I still remember the first time I watched the scary sci-fi movie “Alien”. My aunt wanted to take me to a movie and Alien was the only matinee showing. Being a teenager at the time it was thrilling to get to see an “R”-rated movie but what I remember most was the theater design.
We went to a brand new theater that had Stadium Seating. This configuration allows everyone to have an unobstructed view of the screen. You would need someone with hair like Marge Simpson to even come close to blocking your view. 
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Tags: Features, Advice, & Examples
I hear it time and time again…”Why do I still see black bars on my new widescreen TV?”
Without getting too technical or asking you to dust off your middle school geometry textbooks, here’s the basic facts about Aspect Ratios:
Fact 1) There have been several image formats developed over the years.
Format A) The NTSC television format is an almost square image roughly 4 units wide by 3 units high. If you bought a “big screen TV” in the early 90’s it would look like the familiar shape you’re used to watching all those I Love Lucy re-runs in. It is an aspect ratio of roughly 1.33 to 1.
Format B) CinemaScope was developed for the movie theaters. It has a very wide 2.35:1 aspect ratio so a 40-foot wide screen was only 17 feet high. This helps us feel enveloped by the image and brings us into the movie. 
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Tags: Features, Advice, & Examples
Home security systems are incredibly simple. When armed, the controller receives a signal from a door switch, motion sensor, or blass break sensor then proceeds to sound the siren and dial to a Central Station monitoring company. The Central Station calls the police, fire department, or whoever is on the call list.
With 99.99% of the installed security systems in the U.S., it’s functionality ends there. But what a waste of some great sensors!
Security systems are designed to inform you when unauthorized people are entering or moving about your house. The fact is, it knows someone is moving about the house but who’s to say that person isn’t you just getting up for a midnight visit to the Loo. 
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Tags: Features, Advice, & Examples
A friend of mine in New Jersey recently asked me for help selecting a big screen for his basement. He named off a few model numbers of the displays he was shown at a local big box store and asked which one was the best overall TV. My response email was a good summary of the decision process I use when recommending a display so I thought I’d share it in The Design Perspective. 
Here’s my response:Regarding the HD technology wars it boils down to this: LCD has many versions, Plasma has many versions, DLP has many versions, LCoS has many versions. At this point, the latest versions of each technology are equally awesome and are getting to the point that the weak link is your eyeballs and brain. [Read more →]
Tags: Features, Advice, & Examples
Pair of speakers…$3000
Matching amp and receiver…$2000
Interconnects and wires…$750
Hearing you tell the story about how you hated the way it sounded when you got it home so you brought it all back to the guy who sold it to you…priceless.
Knowing how and where you are going to use your audio system is the first step to a successful solution. The most overlooked variable in the equation is the room itself.A room can look great and sound great. Sometimes all it takes is a little creative accoustical treatment. [Read more →]
Tags: Features, Advice, & Examples
No, not the action movie. I’m talking about Matrix Switches. This handy device allows any TV to view any source. Why does this cause techno-shy women to say “cool”? Let me describe an example system.
Let’s say you have a home theater in the basement, a sleek flat screen in the hearth room, another in the master bedroom, and an under-cabinet TV in the kitchen. All except the kitchen TV are high-definition displays.
For sources, you have two high definition Cable TV boxes with DVR features, a 400-disc DVD player through a media manager, a “convenience DVD player” in the hearth room for rental DVDs, one HD/BluRay player, a door camera, and an Xbox 360. [Read more →]
Tags: Features, Advice, & Examples
There’s something about the holiday season that makes me want to view my photo albums. Like many of you, I don’t go to the shelf anymore to dust off a photo album. Most of our images are now digital and stored on one of our computers. Even the old photos have been scanned to better preserve and organize them.
Inevitably I find a few photos that bring back fond memories and tend to bother my wife by interrupting her every few minutes with a “Hey, remember this?” I group the slides into albums and add a few notes just like we used to write on the back of paper photos. Now I can find a photo in a few minutes instead of looking through stacks of albums or giving up completely.
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Tags: Features, Advice, & Examples
