Archive for February, 2011

Walter Murch

Film sound and editing legend, Walter Murch, recently expounded on the virtues, challenges and future of 3-D technology in the entertainment industry. Murch, who is respected for his Academy Award-winning work on “Apocalypse Now” and Oscar-winning editing and sound mixing work on “The English Patient,” recently wrote a letter to film critic Roger Ebert about the world of 3-D.

Murch’s own history with 3-D technology started back in 1986 when he edited the 3-D version of Michael Jackson’s “Captain Eo,” which was directed by Francis Ford Coppola and shown at Disney theme parks. Many actually claim this film was “4-D” since it incorporated so many in-theater effects (lasers, smoke, etc.) synched to the film’s narrative.

In the letter he wrote to Ebert, Murch explains that the biggest obstacle in producing 3-D films is the “convergence/focus issue.” As a viewer watches a 3-D film, different “planes” are apparent to the viewer, and though the viewer him or herself is not changing their location in relation to the stationary TV or movie screen (ie. they are constant), 3-D images must have an appearance of moving not only left and right, up and down, but closer and further away from the viewer. This can be problematic as a film that will be shown to a movie theater audience, viewing it in planes 10, 60 and 120 feet away, depending on the where one sits in the theater and what the effect is, will not need the same convergence points when watching it at home in one’s living room in front of a stationary TV lift cabinet.

Other small issues with 3-D, according to Murch, include darkness and “smallness” issues, but those can be overcome he says. Convergence, however, is not something technology can simply fix. Murch points to the fact that humans have been evolving their eyesight for 600 million years; people know how to focus on an image at 6 feet and how to focus on something at 60 feet, but their brains aren’t quite sure how to be tricked into focusing (at least virtually) on both of those distances at the same time. This is why some people get headaches after only watching about 20 minutes of a 3-D film.

3-D films, therefore, take much more time to edit and produce than a 2-D film. If all the pieces aren’t exactly in the right place at the right time, the 3-D effect is lost. However, Murch also believes that the movie’s story is something that can create a dimensionality as strong as or stronger than what a 2-D or 3-D film can produce, and that, in the end, is what it boils down to for Murch.

Out of the answers below, can you guess why people are hesitant to buy online?

A.      Cannot see the product in person.

B.      Does the finish look exactly as it does online?

C.      Concerns over online security.

D.      Do not feel comfortable doing business with people they have not had the opportunity to meet face to face.

E.       All of the above.

If you answered “E”, then you share the same concerns of many.  It can be quite nerve wracking to make a purchase sight unseen with an unfamiliar company.

As an online furniture company, we face these hurdles every day when speaking with our customers.  It is extremely important to us to make sure our customers feel comfortable when making their purchases.  That is why we make sure to address each and every one of these reservations.

For starters, did you know that we can send you wood-finish samples of any our TV lift cabinets?  Yes, it is absolutely true!  To ensure our customers select the right TV lift cabinet for their homes, we send free wood samples to all that are interested.  This has helped many of our customers determine which cabinet finish will work best in their homes.

We also understand that folks are hesitant to release their credit card information online.  Who wouldn’t be?  However, our customers do not have to worry when shopping on our site.  We are McAfee Secure and tested so our customers can shop without fear. McAfee provides around-the-clock site protection from hackers, adware, spyware, browser exploits, spammers, phishing attacks and online scams. This is the greatest confidence an online retailer can provide.

Finally, it is always helpful to identify a face with a name.   It is more comfortable knowing whom you are speaking with, rather than just having a voice.  To me, it just feels more REAL and personable.

With that being said, I would like to welcome you to our team.

Comcast-NBC

The lines of division are even blurrier now, at least in terms of who will be providing your cable and Internet service in 2011. The FCC recently approved a Comcast-NBC merger, citing that it did not violate U.S. antitrust laws. So should you expect to see a change in your service when you come home one afternoon next week to watch a show in front of your TV lift cabinet? Probably not. What this merger means is that Comcast now has majority ownership of NBC and its media properties, which includes a piece of TV-streaming giant, Hulu.

The specifics of the merger are an agreement between Comcast and General Electric, which owns the majority of NBC Universal. The merger was approved by the FCC by a 4-1 vote, and Comcast will acquire 51% of NBC Universal for approximately $13.75 billion. This deal has been in the works for more than a year.

One of the major concerns over this deal before it was passed was to make sure it did not hinder or hamper the continuing growth of online video. The FCC ordered that the joint venture “must make available to online distributors (OVDs) the same package of broadcast and cable channels that it sells to traditional video programming distributors.” Additionally, the agreement is that the venture “must offer an OVD broadcast, cable and film content that is similar to, or better than, the content the distributor receives from any of the joint venture’s programming peers.”

Comcast agreed to these and seven other conditions doled out by the FCC and must adhere to them for seven years. All this means that even though the Comcast-NBC merger has created the single largest media conglomerate in the world, there is still room for competition, especially in the world of online video.

Comcast may see this success as an “about face” to their failed 2004 attempt to take over the Walt Disney Co. for an estimated $54 billion. So while Comcast doesn’t own Mickey Mouse or Tinker Bell (yet), it does now own SyFy, G4, E! Entertainment Television, Versus, USA Network, Telemundo, NBC News and NBC.

Where they will take all these channels and companies, no one really knows, but for now it should be “business as usual.” So sit back, turn on the tube and enjoy the show!

The Estates TV Lift Cabinet

The Estates TV Lift Cabinet is a TV lift cabinet stately enough to command any guest’s attention in your home. As areas of entertainment in homes have only increased in their usefulness as gathering places, the Estates TV Lift Cabinet can certainly serve as center stage – be it for a movie, a video game or simply as a piece of fine furniture by which to stand and have a conversation.

Hand constructed from an appealing warm and brown African mahogany veneer, the Estates TV Lift Cabinet seamlessly blends the fine luxury of traditional European home furniture with today’s cutting edge technology.

This TV lift cabinet features three separate tilt-down compartments for media and electronics storage, while the integrated heavy-duty TV lift mechanism works silently to raise and lower your flat-screen TV. The Estates’ center tilt-down cabinet door has an interchangeable wood or speaker cloth panel which makes it suitable as a storage space for a center channel speaker.

The TV lift cabinet can house a flat-screen TV weighing up to 130 pounds and measuring 55” wide, thanks to its spacious design and Uplift 3700 TV lift.

The Estates TV Lift Cabinet is perfect against any wall in your home. Check it out today and let us know what you think.

Pioneer Elite HDTV

Pioneer Elite HDTVs had been discontinued since 2009, but in a recent press release Sharp announced that it has been granted a license to begin producing Pioneer’s Elite brand of high-end displays in 2011. This is great news, especially since the Pioneer Elite screens were considered some of the top displays in their day, providing astounding color and black level reproduction. And the very impressive Pioneer Elite 60-inch flat-screen fit beautifully in the Banyan Creek XL TV Lift Cabinet.

After the country experienced a recession, however, these high-end (and high-dollar) displays could not withstand the onslaught of cheap LCD and plasma TVs. As part of the new deal, the flat-screen TV displays will be jointly marketed by Pioneer and Sharp, but they will only bear the name “Elite” and be sold, firstly, through Pioneer’s original Elite dealer network.

Sharp and Pioneer rightly believe that the market is once again ready for their Elite line of HDTVs, and we will be following the progress of their sales. Would you consider waiting to purchase an Elite this year over a Panasonic plasma or Samsung LCD? Let us know what you think.

The 83^rd Academy Awards will be presented on Sunday February 27, 2011, which means we only have 20 more days to speculate about who will go home with an Oscar, guess who will show up with whom and daydream about the high fashion and wardrobe mishaps always appearing on the red carpet. And now that the Super Bowl is behind us, is anyone planning to host an Oscar party? Are you the designated host because you are the one with a TV lift cabinet?

The Academy Awards have a long-standing reputation of honoring the “best of the best” in the movie industry in 24 different categories. The ceremony will air on ABC and both James Franco and Anne Hathaway will host the show, which is a first for both actors.

Nominations for the 83^rd Academy Awards were released on January 25, 2011, and if you want to know who’s in and who’s out, here’s a rundown of the major categories and their nominees:

Best Picture

127 Hours

Black Swan

The Fighter

Inception

The Kids Are All Right

The King’s Speech

The Social Network

Toy Story 3

True Grit

Winter’s Bone

Best Director

Darren Aronofsky – Black Swan

Ethan Coen and Joel Coen – True Grit

David Fincher – The Social Network

Tom Hooper – The King’s Speech

David O. Russell – The Fighter

Best Actor

Javier Bardem – Biutiful

Jeff Bridges – True Grit

Jesse Eisenberg – The Social Network

Colin Firth – The King’s Speech

James Franco – 127 Hours

Best Actress

Annette Bening – The Kids Are All Right

Nicole Kidman – Rabbit Hole

Jennifer Lawrence – Winter’s Bone

Natalie Portman – Black Swan

Michelle Williams – Blue Valentine

Best Supporting Actor

Christian Bale – The Fighter

John Hawkes – Winter’s Bone

Jeremy Renner – The Town

Mark Ruffalo – The Kids Are All Right

Geoffrey Rush – The King’s Speech

Best Supporting Actress

Amy Adams – The Fighter

Helena Bonham Carter – The King’s Speech

Melissa Leo – The Fighter

Hailee Steinfeld – True Grit

Jacki Weaver – Animal Kingdom

Topping the list with the most number of nominations is The King’s Speech, receiving 12, but it is followed by True Grit, which received 10 nominations. Both Inception and The Social Network received eight nominations each.

How many of the “Best Picture” film nominees have you seen? Is there a film, director, actor or actress you feel may have been left out of this year’s list?

This Sunday, the Green Bay Packers will take on the Pittsburgh Steelers in Dallas, Texas, in the NFL’s Super Bowl XLV. The game will feature the NFL’s top two defensive teams and mark a milestone for the Steelers for the most number of Super Bowl appearances, tying the Dallas Cowboy’s eight appearances in their franchise history. And while most fans will be heading out to their favorite bar, restaurant or over to whichever friend’s house has the biggest flat-screen TV (and fanciest TV lift cabinet), a rather large sub-section of football fans and bystanders will be watching the Super Bowl this year for the ads.

In fact, many are speculating that this year’s Super Bowl will draw record viewership, surpassing last year’s record 106.5 million viewers. And so the advertisers are planning to bring their own “A game”. The price of advertising has risen over the years, quadrupling in the last twenty years. This jump in cost for a Super Bowl commercial from last year to this year was about 30 percent. If you want to air a thirty-second commercial, just one time, during the Packers/Steelers Super Bowl, plan on shelling out $3 million, and that doesn’t even figure into what it cost to produce the commercial.

Super Bowl ads, however, also have a long history of paying for themselves in revenue. Many of the most-watched, most-liked, most “viral” YouTube videos last year were commercials that debuted during the 2010 Super Bowl.

This year companies, like Bud Light, are trying to use social media to create a buzz for their ads before they’ve even aired. Bud Light created a virtual social game called “Unlock the Spot” and is asking fans to guess which storylines will appear in their three Super Bowl ads this year. In 2010, Budweiser, another Anheuser-Busch beer brand, asked its fans to vote for which ad they aired.

The social media tie-in is just one of five speculated themes that will be present in 2011’s selection of Super Bowl ads. Other major themes likely to pop up during pauses in the game and during halftime are cars, women and an overall Hollywood “feel” to these high-dollar ads. Another theme this year will be the list of companies that opted out of advertising during the Super Bowl. Among this list are Pizza Hut, Denny’s and Papa John’s.

Regardless of who shows, who no-shows and who wins this year in the Super Bowl, have fun, enjoy the game and send us a picture of your TV lift in action during the Super Bowl XLV!

University Park TV Lift Cabinet

Now you see it, now you don’t! With the University Park TV Lift Cabinet, customers have a unique dual-access to their flat-screen television. With the touch of a button, the TV will raise out of the TV lift cabinet on a heavy duty TV lift mechanism. But if you’re in the mood to keep things low, just open the dual cabinet doors and start watching your TV without raising it. This second option is great for a simulated fireplace (which comes as a free DVD with every purchase).

The University Park TV Lift Cabinet features a hand layered stain finish, brushed nickel hardware and can accommodate a TV as large as 55” and weighing up to 80 pounds. Its center lift not only holds a flat-screen TV, but will also house two media players with depths of 13-1/4” or less.

The University Park TV Lift Cabinet is perfectly suited against any wall in your home or in the bedroom. It comes standard with a full 1-Year In-Home Warranty and free White Glove Delivery.

Take a moment to check out the University Park TV Lift Cabinet and let us know what you think!

Boxee

Boxee, a small box or computer program that makes Internet media and movies available for viewing on your television, will be making HD movie-watching a possibility in its next firmware update, say company representatives.

With either an actual Boxee (pictured above from the back side) device or by installing the Boxee software on a laptop computer and hooking that up to your television, Boxee already gives its customer access to more than 40,000 TV show episodes and movie- and sports-streaming capabilities from partners like the MLB, Netflix, NHL, Pandora and Vudu. It is through Vudu’s services, however, that customers will be able to soon watch HD-enabled movies.

The firmware update will come out automatically, but customers can also install the update manually by going to (Settings > System > Update). Other Boxee updates in this install include support for language selection in subtitle/audio, enhancements to its Browser performance and the Browser opening in a lower resolution to allow easier reading of text.

Vudu’s services boast the most HD movies available for streaming in 1080p HD quality, as well as Dolby surround sound and HDX (similar to Blu-ray). Vudu has also started offering 3D movies, but no word yet if Boxee will be able to offer those titles just yet. Vudu was recently acquired by Wal-Mart, so expect competitive pricing from the company for its services. One of Vudu’s unique features is that there is no monthly fee or contract, as its movies are available for “rent” and customers pick the individuals title they want to watch that evening.

The Boxee can play a variety of video formats, including Adobe Flash 10.1, MPEG-4 and VC-1. It can also display JPEG, PNG, GIF, BMP and TIFF images. Makers of the Boxee say it is intended to be a social movie watching experience, and that is why users set up a Boxee account and can share select information with friends or set up multiple accounts for different family members in the same household (such as favorite apps, social networks, etc.).

Just between us, though, between the laptop computer version of Boxee and an actual Boxee box, the box may be better suited for a closed TV lift cabinet door because of Boxee’s unique remote control with QWERTY keyboard and simple controls.

Do you own a Boxee or use Vudu? Let us and others know how they work in your TV lift cabinet.

ScentScape

Charlie’s fictional trip to the Chocolate Factory may soon be a modern day reality, at least in part. ScentSciences has developed and is about to release ScentScape, a small device that produces smells in conjunction with playing video games. Now you can totally immerse yourself in sight, sound and smell while playing video games in front of your TV lift cabinet.

The ScentScape can emit 20 different customizable scents, but each one must be programmed via the ScentEditor to its accompanying game. The editing program also allows users to create custom scents and share them with friends.

The ScentScape will also work with PC-based video games and it can supposedly be adapted to home videos. But what smells would you pick for a YouTube video? The possibilities are endless.

In any case, as the home theater continues to be a focal point in many family rooms, the ScentScape seems to add to complete realism and total immersion in the entertainment industry. It’s as if 3-D can soon be coupled with 3-Senses (sight, sound, smell). Hopefully, we’re a long way away from integrating the sense of touch in 3-D movies, but who knows?