Like many others proud Giants fans in the Bay area, I’ve spent considerable time glued to the games these last few weeks. Just the other day I was at a neighbor’s house watching the game and someone mentioned this hilarious interview with no other than Brian Wilson. After giving us a rundown of the clip we knew had to see it as soon as possible. Not a second after the next commercial break started, my friend grabbed the remote, switched to Apple TV, and within a matter of seconds had the YouTube interview up and running on his TV. Huddling around the computer to watch YouTube clips is already a thing of the past, how awesome is that!
Séura TV Mirrors
One brand that stands out as a true innovator in merging audio visual electronics and lifestyle products is Séura. Séura offers a unique line of stylish HD displays that fully integrate into the décor of your home. Their flagship product is known as a TV mirror. TV mirrors are LCD displays mounted behind mirrors that vanish when powered off. These make excellent hidden TVs in non-traditional spaces such as bathrooms, kitchens or powder rooms. TV mirrors offers an elegant solution for accessing television in many rooms of the house.In addition to TV mirrors, Séura manufactures the hydra waterproof television which is perfectly at home in places like your shower or Bath suite. With a TV mirror in the bathroom you gain the ability to catch the morning news in the shower or even pipe in music and movies from your favorite streaming media device.With the limitless possibilities of home integration and elegant design, Séura TV mirrors are amongst our favorite options for hidden TVs.
What’s the Difference?
This week, we thought we’d switch it up here on the SoundVision ShowTimes blog and let one of our technicians do the talking. I sat down with our Lead Technician, Kenny Meligan to chat about some of his experiences with other companies in the industry in comparison with SoundVision. Kenny also offers up some advice on choosing the best custom electronics integrator for your next project. Kenny has been a Lead Technician and Control Systems Programmer for over 5 years and has worked with a number of different integrators.Kenny thanks for chatting with me. In your past experience with other companies how did a typical day begin?
At other companies my day would start by being briefed on the spot about the day’s job. The boss would always prepare the schedule at the last minute in hopes of just throwing bodies at projects. There was rarely a plan of action and never any scope of work, design meetings, or project checklists given in advance.
Sounds like a tough start. How did that affect the projects?
Well, once I figured out where I was going for the day I’d go into the warehouse to stage the equipment only to find that we didn’t have half of the parts needed. On a few occasions I remember informing the boss, and he said, “I forgot to order that. Tell the client that it’s backordered.” So, I would leave the shop with no information on the project, very little parts, and a lie to tell the client!Once I arrived at the site, I’d rummage through my set of inferior tools and prepare to start work. There wasn’t much in the way of documentation which resulted in way too much time on the phone with tech support or my project manager. That was just to get up to speed on the project and figure out how the system is supposed to work.
How was your experience with the other technicians and support staff?
I found that often times at most other companies my coworkers weren’t CEDIA certified and had little experience. So, that meant a bit of babysitting onsite. The kicker was that after a long frustrating day onsite I’d finally get back to the shop to find my boss drinking a beer and acting as if everything was great.
Techs ensure their vans are kept well organized.
How is it different here at SoundVision?
SoundVision always stresses process and preplanning. Our schedules are literally booked weeks in advance. Each project gets a project binder that we take onsite. The binders include everything from scope of work, project management checklists, to wiring schematics & floor plans. At SoundVision we always follow a carefully laid out set of tasks and milestones for each project. In terms of parts, we have a purchasing manager who orders all our parts and stages them for us each morning. Our vans are always fully stocked with the right tools for the job. Continue reading “What’s the Difference?” »
Wrapping Up CES 2010
The 2010 International Consumer Electronics Show has come and gone, and those of us here at SoundVision were eagerly anticipating some of the major new products announcements that are bound to lay the groundwork for the year to come in the home entertainment industry. If this year’s show was any indication, 2010 will be the breakout year for 3D TV, with new 3D-capable models on the way from nearly every TV manufacturer, including our favorites Panasonic and Samsung. It’s also clear that Internet-connected TVs are quickly becoming the standard, echoing our belief that the time for enterprise-grade home networks is now.
Panasonic pushed the plasma TV size barrier a few years ago with the introduction of a 103-inch 1080p plasma HDTV, and they’re pushing the envelope once again with a new 152-inch 3D 4K2K ultra-high definition plasma display at this year’s CES. (Thanks to our friends over at SlashGear for the image of the plasma on display at Panasonic’s CES booth.) This new mega TV features a resolution of 4,096 x 2,160 pixels, or a resolution more than twice as higher as your ordinary 1080p HDTV. As expected, the picture quality on this beast of a TV is reported to be stunning. No word on pricing yet.
Just when you thought Samsung’s line of ultra-thin, LED edge-lit LCD HDTVs couldn’t get any thinner, they did. The new 9000-series of Samsung LED LCD TVs made their debut at this year’s CES, and like many of the other new displays introduced this year, include 3D processing capability when paired with a 3D-capable Blu-ray Disc player. Like Samsung’s other HDTV products, the 9000-series includes built-in WiFi to access online content, such as YouTube streaming and Netflix video-on-demand. Check out Engadget’s hands-on post for the skinny on this amazing new ultra-thin TV.It’s clear that the real star of this year’s CES was 3D, and we’ll definitely be seeing and learning more about this emerging technology as the year progresses. Stay tuned!
TechNotes: Aspect Ratios
Perhaps one of the questions we hear most frequently from our customers has to do with the various aspect ratios that are currently floating around in the television world. Widescreen, 16:9, 4:3, 1.33:1 – these are just a few of the various ratios that denote the difference between various screen aspects. That being said, there are three aspect ratios that we typically deal with on a daily basis here at SoundVision. Here’s a little bit of information about each one.
Standard Definition – Also known as “four by three,” 4:3 or 1.33:1, this is the aspect ratio that was with television from the beginning. It’s what most of us are used to seeing when we see those old, large and heavy cathode-ray tube (CRT) televisions and monitors. It’s nearly impossible to find these TVs in stores anymore, as they’ve been largely rendered obsolete by the advance of much lighter and more energy efficient flat-panel plasma and LCD display technologies. Typically, programs produced in widescreen or movies in their original aspect ratios are severely letterboxed (black bars on top and bottom) when viewed on a 4:3 TV.
High Definition - Typically known as “widescreen TV,” high definition content is usually (but not always) distributed in a 16:9 aspect ratio and viewed on a matching widescreen TV. Nearly all television programs produced within the last five years are shot in a 16:9 high definition format. Widescreen TVs are also great for viewing movies in their original aspect ratios, as minimal letterboxing occurs. These TVs come in either the plasma or LCD varieties in a range of resolutions. 16:9 TVs display older content produced in a 4:3 ratio by surrounding the narrower image with black or gray sidebars. Alternatively, you can set your TV to either stretch the image to fill the screen, or zoom it to crop off the top and bottom of the image. For more information on that, check out our past TechNotes post all about video performance factors.CineWide - While movies are produced in a variety of aspect ratios depending on how the movie’s director decides to show the story, most movies are produced in a 2.35:1 aspect ratio. Slightly slimmer than your HDTV’s 16:9, it still fills the screen nicely on a plasma or LCD HDTV with only slender black bars displayed on top of and below the image. These displays can also be set to fill the screen by zooming and cropping the image as necessary. In the past, CineWide movies have been released on VHS and DVD in “fullscreen” versions, where editors have used the pan and scan technique to crop the image to fit 4:3 aspect ratio TVs. Since the adoption of DVD and Blu-ray formats has increased, the practice of releasing “fullscreen” versions has fallen out of practice.
TechNotes: TV Technologies and Applications
In the world of televisions, there are a lot of options to choose from, and each one has its own benefits and drawbacks. In just a few short years, the television industry has seen a dramatic shift away from older TV technologies to almost exclusively relying on liquid crystal (LCD) and plasma flat-panel display technologies. If you were to walk into a big-box consumer electronics store these days, you’d be hard pressed to find a bulky direct-view CRT or projection TV anywhere on the sales floor.To help you make sense of it all, here’s where we’ve been and where we currently are when it comes to the technology behind TV display devices.Historical TVsDirect-view CRT – Who can forget the giant plastic and glass behemoths that used to dominate our living rooms? While they produced a great standard-definition picture, any direct-view CRT of a good size weighed in excess of 250-300 pounds. Fortunately for our backs, direct-view CRTs are not readily available anymore.CRT Rear Projection - The original big-screen TV, this technology used red, green and blue “guns” that worked together to project light onto a large screen. Brightness was a challenge with these early big-screen TVs, so they were only well-suited to rooms that were kept fairly dark on a regular basis. Like direct view CRTs, these have also fallen into obsolescence.DLP/LCD Rear Projection - The original “affordable” high-definition TV, these projection TVs used relatively new Digital Light Projection (DLP) or LCD projection technology to project a much brighter image on a screen. Since they eliminated the three cathode-ray tubes, they were extremely lightweight and were also not as deep. DLP and LCD projection TVs were largely driven into obsolescence due to the dramatic drop in price of flat-panel LCD TVs over the past two to three years.Current Flat-panel Display TechnologiesPlasma TV - Considered the “gold standard” of high-definition TV viewing, plasma TVs were the original flat-panel display on the market and remain the best to this day. Early plasma TVs were plagued by an extremely high price tag, relatively short lifespan and image retention (or “burn-in”) issues. Thankfully, advances in technology have allowed these issues to fall by the wayside. With a plasma TV, each pixel is its own “bulb” so you are looking directly at the light source. These TVs are also the brightest available and higher-end models from Panasonic and Pioneer have great black levels, or contrast. However, these TVs have gained a reputation for consuming a lot of energy and glare off the plasma’s glass display. Bottom line: if picture quality is paramount, plasma is your answer.LCD TV - LCD TVs consist of a light source and a lens. Original LCD TVs used CCFL fluorescent bulbs as the light source. New versions are using LED backlight technologies in “edge-lit” or “full array” configurations. LCD TVs have taken over as the inexpensive alternative for flatscreen technologies. Although they do not have the brightness, contrast and off-axis viewing advantages of plasma, they are less expensive and do a nice job in a high glare environment. They are the most energy efficient TV made, so if price and/or energy usage are most important, LCD TVs are the solution.As the North Bay’s TV experts, SoundVision can help you choose a TV solution that’s right for you. Give us a call or send us an email today!