7 Great Christmas Ideas for 2017 (continued)

Lets face it. TV is a huge part of everyone’s home life - and TVs have gotten bigger, higher resolution, smarter, and just plain better in every way at a blinding pace. We put mount these modern monstrosities in our living rooms, dens, family rooms, and just about every other place in our homes that we would consider a good place to spend significant time.

However, when it comes time for a Christmas party, family gathering, or other home-hosted social event, we would like to do something to hide this dominant feature in our home so it doesn’t make itself the center of attention. We would rather people think we use our wall space for something more cultured like, art for instance. Well, for before you go trying to cover your wall-mounted TV with temporary fake drapes, check out these more sophisticated fixes.

Hidden Vision Hidden Screen Solutions
Huntsville, AL prides itself in its innovative engineering, so a robotically hidden TV at your social gathering could be a great conversation piece. So in this spirit, the first option we will present is to camouflage the tv itself as a convertible painting or mirror. For this purpose, Hidden vision has a complete line of solutions that do just that. They provide a Flip Around, Flip Out, and Extended Flip Out system that allows your television to transform on command from an art piece / mirror to its natural TV self. The framing is elegant and the mechanism smooth in these high-tech motorized “transformers of the TV world”.

The Flip Around system is the most commonly occurring Hidden Vision appliance, and is available for televisions from 40-75 inches. The mount is easy to install, and the frame selection is elegant and numerous, allowing you to match the feel of any room you want to put it in. Once installed with your choice of artwork or mirror camouflage, the TV is ready to “transform” on command. There is a manual (non-motorized) version of this product, but really - where's the fun in that?

If there is a downside to this product, it is the sound produced by the motor during transformation. It has a very “industrial / sci-fi robotic” tone, which is kind of cool the first time, but could get annoying after many repetitions. If this is a concern for you, ask your installer to add insulation to the casing of the motor.

For the bedroom, Hidden Vision offers an “Extended Flip Out” system which allows you to install your television above your headboard so that you can watch television while laying down by extending the television above your sleeping position. For obvious reasons, the size limitation is smaller on this implementation, setting the max screen size at 43 inches. This is a pretty cool device if you like to watch TV in bed, but who has a 43 inch TV anymore?

Leon Speakers Moving Art Screens and Frames
If the sound made by the Hidden Vision system is just too much for you, or if you just want a more “integrated” system, the Leon Speakers Moving Art Screens are an excellent option. Their patented moving screens roll up like a traditional window shade within the TV / Picture frame enclosure. Their solutions allow for either wall surface mounted or recessed TV installations, are silent, and come with elegant framing choices. They provide several models ranging in max TV size from 65 inches to 120 inches (85 inches max for surface mount).

The Leon solution is exceptionally well engineered with the painting material magnetically fixed to the frame so as to prevent folding or warping of the image after extensive use. The structure is of ceramic coated aircraft aluminum and the Leon Electric Drive system is very difficult to hear during operation.

If you prefer a more grandiose reveal for your moving art, you might consider Leon’s Moving Art Frames. With these technological goodies, your TV will be revealed by moving panels that open up on your command. You can select from the barn-doors reveal offered by the Dual Eclipse model, the Eclipse Vertical model which reveals the TV by shifting the covering art piece up and down, or the Eclipse Horizontal which reveals by moving the covering art piece off to one side. The first two options make more sense than the third, as the resulting TV watching experience is somewhat unbalanced with the TV covering art-piece shoved off to a single side.

This solution is elegant, and quite impressive, but has little advantage over the Moving Art Screen, which is much more universally fitting for a variety of living spaces. In fact, the best reason to go with the Moving Art Frame over the Moving Art Screen would be that your television is not recessed, and its larger than 85 inches. Aside from that scenario, the recommended solution would almost always be the Moving Art Screen.