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Buying a new plasma flat-screen TV is a significant investment, and everyone wants to make the right choice. Perhaps you’re shopping for a new plasma TV to go inside a new TV lift cabinet, so you want one that will be just as feature-packed and reliable. You also want one that will fit on your TV lift. Below is a list of the best 42” plasma TVs available on the market today, just in time for last-minute Christmas gifts. And all these TVs will fit on an Uplift TV lift mechanism (excluding the Uplift 2700).

Based on price, quality and value, these 42” plasma TVs are sure to please both the eye and the wallet. At the top of the list is Panasonic’s TC-P42S2. This stellar Viera plasma screen features the new NEO plasma display panel with improved blacks and a contrast ratio of 40,000:1. It even has a special gaming mode to handle the latest graphics in today’s top games! All this for under $700.

The Panasonic TC-P42C2 is a budget-priced plasma TV in the C2 series, which focuses on using a

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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