Home Entertainment & Automation Services in Matthews, NC.
Home Entertainment & Automation Services in Matthews, NC.
Home audio and Video Services in Matthews, NC.  TV installation, Surround Sound, Home Entertainment Systems
Top 10 Blu-ray Releases for January 19

bourne300The Bourne Trilogy and a pair of P.T. Anderson movies highlight releases.

We’re knee-deep in the doldrums of winter now. Unless you live in a warm climate, you’re going a little stir crazy and looking for ways to pass the time.

How about 8 or so hours of Jason Bourne, lots of gunfire and car chases galore? In high-definition? Yup, you can have yourself a nice little Bourne Trilogy marathon on Blu-ray as the Matt Damon blockbusters are released in that format this week. You’ll get all the action of The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum in super widescreen with dynamic DTS-HD Master Audio surround sound tracks.

If you’d like to do some other mini-marathons, you could pull a Paul Thomas Anderson-directed double feature of Boogie Nights and Magnolia, though you might be a bit emotionally spent after sitting through those two. You might also find your vocabulary now littered with F bombs … seriously, though, both are highly engaging and showcase why Anderson burst onto the scene in the 1990s (and kept rising all the way to an Oscar nomination a couple of years ago with There Will Be Blood).

If it’s a longer marathon you’re looking for, if you are already into the Showtime hit Weeds you can fire up Season 5 on Blu-ray. You’ll be hearing sounds all over the place, too, with the DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack in full 7.1-channel immersion for your theater.

And if all that’s not enough for you, try the adrenaline-filled Smokin’ Aces movies (did anyone realize there was a second one released until this week?) or A&E’s spectacular World War II in high-def documentary series.

 Here’s the full rundown of this week’s releases, courtesy of Blu-ray.com:

According to Greta
Across the Hall
Artie Lange: Jack and Coke
Boogie Nights
The Bourne Identity
The Bourne Supremacy
The Bourne Ultimatum
Che
Children of the Corn/Hellraiser pack
The Deadly Duo
Death in Love
Element
Five K One
Gamer
The Invention of Lying
Magnolia
Pandorum
Smokin’ Aces
Smokin’ Aces 2: Assassins’ Ball
Status Quo: Pictures – Live at Montreux
Weeds Season 5
Whiteout
WWII in HD

by Arlen Schweiger

http://www.electronichouse.com/article/top_10_blu-ray_releases_for_january_19/

Custom Installation Services, LLC – Home Theater, Audio and Video services in North Carolina and South Carolina

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5 Hot Technologies for 2010

168_hitech-home300Keep your eyes peeled for more home control iPhone apps, new cell phone functionality, and on-demand video.

Where is home technology headed? We saw some great innovations—many in the TV world—at the recent CES 2010 show.

We also talked to some of our friends who make a living as custom electronics professionals (CE pros) to get their take on what’s big for 2010. Systems that can help homeowners curb their energy use are hot; so are multiscreen video walls and housewide high-def. The popularity and use of these technologies are no where near pervasive, but we’ve certainly seen a paradigm shift as custom electronics professionals and consumers are beginning to include them in their home designs.

CE pros understand that importance of staying on the cutting edge. If they don’t, they risk losing customers. It’s their job to introduce homeowners to the latest and greatest in home technology. Even if you don’t latch on to some of their ideas now, you’ll at least be able to keep a pulse of where the industry is headed, and can add these devices and systems when you’re ready

Here’s where home technology is headed, according to a few reputable CE pros we asked:

More mobile control. Whether you’ve got an iPhone, BlackBerry, Droid or some other mobile device, you’ll be able to link to the systems in your house remotely through special programming (often free) downloadable applications.

Voice control. “The ability to ask a computer or system to play a song or pull up a bit of information seemed far fetched a while ago, but with Rhapsody, Hulu, YouTube, and Google, it seems only a matter of time before someone will be able to provide an interface that will able to support voice control,” says Brian Duggan of Union Place, Excelsior, Minn.

Video walls. Requests for video walls are increasing at Hi-Tech Home in Clovis, Calif., says company general manager Chris Green. “Whether it’s using six TVs that can be combined into one display or one large display that can be separated into four sections, a video wall is a lot of fun.”

Energy management. Technology is and will continue to be used increasingly as a way to conserve energy. Curtis LeMaster of Control Designer in Orlando, Fla., sees huge potential for LED lighting. “It’s going to have a big impact.”

Fiber optics. Entertainment is driven by content—both physical and downloadable. As the bandwidth requirements of this content increases, fiber optic cabling will become necessary, says LeMaster. “It is not well used in the residential market now, but this will change and change soon.”

by Lisa Montgomery

 http://www.electronichouse.com/article/5_hot_technologies_for_2010/

Custom Installation Services, LLC – Home Theater, Audio and Video services in North Carolina and South Carolina

 

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Smart Thermostats, Cool Climate Control

HAI-BlueAdvancedThe Smart Grid’s helpful little brothers may be the smart thermostats that do more than just monitor your home’s heating and cooling.

You’re going to be hearing a lot about smart thermostats. That’s right, the boring little device on your wall has gone from being just a thermostat to a “programmable” thermostat—and now a “smart” thermostat. Some come with color touchscreens.

And yes, smart thermostats will connect to their bigger brother, the smart grid.

You may also find smart thermostats being called programmable communication thermostats (PCT), which can receive information wirelessly. That wireless data allows the thermostat to receive a signal—say, from your local electric utility—to turn down the air conditioning if the electric rates are high.

That means variable rate or time-of-day pricing from your utility, so peak demand hours such as 3 to 8 p.m. will be priced higher than those at night. Some utilities are already implementing this, and it is a BIG part of the smart grid initiative.

Here’s why: It will save us energy and money. You sign up for discounted rates (as in not the peak rates) and the utility can turn down your A/C or shut off your washer or dryer or other energy-hungry appliances during peak periods. This is called demand response, or demand-side management.

This is where some people scream “Big Brother!” Not that many may want the utility interfering with their climate comfort or their domestic chores, but if you had the choice of when the air conditioning turns down or the washer goes on, depending on the price of electricity—that would be a different story.

That’s where thermostats connected to some sort of processor or home control system comes in. The processor gets the information on rate changes from the utility, and according to how you’ve programmed it, tells the smart thermostat to turn down the A/C a degree or two.

This, I believe, is how we’ll see an energy-saving smart grid implemented in the home. There are lots of smart and communicating thermostats out there, from companies like HAI, Trane, RCS and more. Some use mesh-networking technologies like ZigBee and Z-Wave, allowing them to communicate wirelessly. And they can do some cool things.

HAI’s Omnistat2 thermostats, for instance, can display your heating or cooling patterns and learn them, and display the costs of electricity from the utility and your set-back points. It can even control your lights. Pretty slick. HAI also has an In-Home Display unit.

Trane’s TZEMT400AB32MA Remote Energy Management Thermostat can send you email and text alerts when unwanted adjustments are made. It also works with Schlage’s LiNK door-lock and control system. RCS’s RCS TZ43 offers remote control operation and is designed for use with networked systems. And Ecobee’s Smart Thermostat offers weather, a web portal, a setup wizard and quick save function to remember your current comfy temperature setting. 

So why would one need all these brains in a thermostat that you can walk up to and set yourself? Because we don’t manage our thermostats well. Many people, according to a recent McKinsey & Co. report on energy efficiency, don’t even program their programmable thermostats, choosing to override the time of day options with a constant temperature. That wastes energy and money when you’re sleeping or not at home. You can also save a significant amount on both just by turning the heat or A/C down one degree Fahrenheit.

What Smarts to Seek in a Thermostat

Wireless communication (ZigBee or Z-Wave)
Easy-to-use interface
Readable display
Connectivity to home control system
Email, text or phone alerts
Learning ability of your habits
Display of utility data
Web portal or other display device
Remote programming and operation

 by Steven Castle

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

Custom Installation Services, LLC – Home Theater, Audio and Video services in North Carolina and South Carolina

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Custom Installation Services, LLC | P.O. Box 132 Matthews, NC 28106 | 704-400-8701 | dmiller@cis-nc.com
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