It’s no secret that I have a movie theatre for a television and that we enjoy watching movies at home. But I’m also the parent of a small child and we have a fairly strict policy of what we allow our child to view. Still, we enjoy getting cozy on the couch for a good family movie. So the issue becomes WHAT to watch. The challenge is to find movies that are clean and appropriate for her while at the same time are able to hold my interest.

As I said, we’re careful about what television shows she sees. I’ve even vetoed some Blue’s Clues episodes because of the way they often handle conflict, encourage entitlement, and promote drama and whininess. And don’t even get me started on The Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and how they routinely teach ’scientific’ principles that defy the laws of physics.

Everything she watches is played off TiVo, giving us the ability to skip over commercials. Although I must admit that it is mostly so we can avoid her falling for kids advertising and wanting every cheap toy that is pushed in her face. So we simply remove the pushing. We also don’t watch any non-kids shows when she is around, which basically amounts to ‘when she is awake.’ And if the TV is playing live-tv, it’s always on the food channel – which has proven to be a completely kid-safe channel.

For movies, as a general rule I believe in the MPAA rating system. G-rated movies are probably fine for her.  PG, or Parental Guidance, means that it might or might not be appropriate – and we need to pre-view the movie to know if it’s cool before she sees it. And I figure she can probably watch PG-13 movies when she’s 13 – but we’ll see when we get there. With only G movies to choose from, the short list gets stale fast. The problem with the PG rating is that it’s too wide a range – movies can be fine for 6 year olds or barely appropriate for 12 year olds. Overall I think there is a serious shortage of good family movies. And it’s a genre that is not target by indie film makers, which is why I have a passion to try to eventually fill that gap.  But I digress…

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TLP001 – In the premiere episode of “The tomorrowland.com Podcast” I review the Promise SmartStor NS4600, and discuss setting it up, using it as a media server, and explain how to set up a dynamic dns so that you can access it remotely and stream videos to your iphone over the net.  Click Podcast in the header bar to watch the episode here in HD!

“12 Months!?!”

A new ad starring Ben Stein and Shaq promoting a special price for Comcast Digital Cable totally misses the mark by showing the two handcuffed together and then making a point to emphasize that they’re going to be shaq-led for 12 months.  The idea is supposed to be that Shaq represents “Being the best” and Ben represents being frugal.  But instead all I get is that I’d be locked into the deal for a year.  It doesn’t help that after the two are handcuffed they are shocked to discover the duration of their deal…

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For a while I’ve been promising to do a review of a product called Paint On Screen. The idea behind it is that rather than buying an expensive projection screen you get the same results by painting a wall with their special paint. Actually, in some ways you get a better result. I’ve already explained in detail why I don’t believe in “real” home theater screens for front projector systems – and I stand by it. There are many practical reasons why a wall is better than a screen.  Mainly because it is larger and more flexible.  It is not limited to a set aspect ratio, it costs much less, and in my install it helps deliver a real movie theater experience. My screen is massive.

What I set out to do was to test their $200 product against a $30 Dunn Edwards house paint to see if theirs really is any better. The Paint On Screen products start with a silver base, which make them reflect better. Certainly it’s a more professional way to go.  But how well does it work?

Well, the review process got complicated and the result isn’t simple either. Overall I am recommending this product, but it comes with several caveats and some advice. All of which requires some explanation and visual aids to understand. This review has been a grueling month in the making. So grab a red bull and hit the read link for all the gory details…

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As I said in my post on Upgrading to 7.1, a few weeks ago I set out to upgrade my amplifier and speakers to 7.1 – hoping to keep it under a grand. Initially the amp I was looking at was the Sony STR-DG820 which retails for $399. I considered Sony because my Projector is a Sony and they were advertised to work well with each other. Luckily, I’m somewhat of an impulsive shopper and when Best Buy didn’t have the Sony on hand, I started looking at alternatives. 30 minutes later I was driving home with the harman/kardon AVR254. Read… »

So you’ve bought a nice big 1080P HD TV and a Blu-ray player. You’ve hooked it all up to your 5.1 amplifier, which didn’t suck last year, and you put in an action flick. It looks amazing, but it sounds a little flat. You might even convince yourself that it sounds good, but it doesn’t. In fact, you’re audio might actually be worse than if you were watching that movie on a regular old DVD.

Even if you think 7.1 is an over-kill and are happy with 5.1, there is a catch-22 that might prevent you from getting 5.1 unless you upgrade to 7.1.

One area of my home theatre that’s always been lacking has been my sound.  I’ll admit that as a professional film and television editor, I’ve been more of a videophile than an audiophile. But a few weeks ago I set out to upgrade to a total-solution 7.1 system including some new speakers for under a grand. I only went over by a couple hundred dollars. Getting it done around that budget wasn’t an easy task – and neither was some of the wiring. There were several bumps along the way. But the process revealed a lot that I didn’t know about the new audio formats, what it takes to actually hear them, the crap I’ve been settling for, the awesomeness of 7.1 audio, the unfortunate truth about Blu-ray and 7.1 and much more.  Buckle-up because this whole thing can be a bit convoluted.

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Around 8pm I noticed that my TiVo was recording the season premier of Chuck - and either my new projector was whacked or the episode was in 3D.  A quick trip to CVS and I was 8 pair of free cardboard 3D glasses richer.

It seems like there’s a new craze to do 3D, but has 3D technology changed much in the last 20 or 30 years?  Not really.  There’s still only 3 or 4 ways to do 3D. And without special equipment (or in every home in america) you’re limited to the red and blue glasses.  Well these glasses were blue and yellow. Read… »

One of the coolest little products I saw at CES was the Webbie HD camera from Sony. While I’m not a fan of the name (the manual calls it the Mobile HD Snap which is much better), this pocket sized tapeless cam shoots 30-frame HD video at either 720P or 1080P. It’s clearly targeted to those wanting to upload clips directly from the memory stick to YouTube. Even the name suggests that it captures web-quality video. But it DOES shoot in HD. So what’s the down side?  What’s the quality really like? Read… »

UPDATED: Almost 3 years ago (on 2/18/06) I spent WAY too much $$ for an HD DirecTV TiVo. Then a few months later on 4/8/06 (1000 days ago) we moved into a new house and the TiVo was no longer connected to a phone line. I expected that, like the Series 2 TiVo’s, it could use an internet connection to get it’s programming information – but it can’t. I’ve tried several times over the past few years to get it to connect but it’s never been able to. Not in this house anyway.

The good news is that since it’s a DirecTV TiVo it gets it’s programming information from the satellite signal and doesn’t really need to make a call. Yet every day it gives me a message that ‘The Recorder has not made a successful call for the past XXX days’. I suspect that DirecTV wants it hooked to a phone line so they’ll know if I’ve watched any PPV that they don’t know about. Well, we’ve been counting down to today to see if my HD DirecTV TiVo will sucessfully roll over from 999 days to 1000, or if something bad will happen. Read… »

Happy New Year! About an hour ago there was a roar outside that sounded like a 747 driving down my quiet residential street. It was the constant and combined blasts of thousands of fireworks going off 10 to 15 miles away at the Las Vegas Strip. It was so loud that it could even be heard over the phone. My buddy David and I were discussing our predictions for 2009. At this late hour I can’t remember all of them, but here are a few to get the ball rolling. Jump in and add your own predictions down in the comments…

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