Recently Filed in Slideshows

Want to save energy, but still want your HDTV? Today you can have both high-quality high-def viewing and energy savings. If there’s a blue Energy Star logo on the latest TV you’re eyeing, you know it meets stringent power requirements. And you shouldn’t have to worry about performance being compromised. An LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) television typically requires much less power than plasma, which has seen makers Pioneer and Vizio drop the technology within the past year. LCDs are becoming more and more efficient, thanks… View this story
LCD • Plasma • Green Technology • Info and Answers • Slideshows

Home theater designer Donny Hackett has always wanted to visit Paris but had never gone. So he decided to bring Paris here. More specifically, to Tennessee and the attic of Jason Crist’s suburban Nashville home. A walk upstairs brings Crist to the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe, the Notre Dame cathedral—and a screen that could take up a wall in the Louvre. All of the attractions, including the whopping 154-inch screen, were custom built by Hackett, whose previous themed theaters have included nods to… View this story
Themed Theaters • Home Theater • Cool Homes • Slideshows

You might think that equipment racks, by themselves, are no better than the shelves of your wooden entertainment system. Why would you spend more than $500 for a place to store your Blu-ray player, receiver, etc.? Equipment racks do actually provide significant value. Ventilated shelves and integrated power protection can keep your equipment running properly. This will save you both time and money. Racks can also add a neat appearance to any room when they’re recessed into walls and cabinets. But perhaps the biggest value… View this story
AV Components • Furniture • Equipment Racks • Home Theater • Info and Answers • Slideshows

It’s easy to get excited about home theater. Go on the AVS Forum. There certainly is a lot to get your creative juices flowing and your mouth salivating. While seeing the big, beautiful, comfortable rooms might get many to jump into a project, Steve Caesare wanted to take his sweet time. “I’m genuinely a do-it-yourselfer type of guy. My dad was that way and I grew up that way,” he says. “I’ve always grown up looking at a project with the thought that if at… View this story
DIY Home Theaters • Home Theater • Cool Homes • Slideshows

November is a big month for a lot of reasons. The change in temperature. Thanksgiving. Football. And the start of the holiday shopping season. Retail and big-box stores will be doing their best to increase sales after a slow 2008 holiday shopping season. If you’re looking to spice up your home theater or just add to your home, here are six products to consider. Also, don’t forget to check out The Holiday Gift Guide 2009 for more gift ideas. Click here for 6 Products to… View this story
AV Components • Blu-ray • Displays • Flat Panel • HDTV • LCD • Bathroom • Product News • Slideshows

Feeling overwhelmed this holiday season? Too many gifts to buy. Too little time. We feel your pain and are here to help. We’ve compiled The Holiday Gift Guide 2009 - a comprehensive list of goodies for the upcoming season. Got someone who wants a Blu-ray player? Check out these 10 bargain Blu-ray players. We’ve got you covered on movies, too, including the best holiday movies that are available in high-def. Got someone on your list always in front of the TV? Wow them one of… View this story
Holiday Gift Guide • Home Theater • Info and Answers • Product News • Slideshows

Unlike the automotive and lending industries, President Obama and Congress will probably never look to bail out the consumer electronics industry. But the industry has been proactive with its own stimulus plan: new technologies to excite consumer spending. Consumers can look at the evolution of the flat-panel TV market in two ways: the products are more affordable, and they are more eco-friendly. Leading the way are new technologies like light emitting diode (LED) and organic light emitting diode (OLED). These join the market’s traditional technologies… View this story
Displays • Flat Panel • HDTV • LCD • LCoS • OLED • Plasma • Product News • Slideshows

Some guys love power tools. Some love cars. Some are happy with a comfy chair, a remote and something to nosh on. Then there are those who need to go above and beyond—to create a space that most men only dream about. Today, we call these spaces “man caves.” In these caves, though, the only things being fired up are amps, Blu-ray movies, video games and gigantic TVs (sometimes multiple ones). They are places where a guy can play with his toys without worrying about… View this story
Home Theater • Cool Homes • Slideshows

The end-of-the-year shopping season means lots of goodies on the Blu-ray front. Sadly, November’s docket of Blu-ray releases doesn’t include any movies starring Megan Fox. But there are a number of blockbusters scheduled to come out to coincide with the holiday shopping season. Going where no Blu-ray release has gone before, new Blu-ray titles include movies starring Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock, Sulley and Mike, Tom and the Griswold family. Two of the notable music releases include Rush and Carlos Santana. Click here for The… View this story
Miscellaneous • Movies and Music • Blu-ray • Product News • Slideshows

In the spirit of Halloween (OK, maybe it’s because you guys just love terrible wiring jobs), we’ve rounded up seven more horrific (scary) wiring jobs. These entries were sent in by some faithful CE pros who have come across their fair share of wiring nightmares. We have more terrible jobs from cable guys and, sadly, from installers who just don’t care. Make sure to check out our previous roundups of awful wiring jobs: 10 Ways Not to Wire Your System and 10 Wiring Messes Cleaned… View this story
Cables, Wires and Tools • Info and Answers • Slideshows

Sequels usually aren’t very good. But the updates made to this fully-automated haunted house make it even better than when we wrote about it last year. Digital Panacea, an integration company that does a lot of Home Automation Inc. (HAI) control system programming, revisited its spookiest client for a pre-Halloween tune-up. Halloween Park, a haunted attraction outside York, Pa., isn’t a typical haunted house. It’s interactive, meaning that visitors must solve clues in order to move through the scary rooms. The HAI automation system is… View this story
Home Control • Home Control Systems • Cool Homes • Slideshows

We’ve tackled the list of our favorite scary movies that have been released on Blu-ray. But here are 16 more favorites that you can’t find (or may already be out of print) in the high-def format. Sure, we’ll cut the industry some slack for not restoring a 1929 horror classic, but since the likes of The Wizard of Oz and Snow White have already been restored, we’re hoping the same could be done for Nosferatu so we can really see all that grayscale shadow detail.… View this story
Movies and Music • Info and Answers • Slideshows