Home Entertainment Accessories

Apple’s iPad is almost always thought of as a traveling companion. But sometimes you just want the tablet to stay in place: safe in a corner of the kitchen, upright on a desk or at rest against the wall of the larger pad you inhabit. Now, Sanus Systems, a company known for its flat panel TV mounts, has unveiled what it should have named the iHang but instead calls the VisionMount VMA301 iPad mount adapter.

Whether you’re moving into a smaller abode or simply want to make more efficient use of existing rooms, there are at least 10 things you can do to free up space. By digitizing the piles of physical media in your home and relocating or replacing some equipment, you stand to become the big-time beneficiary of an analog-to-digital makeover!

Back when the laserdisc was the premium home-video format, the Criterion Collection was deemed the go-to label for highest-quality transfers of art house movies. On February 15, 150 Criterion films were released online through Hulu Plus, the $7.99 per month subscription service. Later in the year, the number of titles is expected to grow to 800. 

Cleaning resolutions spring eternal, but when it comes to protecting the investment in your flat-panel TV and other components, you’d be wise to follow through with a little preventive maintenance.

If you’re looking to get instant streaming of movies and TV shows from Netflix on your TV set, there’s now another option: the D-Link Boxee Box Digital Media Player. Current Boxee owners need to manually update their box or wait for an automatic update in order to access Netflix streaming media.

Due to the girth of tube televisions, every set stood on its own accord without assistance. (An assistant was required when you had to lift it.) But today’s flat-panel TVs aren’t as proud. They either need to be anchored to an included stand or optionally mounted on the wall. Some flat-panel TVs ship with the stand attached, and it’s up to you to remove it if you decide to make the TV wall mountable.

Flat-screen TVs are so thin and seductive that they cry out to be hung like a mirror or painting. But wall mounting is not a solution for everyone.

Despite its advantages, a Wi-Fi home network isn’t for everyone. If all you want to do is send audio from a CD player, boom box, TV or even a computer to speakers in another room, you can usually take advantage of a standard audio output on the player.

Eyesight and hearing can deteriorate as people age, yet watching TV and reading are activities that never grow old. If you assist parents or grandparents with technology in their homes, you can help them choose appropriate products, then follow up by adjusting the equipment for optimal usability.

Too many viewers bring home a gorgeous HDTV set, yet never watch a show in high definition. The set is either hooked up using the wrong inputs, or the program itself is from an inferior source.

If the computer has an HDMI output and the TV an HDMI input, your first choice should be an HDMI cable for delivering picture and sound. Computers with a DVI output can be accommodated using a DVI to HDMI cable, though DVI supplies only the picture.

Now that so much entertainment including Netflix movies, YouTube videos, Pandora radio and Flickr photos can be streamed from the Internet, you may feel hindered by having to lean into your computer to experience all that content. Wouldn’t you rather lean back on the sofa in front of the biggest screen in the house? The most basic thing you need is home-network access within reach of the TV.

A router is a switching box programmed to send data where it needs to go. Large routers connect networks over the Internet. Small routers connect computers and other devices on a home or office network, also called a Local Area Network (LAN).

I love collecting knives. I have a large collection of them, including some that I’ve had since I was a kid. I collected the bulk of them during the past decade or so, while satisfying my addiction to eBay. But before I bought anything on eBay, I already owned two Leatherman multitools.

There once were two ways to get a signal into a TV: an RF connector  for antenna or cable and an A/V for composite video and stereo audio. Then, the VCR age succumbed to HDTV, inputs multiplied, and buying a set became more like shopping for a computer. So let's take a look at the inputs to see which ones are hot and which are not.

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