captioning abilities? Here are the answers.

The ability for closed captioning is already embedded in the signal sent directly to your television, so every show, television movie and commercial comes with the possibility of closed captioning. In order for you to be able to read it, though, it has to be decoded, and that is done by your TV.

Since 1993, every television manufactured that measures over 13 inches must have a built-in decoder, per the Television Decoder Circuitry Act. The information for closed captioning is hidden in the “line 21 data” of your television signal, which is an invisible vertical line near the bottom of your TV screen.

When you turn closed captioning (CC) on, via your television, the decoder translates the hidden information into text. You may experience a delay in the translation of your captioning if the show is live, as the information is being captioned in real time and sent out with the signal, but prerecorded shows and most commercials will not experience a delay.

If you are watching a movie on a DVD or Blu-ray player, however, the only way to decode the disc is through your media player, not your television set.

So placing your TV in a TV lift cabinet will have no effect on your ability to use closed captioning, and no additional wiring or special TV placement are needed to receive this embedded information.

In mid-November, Amazon.com debuted Amazon Studios with the intent of soliciting screenplays from its users which (hopefully) will be produced into feature-length films with Warner Bros. Pictures. This means that novice and beginning screenwriters and filmmakers hoping to land that big contract may have a chance at making their dreams come true. It also means that winners can one day watch their hit movies on a TV screen that pops up from a TV lift cabinet from ImportAdvantage!

Already Amazon Studios has received more than a thousand scripts, and in honor of this milestone Amazon Studios announced a bonus contest, awarding $20,000 to each of the two best scripts uploaded by December 31, 2010. This bonus contest is in addition to the planned $1.1 million in awards Amazon Studios will give away in 2011, including $1 million for Best Movie and $100,000 for Best Script.

Submissions are being accepted in two formats: scripts and test movies. Full-length test movie entries must be at least 70 minutes in length, but not longer than 180 minutes, and screenplays must be between 85 and 160 pages. Should Amazon Studios help produce a film from a screenplay or test movie submission, the writer or filmmaker will receive a rights payment of $200,000, and if the produced film grosses more than $60 million at the U.S. box office, the original writer/filmmaker will receive a $400,000 bonus. And though Warner Bros. Pictures will get a first-look deal for any winning submissions, Amazon Studios may produce a film on its own or with another studio if Warner Bros. Pictures is not inclined to develop a particular project.

Merit for a particular project is gained through user feedback, public input, commercial viability, guest judges and Amazon Studios industry panelists, which include notable screenwriters and producers from Hollywood. Submissions can be altered and resubmitted based on early feedback, and any user can either download submitted screenplays or view test movies and rank them on Amazon’s standard 5-star scale. From drama to kid’s movies, Amazon Studios is a new effort that aims to open Hollywood’s door to the general public.

To get started on submitting your blockbuster, visit Amazon Studios or read through their Getting Started/FAQ. And be sure to let us know if we can expect to view your work on the big screen in 2011 or beyond. Good luck to all the future filmmakers and writers out there!