media room design |

CIS is Lake Norman's 1st Choice For 3D HDTV Sales & Installation!

Why 3D will find an important niche in the home theater experience.

Our good friends over at eCoustics.com offered “10 Reasons 3D Might Fail.”

I was a little surprised to see such a forward-looking A/V news source predicting such blasphemy. It’s been a long time since a tech trend has generated as much buzz as 3D, and theater hits like “Avatar” and “Alice In Wonderland” have heightened consumer interest in 3D.

Here are my counter points as to why 3D TV will find an important niche in the home theater experience.

Glasses – Consumers have shown they’ll don 3D glasses in large public venues (i.e. theaters and theme parks). Why wouldn’t they do so in the privacy of their own home. Glasses are also a stop-gap as auto-stereoscopic technologies develop and the associated price tag softens.

TV Watching is Social – While 3D viewing may alter the social atmosphere, it also heightens immersion. The times 3D will be most interesting are the times you’re so immersed in the content that you won’t want to talk to the person next to you. It’s not for the news, SportsCenter, or AMC.

Compatibility – Nearly every major upgrade in home theater content has had associated hardware upgrades. Dolby Digital? DVD? HDTV? Blu-ray? All required new hardware to varying degrees. Some early adopters will abandon perfectly good equipment for the latest and greatest, while others upgrade through attrition. It’s all happened before and will happen again.

Lack of Content – Hardware and software are like the chicken and the egg. But in the A/V world, hardware almost always comes first and languishes a bit until some killer app (like “The Matrix” on DVD) pushes people to invest. Once the seal is broken, the trickle gains momentum and becomes a flood.

Confusion – The launch of HDTV in the U.S. caused more consumer confusion than any other technology roll-out of all time. While HDTV was slow to ramp-up and had a big government push behind it, it’s a success regardless of the confusion, and not every Joe Six Pack even saw the benefit of HDTV’s resolution, aspect ratio, and digital video/sound. It’s hard for anyone to say they physically don’t see what 3D offers.

Health Risks – It’s true that some people can’t see stereoscopic 3D effects. Another small minority can experience some discomfort or eye strain from extended viewing. The percentages of people affected by both categories vary wildly based on who you ask. Some warnings have been issued by electronics manufacturers, but you can find similar warnings for everything from cell phones to supermarket plastic bags. Until there is some substantial evidence to actual risks, these kinds of allegations are best left to Fox News.

Unwatchable 3D Footage – 3D content can easily be viewed in 2D. While it’s an either-or proposition (either everyone watches 3D or 2D), displays and content devices offer the ability to “flatten” 3D content to 2D. Since the 3D effect is generated by separate 2D images for each eye, showing only the left or right image effectively renders 3D content in 2D.

Just Good-enough Syndrome – While HDTV content and Blu-ray content haven’t replaced SD or DVD as de facto standards, saying they haven’t “taken off” is disingenuous at best. 3D isn’t meant to replace 2D, but augment it. Every major new technology has early adopters and those who hold back. 3D won’t be any different, but that doesn’t mean it will fail. DVD didn’t, surround sound didn’t, HDTV didn’t, and 3D won’t.

Discs are Dying – While 3D can require more storage space or bandwidth, it’s not reliant on a physical medium much, if any, more than HD video.

History Lessons – While the term “HDTV” may have been around 20 years before it reached market saturation, the digital HDTV broadcast in the U.S. occurred in the summer of 1996, and the ATSC standard wasn’t finalized until the fall of 1998. By 2001, HDTVs were becoming common place in big-box retailers. Twenty years is a huge stretch. Consumers have a short memory, and far more people are likely to remember their 3D theater experience and become interested in replicating it in their home (unless they see “Clash of the Titans”).

by Stephen Hopkins

http://www.electronichouse.com/article/10_reasons_3d_will_succeed/C155?utm_source=eh&utm_medium=side

Custom Installation Services, LLC – Charlotte and Asheville NC’s Source For Samsung & Sharp 3D HDTV Sales, Service and Installation!

CIS - For All Your Home Theater and Media Room Electronics and Furniture!

This tech-savvy Oklahoma-based builder incorporated a modest home theater into one of his model homes as an example to prospective owners.

Jeff Click of Jeff Click Homes in Oklahoma City specializes in building mid-priced homes, but don’t think of him as your average homebuilder.

For one thing, he embraces technology. His company even does the installation work on simple home theaters in some of his homes. So the logical next step for him was to add a modestly priced home theater to one of his model homes.

“We’ve noticed increasing demand for rooms like this one in modestly priced homes. People are looking for theater rooms, but not the high prices that typically come with it,” Click says.

The builder set out to do an affordable home theater for under $5,000—and he wouldn’t settle for a flat-panel TV hooked up to a receiver and speakers in the family room. No, this is a separate room, about 12 by 18 feet, with a Full HD 1080p front projection system and 5.1 channels of surround sound—and it sells as an $8,450 option on the $245,785 house.

Click also wasn’t content with just filling up the room with audio/video gear and home theater chairs. “We set out to make it unique in style and to accommodate recreation use,” he says.

The soffit surrounding the tray ceiling provides a contemporary splash and lightens the dark room, while a counter in the back row offers raised seating and a place to eat. A wraparound sectional replaces theater-style seats and allows plenty of space in front for Wii games. That’s right: The room is equipped with a Wii game console for family-style fun. Hence the room’s name: Wii-ater room.

Click researched available audio/video gear for his budget. He’s a fan of Denon receivers, so he went with a Denon AVR-587 and added Polk Audio RM7 satellites, two of which are on stands, with the center channel on the equipment console and the two surround speakers mounted on the back wall. No wiring is visible, as electronics installation company Wiring Solutions prewired the room before construction.

But it’s the video system Click is most proud of. It features a 1080p BenQ W1000 DLP projector and a 92-inch gray screen to enhance the DLP’s contrast. “I’m most pleased with the affordable HD projector. It has 1080p resolution and costs around $1,000 to $1,200.

“For our price range and demographic, it’s a little over the top to go with top-of-the-line equipment. [Our buyers] don’t want to have to spend that kind of money,” he says.

That didn’t stop Click from adding an Apple TV system. “I’ve had those since it has come out. We use it like crazy for music or when we miss a show.”

There are some compromises when doing a budget system like this, especially for a model home. For one, he’s got component video cables going into the projector and not HDMI (high-definition multimedia interface). And one thing Click would do over is add an IR (infrared) relay so that someone sitting on the sectional doesn’t have to point a remote backwards to fire up the projector.

Want More?
Jeff Click Homes offers its clients all kinds of options for home theater. Here are some projects they’ve done above and beyond:

Multiple style packages, some with tray ceilings.
Made a room wider for a five-flat panel multiplex system.
Created an additional platform for seating areas.
Installed creative lighting for accents and LED lights.
Used no equipment in a room and routed cabling back to the closet and the equipment rack.

Equipment
BenQ W1000 Projector, 1920 X 1080 ($1,100, with mount)
Elite ezFrame ELIR106H1 Cinegrey 52-by-92-inch Screen ($400)
Denon AVR-587 Receiver ($300)
Polk Audio RM7 Satellite Speakers ($500)
BIC Venturi V-80 Subwoofer ($200)
AppleTV ($230)
Nintendo Wii ($300 with accessories)
Scientific Atlanta HD Cable Box (provided by cable company)
Equipment Console from Ultimate Electronics ($400)
Sectional from IO Metro Furniture ($2,500)
Bar Stools from Directions in Furniture ($600)
Rapid Run Component Cable (prewire) ($500)
Elevated platform and raised bar ($1,250)
Harmony One Remote ($200)

by Steven Castle

http://www.electronichouse.com/article/homebuilder_offers_budget_theaters_as_optional_amenity/

Custom Installation Services, LLC – Audio/Video Sales, Service and Installation in North Carolina and South Carolina