Page 58 - Blog

All I’ve been hearing about lately is how fall sports are really kicking into high gear over the next few weeks. College football is back tonight, NFL starts in a couple weeks, and NHL hockey will be close behind. Now that our main TV will be dominated by games every weekend until February, I’m starting to entertain the idea of a mancave (don’t tell my husband…). Mancaves seem to be everywhere these days. TV shows dedicated to them, men raving about them. My whole issue with a mancave was that it would look too out of place in my home. My entire decor has a certain flow and everything seems to fit. Well, where does a mancave fall into place? I don’t want a random room with sports memorabilia and movie posters hanging on the wall. People will think I have a reclusive teenage son that I never talk about. So I got to thinking, is there a way to make a mancave, dare I say, fashionable? All I want would be a few decorative elements that would appease me but would go unnoticed to the average

I’ve always been one who enjoys the convenience of online shopping over dragging myself to the mall and fighting off the crowds – especially when I am looking for something specific. Now that I have a home that is in desperate need of furniture and décor, my preference for online shopping concerned me a bit. With not being able to see the furniture before I buy or having the immediate assistance from a salesperson, I thought the time had finally come to put online shopping behind me. So, I put on my best furniture shopping shoes and hit the pavement.  I bought all new living room furniture and a new bedroom set.  Not to say that I do not love what I bought BUT shortly after my venture into the brick and mortar world of furniture shopping, I went back to my online shopping roots. I wanted to see what was out there.

Like all of us, I have my own personal taste and therefore I often have an image in my head of exactly what I am looking for. I started browsing and before long, I came across

Our Banyan Creek TV lift cabinet is a classic beauty.  This tradition cabinet is finished in a warm, inviting African mahogany stain.  With round edged doors and decorative trim panels, the Banyan Creek is exquisite.

The Banyan Creek has a heavy duty rack and pinion lift mechanism built inside that silently lowers and raises the television.  There is plenty of storage behind the front three cabinet doors of the Banyan Creek.  The center cabinet door also comes with interchangeable wood, glass, and speaker cloth panels to make the cabinet custom to your needs.

Our Infrared Relay System is also preinstalled within cabinet to operate AV equipment behind closed doors.  No longer do you have to have direct line of sight to operate your cable box.  The IR System is designed to relay commands from your cable remote down to flashing emitters inside cabinet that then bounce the commands to cable box.  There is no programming required to set this system up.  It is already built in,

Do you have an Apple TV within your TV lift cabinet?   If so, you may be interested to learn that the Apple TV is now offering Hulu Plus as part of their available paid VOD streaming services.

It took Hulu Plus many years before finally making their services available on the Apple TV.  Why did it take so long to become available?  It stems down to two main reasons.

In order to offer Hulu Plus app onto the Apple TV, Apple insists new Hulu Plus subscribers register through Apple’s in-app purchasing and subscription renewal.  Apple therefore gets a percentage of the $7.99 monthly subscription fee and also gets ownership of new member’s billing information.  Having customer’s personal information is valuable intellectual property.  Hulu Plus was reluctant to lose their hold on customers’ information and see profit margins cut.  However, with rumors of the latest Apple smart TV underway, it became more important than ever to get Hulu Plus streamed on Apple devices.

The other reason

Do you have speakers or a sound bar that you would like to fit within one of our TV lift cabinets?  If so, you may be wondering what cabinets would work best for your audio equipment. We have many large traditional and modern lift consoles that are designed with space specifically for speakers and sound bars.

LIFT CABINETS BEST SUITED FOR SOUND BARS

Our Banyan Creek XL, Remington, Concord, and Soho TV lift cabinets are best suited to store a long sound bar.  The Concord has a cubby space towards the top of cabinet geared for the sound bar, whereas the other three cabinets have a pull out drawer with interchangeable wood and speaker cloths. The drawer front panel can be changed to speaker cloth for maximum sound quality.

LIFT CABINETS BEST SUITED FOR SPEAKERS

If you have speakers, we have several more options available for you.  Most of our large cabinets are designed with at least one interchangeable wood panel drawer or cabinet door.  The wood panels can be removed and switched

I am addicted to the HGTV network.  My favorite show is House Hunters International followed closely by Property Brothers and Sarah’s House.  The other day I was watching a House Hunters International episode that was filmed in Barbados.   The home hunter enters bedroom during home showing and BAM!  There is one of our TV lift cabinets.

Do you recognize the TV lift cabinet within this bedroom?  It is our very own Prism Espresso!  Can you imagine my surprise and delight of having one of our cabinets make it all the way to Barbados?  I was thrilled.  In honor of that episode, this week’s product focus of the week is the Prism Espresso.

The Prism Espresso is modernly designed with clean contemporary lines.  The bottom of this cabinet has a concealed drawer that features flip down panels for access on either side.  The drawer space can store very comfortably two electronic devices.  This cabinet features our built-in rack and pinion lift machine and infrared relay system.

I am addicted to the HGTV network.  My favorite show is House Hunters International followed closely by Property Brothers and Sarah’s House.  The other day I was watching a House Hunters International episode that was filmed in Barbados.   The home hunter enters bedroom during home showing and BAM!  There is one of our TV lift cabinets.

Do you recognize the TV lift cabinet within this bedroom?  It is our very own Prism Espresso!  Can you imagine my surprise and delight of having one of our cabinets make it all the way to Barbados?  I was thrilled.  In honor of that episode, this week’s product focus of the week is the Prism Espresso.

The Prism Espresso is modernly designed with clean contemporary lines.  The bottom of this cabinet has a concealed drawer that features flip down panels for access on either side.  The drawer space can store very comfortably two electronic devices.  This cabinet features our built-in rack and pinion lift machine and infrared relay system.

To better understand how our Infrared Relay System works, it best to first explain the difference between Radio Frequency (RF) and Infrared (IR) commands.  Radio frequency commands can go through wood.  A garage door opener uses RF commands to open the garage door.  Infrared commands cannot go through wood.  IR commands must have direct line of sight with IR sensor lights.   In order to change channels on a cable box, the remote has to be pointed directly at the cable box sensor light.

With most AV electronics operating on IR commands, how is one supposed to operate AV components if hidden within a TV lift cabinet?  The answer to that question is to use the Infrared Relay System.

The Infrared Relay System consists of a receiver eye, output flasher lights (known to us as emitters), hub, and transformer power cord.  In each of our storage TV lift consoles, we install a barely visible receiver eye at the front of the cabinet.  Behind the cabinet doors, emitters are already

Our Traveler TV lift cabinet gets transformed!  We have made modifications to our Traveler TV lift cabinet which include adding a finished backside to match the front of the cabinet.  No longer does this cabinet have to be a wall flower.  This cabinet can now be used at the foot of the bed or free standing.  We have also added caster wheels to the base of the cabinet for easy mobility.  A heavy duty rack and pinion lift machine silently lowers and raises television plus two electronic components.  The lift machine can hold TVs as large as 46” and has surge-protected onboard power for both TV and electronics.

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The Traveler is truly a handsome devil. It is beautifully crafted out of solid maple wood with a hand applied rich tobacco finish and decorative brass hardware.

The battle between DirecTV and Viacom continues.  This is not good news for our TV lift customers who have DirecTV.  Viacom claims DirecTV won’t work with them to renew contract terms.  They claim that the renewal plans put forth our fair.  It is evident they wish to increase DirecTV’s fee structure.  Viacom states the fee increase is consistent to what their other distributors have to pay for Viacom Channels.  According to Nomura Analyst Michael Nathanson, he estimates that most distributors pay a fee of $3 per subscriber per month whereas DirecTV only paid $2.25 per subscriber per month up until last week.  Viacom wishes to increase their fee to what they claim is only “a couple of pennies per day per subscriber”.

However DirecTV states, when added up, this is a 30% fee increase.  They also state that Viacom’s renewal plans force them to add channels they don’t want. "Viacom insists that we carry the EPIX channel at an additional cost of more than half a billion dollars,"