T.H.E. Blog @ The Home Entertainment Show

Here is a top-ten list of extravagant home theaters.

The Star Trek room is very good…

but I think my favorite would have to be the Bat Cave:

Look at the complete list of ten.

Here is a reprint of the interview by Richard Beers, President of T.H.E. Show.

As T.H.E. Show or THE Home Entertainment Show enters its 10th year, we anticipate many milestones being reached and surpassed within the next 2 years.

As you know, CES moved out of its long-time home for high-end audio, Alexis Park Resort last year and relocated to various locations within The Venetian Hotel and Casino, the Sands Convention and the Las Vegas Convention Center. The reaction, from what I have heard and read has been “mixed.” Some individual rooms “up in the tower” were a hit, for some, but still there remained complaints about long elevator waits, limited hours and extra fees. As everyone knows, the rooms in the Sands Convention Center connecting to The Venetian had many complaints including enormous sound leakage problems between rooms.

We at T.H.E. Show, upon hearing and observing all of these difficulties decided to expand our convention, signing a long-term agreement with Alexis Park, in addition to retaining our on-going contract with the St Tropez Hotel. We can now offer individual exhibit rooms, convention space, large Board Rooms, as well as reasonably priced accommodations, all within a short walking distance.

We also made the decision to keep the majority of exhibits all on Ground Level… offering a “flow-of-traffic” plan that makes “getting around the exhibits” much easier than in the past and certainly much easier than roaming the meandering and splintered lay-out they have to live with at The Venetian.

[complete interview]

Here’s a long tirade about how awful movie theaters have become, and making a case for why it makes more sense to invest in a home theater. Here are the bits relating to home theater:

Compare all that to the options now available to me at home. I didn’t have to rob any banks to fund my massive TV and thundering sound system. It wouldn’t kill me to save up for a customised DVD projector with a 12-ft canvas screen and perfect clarity; I have a quote on one for just over $2,000. This would transform my living room into a private screening salon just like any studio mogul’s, except that my guests can smoke, drink, make out, pause the picture and yell at the screen. NetFlix enables me to programme my bills as perversely as I wish without even leaving the house. And since I’m the boss-feller, the DVD dictator, the moviehouse Mussolini, I can unilaterally ban popcorn, which to my nostrils has a far more offensive odour than fags [cigarettes in Brit-speak] or vomit, and immediately eject idiots who leave their cellphones on.

Honestly, with all that available, why should I ever hit the multiplex again?

Complete article: Going to the movies feels like a chore. So why go, when I could transform my living room into a private screening salon?

A little something for the audiophile who already has everything…

Warped LPs are the bane of vinyl loving audiophiles. …Furutech’s DFV-1 Record Flattener uses heat and compression to “iron” warps smooth and flat. The device clamps the record, slowly applies heat and gentle pressure, and finally cools the record. The automated process takes place over a two and a half hour period. An LCD display keeps you informed of its progress and a tone sounds when it’s done.

Time lapse video. What a good idea.

Somebody should have made videos of the set-up of some of the exhibits at T.H.E. Show Denver. I would like to have a video of Larry Reagan of Professional Home Cinema moving those speakers up the stairwell at the Denver Athletic Club.