AW MediaSolutions General Components
A brief overview of Home Theater and Entertainment Center Components
There are four primary areas of consideration in the creation of your Home Theater or Home Entertainment Center. These are: Display Type, Sound System, Lighting, and Furniture.These components can also be extended to provide Whole Home Audio, overall lighting control, and total-home viewing of high-definition programming and HDDVD videos and games.
Monitors, Televisons, and Display Types
LCD Monitors and Televisions – Liquid Crystal Display, or LCD TVs use a florescent backlight to send light through its liquid crystal molecules and a polarizing substrate. LCD TVs work passively, with red, green and blue pixels. By applying voltage to the pixels using a matrix of wires, the pixels can be darkened to prevent the backlight from showing through. Many LCD displays double as computer displays by allowing standard analogue VGA input, a great option if you need your display to pull double duty as a PC monitor.
Plasma Monitors and Televisions – Plasma screens are a network of red, green and blue phosphors (each triad makes up a single pixel) mounted between two thin layers of glass. Plasma screens use a small electric pulse for each pixel to excite the gases argon, neon and xenon used to produce the color information and light. As electrons excite the phosphors, oxygen atoms dissipate and create plasma, emitting UV light. These gases actually have a life and fade over time.
Because all the phosphor-excited pixels react at the same time, there is never any flicker apparent to the viewer. There’s also no backlight and no projection of any kind, so the light-emitting phosphors, result in a bright display with rich color and a wide viewing angle.
DLP® Projections Displays – DLP® technology comes closer than any other display solution to reproducing the exact mirror image of its source material. That's why images projected by DLP® technology are always crystal clear.
The thousands of mirrors making up the Digital Micromirror Device at the heart of DLP® technology are spaced less than one micron apart, resulting in a very high "fill factor." By minimizing the gaps between pixels in a projected image, DLP® projection systems create a seamless digital picture that's sharp at any size—without the pixellation or "screen door" effect apparent in other technologies.
DLP® Front Projection Displays – High quality projectors deliver all the color, clarity, and size for complete cinematic experience. Image quality using the LVDS DLP® chip by Texas Instruments delivers seamless video without compression and native 16:9 resolution in true theater proportions – no scrunched or stretched images, no cut-off sides. Typical 3000-hour life ensures years of movie nights and whisper-quiet technology keeps your focus on the screen without distraction. DLP® micro-mirror projection system technology uses light more efficiently. While most other technologies lose a certain amount of light in transit, the microscopic mirrors in a DLP® projection system bring more light from lamp to screen.
Projectors, Projection Displays, and Screens – Framed, fixed-wall screens are optimized for video projections and offer a perfectly flat viewing surface and install cleanly and easily. The content you display on your sscreen plays a part in determining which scrren is best for you. Gray screen material is popular for home theaters because the material adds the appearance of contrast to video movies. White or matte white screens are more popular in business applications where viewing computer images is the norm.
Surround Sound – Digital Cinema Sound processing technology adds clarity, richness, and realism. You'll hear the highest-quality sound from your movie and music components with a 7.1 Home Theater Receiver. This type of hi-fi receiver comes equipped with 7.1 channels supplying 110 watts per channel, and the unit supports many audio formats including Dolby® Digital, Dolby® Digital EX, and DTS® (Digital Theater Systems) decoding. many receivers can automatically detect the type of audio signal being input and perform the proper decoding if necessary. So you'll be able to play your DVDs and laser discs in digital surround sound.
Surround Sound – is a term for audio reproduction that indicates sound from front left and right positions, from behind and to the side of the listener. A number of configurations are in use. Currently, 7.1 (front left, centre and right, back and right surrounds, plus side left and right, and a low frequency effects (.1) channel) is the most common, however there is even 10.2 (additional side channels and a second .1 channel).
Whole House Audio – extends a high fidelity listening experience to each room within the home and to any selected exterior area. With your system, all household members can simultaneously enjoy their own selection of high quality music and Satellite Radio – anywhere, at any time.
RadioRA Lighting Control – is the world's first wireless radio frequency (RF) whole-home lighting control system. Great for new or existing homes, or those under construction, no new is wiring required. A RadioRA Home Dimming System gives you convenient, one-touch control of all your home lighting and allows you the flexibility of lighting themes so you can change the mood of the home's lighting according to the time of day or activity. With RadioRA, lights can be turned on and off from anywhere, including your car.
Seating – Sit back an relax in the theater seating of your choosing. You can select from a complete range to comfortable home-style seating such as sectionals, recliner groupings, theater loungers, plus genuine movie theater seats, even theater seat rockers for your home. Seating is availabe in woven fabric, velour, vinyl, and leather. Traditional theater seats are available in a variety of back heights and can feature floor plates to accomodate varying row widths. At left is an Elite Home Theater Seating chair.
Cabinetry – A variety of options are available ranging from the adaptation your existing cabinetry to custom built, beautifully handcrafted cabinetry, to enclosed shelving and custom closets to surround the state-of-the-art, fully-integrated home theater and entertainment systems we have designed and installed.
Sound Proofing – The objective of Home Theater Sound Proofing is to construct an acoustically isolated theater envirnonment. Optimum noise control prevents inside and outside reverberation, controlling the entry and escape of any sound inside and outside the theater. Acoustical ceilings, double layer dry-wall, air-flow control, and floor absorbson are the primary considerations for creating the ideal total-experience theater room. At left is Kinetic Noise floor absorbson material.
LCD Monitors and Televisions – Liquid Crystal Display, or LCD TVs use a florescent backlight to send light through its liquid crystal molecules and a polarizing substrate. LCD TVs work passively, with red, green and blue pixels. By applying voltage to the pixels using a matrix of wires, the pixels can be darkened to prevent the backlight from showing through. Many LCD displays double as computer displays by allowing standard analogue VGA input, a great option if you need your display to pull double duty as a PC monitor.
Plasma Monitors and Televisions – Plasma screens are a network of red, green and blue phosphors (each triad makes up a single pixel) mounted between two thin layers of glass. Plasma screens use a small electric pulse for each pixel to excite the gases argon, neon and xenon used to produce the color information and light. As electrons excite the phosphors, oxygen atoms dissipate and create plasma, emitting UV light. These gases actually have a life and fade over time.
Because all the phosphor-excited pixels react at the same time, there is never any flicker apparent to the viewer. There’s also no backlight and no projection of any kind, so the light-emitting phosphors, result in a bright display with rich color and a wide viewing angle.
DLP® Projections Displays – DLP® technology comes closer than any other display solution to reproducing the exact mirror image of its source material. That's why images projected by DLP® technology are always crystal clear.
The thousands of mirrors making up the Digital Micromirror Device at the heart of DLP® technology are spaced less than one micron apart, resulting in a very high "fill factor." By minimizing the gaps between pixels in a projected image, DLP® projection systems create a seamless digital picture that's sharp at any size—without the pixellation or "screen door" effect apparent in other technologies.
DLP® Front Projection Displays – High quality projectors deliver all the color, clarity, and size for complete cinematic experience. Image quality using the LVDS DLP® chip by Texas Instruments delivers seamless video without compression and native 16:9 resolution in true theater proportions – no scrunched or stretched images, no cut-off sides. Typical 3000-hour life ensures years of movie nights and whisper-quiet technology keeps your focus on the screen without distraction. DLP® micro-mirror projection system technology uses light more efficiently. While most other technologies lose a certain amount of light in transit, the microscopic mirrors in a DLP® projection system bring more light from lamp to screen.
Projectors, Projection Displays, and Screens – Framed, fixed-wall screens are optimized for video projections and offer a perfectly flat viewing surface and install cleanly and easily. The content you display on your sscreen plays a part in determining which scrren is best for you. Gray screen material is popular for home theaters because the material adds the appearance of contrast to video movies. White or matte white screens are more popular in business applications where viewing computer images is the norm.Home Theater and Entertainment Sound Systems
Surround Sound – Digital Cinema Sound processing technology adds clarity, richness, and realism. You'll hear the highest-quality sound from your movie and music components with a 7.1 Home Theater Receiver. This type of hi-fi receiver comes equipped with 7.1 channels supplying 110 watts per channel, and the unit supports many audio formats including Dolby® Digital, Dolby® Digital EX, and DTS® (Digital Theater Systems) decoding. many receivers can automatically detect the type of audio signal being input and perform the proper decoding if necessary. So you'll be able to play your DVDs and laser discs in digital surround sound.Surround Sound – is a term for audio reproduction that indicates sound from front left and right positions, from behind and to the side of the listener. A number of configurations are in use. Currently, 7.1 (front left, centre and right, back and right surrounds, plus side left and right, and a low frequency effects (.1) channel) is the most common, however there is even 10.2 (additional side channels and a second .1 channel).
Whole House Audio
Whole House Audio – extends a high fidelity listening experience to each room within the home and to any selected exterior area. With your system, all household members can simultaneously enjoy their own selection of high quality music and Satellite Radio – anywhere, at any time.RF Total-Home and Home Theater Lighting Systems
RadioRA Lighting Control – is the world's first wireless radio frequency (RF) whole-home lighting control system. Great for new or existing homes, or those under construction, no new is wiring required. A RadioRA Home Dimming System gives you convenient, one-touch control of all your home lighting and allows you the flexibility of lighting themes so you can change the mood of the home's lighting according to the time of day or activity. With RadioRA, lights can be turned on and off from anywhere, including your car.
Theater Furniture and Finish-out
Seating – Sit back an relax in the theater seating of your choosing. You can select from a complete range to comfortable home-style seating such as sectionals, recliner groupings, theater loungers, plus genuine movie theater seats, even theater seat rockers for your home. Seating is availabe in woven fabric, velour, vinyl, and leather. Traditional theater seats are available in a variety of back heights and can feature floor plates to accomodate varying row widths. At left is an Elite Home Theater Seating chair.
Cabinetry – A variety of options are available ranging from the adaptation your existing cabinetry to custom built, beautifully handcrafted cabinetry, to enclosed shelving and custom closets to surround the state-of-the-art, fully-integrated home theater and entertainment systems we have designed and installed.
Sound Proofing – The objective of Home Theater Sound Proofing is to construct an acoustically isolated theater envirnonment. Optimum noise control prevents inside and outside reverberation, controlling the entry and escape of any sound inside and outside the theater. Acoustical ceilings, double layer dry-wall, air-flow control, and floor absorbson are the primary considerations for creating the ideal total-experience theater room. At left is Kinetic Noise floor absorbson material.AW MediaSolutions subcontractors that are technically certificatied in their fields.
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