New Technology TV

For a long time, as the prices of HDTV sets remained high, they were looked at as status symbols. Much like luxury cars and large custom homes, the owners of high definition television sets wanted other people to see their prestigious electronics devices out in the open. This is understandable considering how Plasma TV's in particular tended to be expensive and exotic. Now though, as flat screen HDTV sets have become cheaper and more common- not to mention the fact that Plasma screen TV's have begun to fall out of favor as more practical LCD screens catch up in terms of size and image quality- their ability to function as status symbols is also waning. The good thing for the electronics industry though is that even if home entertainment electronics aren't seen as ways to show off as much as they used to be, plenty of people still find them attractive for other reasons.

Now the dilemma that many owners of home entertainment systems are facing though is how to integrate the hardware with the decor of their living rooms. Many of these people are following a trend of trying to make a living room look like a living room rather than a home theater, but considering the size of the most attractive flat screen HDTV sets, this is easier said than done.

The good news is that there are a lot of companies that are looking at this as a challenge. These companies offer either electronic components that blend in with the rest of the decor, or they manufacture decor that can hide the hardware. A good example of electronic components that blend with the decor include things like chests, clocks, and wall sconces that hide built in speakers. Speakers can also be installed in a wall and covered with some kind of a wall hanging or picture mad out of an "acoustically transparent" material.

For televisions there are several things that can be done to high them. In the past, it might not have been unusual to assume that the best way to conceal a flat screen TV, with a picture frame around it, would be to have the screen display a picture of a classic art piece or the owner's favorite photograph. One science fiction writer anticipated having a TV screen portray a tank full of fish. Now though, with increasing concern about energy consumption combined with the fact that the effect of the ideas portrayed above would be much cheesier than the decor that most people are looking for these days, a much better solution to the problem turns out to be simply to turn the TV off and cover it with a picture canvas that can be retracted back into the picture frame when the TV is on, and unrolled over it when the TV is turned off.

There are a number of different choices of frames and pieces of artwork that can be used to conceal a flat screen HDTV. For example, it's possible to cover your TV set either with an original piece of art, or a print of a classic painting like "Starry Night" by Vincent Van Gogh.

Combine all of these ways of concealing TV's with newer computers and computer components that are made out of wood, and you can have a much more stylish look to your home, without sacrificing technology.