Interactive Tables – Digital Tabletops – Learning At Your Fingertips

Posted on May 8, 2013

Technology in Schools
There was a time when a teacher relied on a blackboard and exercise books to help provide key learning information to pupils but the latest addition to classroom education is not the digital whiteboard or overhead projector systems but touch screen interactive tables where a touch screen monitor is used to create a digital tabletop that provides key information at a pupil’s fingertips

Interactive Learning
North East pupils in North Tyneside have been among the first in the country to try out the new systems considered to be a key tool in moving students from an essentially individual learning approach to a more collaborative learning system

Digital Plans and Information Portals
The technology may be new to interactive learning within a school environment, however, interactive touch screen systems have been a popular way of providing on-demand information within museums and shopping centres with audio-visual information being made available at the touch of a virtual button

North East Installation of Commercial Audio-Visual Systems
Covering Newcastle, Gateshead and Sunderland and most of the North East; fitting a Interactive Tabletop system into an educational or commercial establishment is not a problem for local engineers spcialising in the installation and maintenance of commercial audio-visual systems
For More Information Ring 0191 203 7273

Posted in Commercial | Tagged , | Comments Off

Television Blackout and TV Noise Interference in the North East

Posted on March 13, 2013

With the rollout of the 4G Mobile System that could also be used for high speed tv streaming in the North East of England; a number of homes may be affected with poor picture quality or a complete blackout

LTE Signal Interferes with Multiplex Channels

The 4G frequency can overlap certain multiplex tv channels; effectively swamping the signal with line chatter that makes it impossible for the digital decoder to filter out the additional noise caused by nearby 4g transmitters

Noise Filters for North East Homes: Gateshead, Newcastle & Northumberland

If you live around the Gateshead and Newcastle Areas; you may have a nearby mobile transmitter or cell relay that causes pixellation and signal dropout. If you have a problem; you may need to have an lte-4g noise filter to remove the offending interference over a very narrow band. Sometimes this can be placed inline with your aerial cable but you may need to use one per tv monitor in high noise areas. Poorly shielded cables can also pick up the interference

Posted in Aerial | Tagged , | Comments Off

Touch Screen Devices on a Linux Based System – Linux Tablets

Posted on February 21, 2013

While android is certainly a variant of the Linux operating system; it’s anything but open source and has rapidly become the main contender to Apple’s iphone and ipad devices but that could be set to change with the advent of open-source tablets and hand-helds opening up portable devices to install and run free software, cutting out software licensing fees and paving the way for a wave of specially written software from the open-source and games developers

The succesful launch of the Pengpod last month following its crowdfunding efforts has paved the way for a new breed of Arm based “System on a Chip” (SOC) hardware that can be used to drive tablets and hand held devices using an open-source operating system

Touch Screen Devices

Ubuntu, the Canonical backed Linux system with its Unity interface and drive for a touch screen gui has also just launched a linux tablet.
Ubuntu took a change of direction to develop a mobile smart phone, computer, TV and tablet compatible operating system that can be utilised in a touch screen world

Interactive Shop Display Consoles

Touch screen systems in shops and the ability to connect wirelessly could bring a floury of soft advertising and information portals to the high street to order and reserve items the way Argos does now as well as more entertaining systems providing an interactive shopping experience with tag scan to find out more about shop items or changing-room-request items to have outfits delivered to your changing room in a different size or colour

You could even check stock availability from your mobile phone or request an item from the store room if it’s in stock but not on display. Open source software takes away the reliance on licensing and will help control costs making systems like this available to more high street, service driven shops

Newcastle and Gateshead Commercial Installations

In the North East, the 2 largest shopping areas are Newcastle City Centre and the Metro Centre where interactive displays already help shoppers find certain types of store and provide interactive maps to help you get where you need to be. Smaller shops are also starting to use TV monitor displays attached to a computer systems to update menus and provide non-interactive information portals but that’s just the start of the change as control devices and computer systems get smaller and more powerful while lowering costs

Installing Shop Systems in The North East

If you want to find out about the types of commercial systems available for small, medium or large retail and service outfits please feel free to get in touch

Posted in TV | Tagged , | Comments Off

TV Retunes Newcastle and Gateshead

Posted on February 18, 2013

Following the switchover from Analog to Digital in September the Digital Channels moving position today as the HD channels will move onto position 1,2,3,4,5

Re tuning Your TV, DVD equipment
If you want an urgent appointment to have your TV retuned then please get in touch on one of the following forms to book an appointment:
Gateshead
Newcastle

Posted in TV | Tagged , , , | Comments Off

Convert 2d to 3D Without Glasses

Posted on February 18, 2013

There is a new converter unit on the market which will allow you to use your current HD TV or HD Projector unit to convert and watch 3D TV
The new unit is supposed to work with 3D DVD, Sky 3D, Playstation PS3, XBox360 or 3D Blu-Ray
The new compact 2D to 3D Convertor units do not require 3D glasses so are ideal for pubs, commercial establishments and schools
Watch this space for more information

Posted in TV | Tagged , | Comments Off

Antenna for Analog and Digital TV

Posted on February 18, 2013

HDTV Antennas

An antenna originally designed to work for the old analog TV stations should be OK for use with modern high definition and digital TVs

In principal, they should work the same but replacing your old aerial could bring advantages when tuning into the transmitter for other reasons:

  • Gain
    Measures how much signal or energy the antenna will collect with modern high gain tv antennas helping to pull in more information
  • Beam width
    Gives a measure of how focussed an aerial is with a wider beam making it easier to capture a signal
  • Bandwidth
    Different stations are transmitted at different frequencies and bandwidth gives a measure of how gain varies with signal frequency
    If the antenna has too narrow a bandwidth it may be good at receiving some channels well but fail to give a good picture on others

Don’t be fooled by claims of digital aerials but do consider upgrading to a digital compatible aerial that can help provide a better picture thanks to improvements in aerial performance

Posted in Aerial | Tagged , , | Comments Off

What is Smart TV or Hybrid TV

Posted on February 18, 2013

Ordinary TV
From the earliest analog televisions through to plasma, lcd, 3d and high definition televisions; it’s not surprising to learn that TVs have been designed to receive tv channels but that doesn’t make them smart even though they may receive teletext, provide news information, give you a channel guide and allow you to listen to a variety of radio stations

What Makes a TV Smart?
The main differentiator that makes a TV smarter than the rest is the ability to receive and display web content; particularly interactive media, streamed films via an internet connection, on demand content and other media covered by the phrase Web 2.0 to distinguish it from regular web content

I Don’t Have a Smart TV What are the Alternatives?
Thanks to the hdmi and usb connections available on modern flat screen TVs it’s often possible to connect a computer to your TV and use it as an extra large monitor to handle all kinds of media thanks to your computer’s processing, graphics and sound capabilities

What about Noise – Aren’t Most Computers Noisy
Many of the top end computer and graphics chips run extremely hot and require fans, heat pumps or even water cooling to dissipate heat BUT… There are a range of near silent computers running without fans and generating hardly any heat that have been specially selected for portable and TV entertainment devices

I Don’t Want A Computer System without a Remote
Most of these near silent computers capable of storing and handling most movie and music media can be controlled by a plugin remote device or mini wireless keyboard; allowing you to watch movies, record TV programmes, organise and access your music collection, check facebook, twitter, send emails and most computer activities short of playing graphics intensive games

Smart TV Installer in the North East
If you have a Smart TV and want it installed or wall mounted check out one of these links:Gateshead, Newcastle, Morpeth

Posted in TV | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off

3D TV Technology and The Illusion of 3D

Posted on February 18, 2013

3D Illusion
Just like the competition between "Betamax" and "VHS" so the 3D TV market will most likely emerge with competing technologies as companies embrace different techniques to accomplish 1 thing: the illusion of 3 Dimensions from a 2 Dimensional TV

True 3D
Imagine looking at a sculpture and being able to physically walk around or stand on a ladder and look down for a top view: Being able to move within a space using
all 3 dimensions of length, breadth and height allows us to build a 3d map of an object and see how a 3d object fills its space

The Illusion of 3D
Now imagine sitting and looking at that same sculpture from just one viewing angle while not being allowed to move your head…
Your brain receives 2 images; one from your left eye and one from your right eye, ie; it receives a stereoscopic pair of images that are then processed to pick out the relative differences between the 2 subtly different viewing angles
Objects nearby have a relatively larger difference between the 2 views compared to objects further away

3D TV and Offset Images
In order to achieve the illusion of 3D a TV must send slightly different images to our left eye compared to our right; the most popular method of achieving this, at the moment, is to trick our brains using glasses that filter the images

Anaglyphs: 3D TV using Passive Glasses
This is the simplest method and involves a pair of glasses with different coloured lenses to filter the TV image and produce a colour distorted scene
a similar passive 3d effect can also be achieved with polarised lenses

LCD Switching: 3D Using Active Glasses
The glasses use built-in liquid crystal filters synchronised with infrared sensors to monitor the television screen, as the tv picture alternates between two sets of the same image extremely quickly the lcd filters switch on and off allowing each eye to receive a slightly different image so that when an image intended for our left eye is displayed the right eye blocks the image

3D TV Without Glasses: Parallax and Autostereoscopic images
This is where TV technology starts to get interesting as the tv screen is covered with tiny directional lenses that can be constructed for a single viewing angle or multiple viewing positions or even combined with head tracking technology to monitor your viewing position and change the projected image as you move around the room
This will be discussed further in a separate article

Installing HDTV and 3DTV in Homes and Entertainment Centres
To find out more about wall mounting or ceiling mounting a new TV in the Gateshead area visit:Installing HDTV and 3DTV Gateshead and ask for a price quote

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | Comments Off

What TV Transmitter Covers Gateshead and South Tyneside?

Posted on February 18, 2013

The Gateshead area is primarily covered by Pontop Pike; set up to cover Tyne and Wear plus County Durham and parts of Yorkshire

Transmitter online for the Queens Coronation
Pontop Pike is situated on a hill in County Durham nestled between Consett and Stanley and has been in service since 1953 while the nearby Burnhope Transmitter started life in 1959 and is used more for DAB stations rather than digital and high definition TV transmissions

North East Digital Switchover
Analogue TV transmissions via Pontop Pike are set to end in September 2012 as part of the digital switchover leaving the digital multiplex (Mux) bands for TV transmission

Relay Station at Fenham
As Pontop Pike is the primary broadcasting transmitter for the Norh East/Northumberland there are also a number of relay transmitters
that receive then relay the broadcasting signals; one of the nearest to Gateshead is at Fenham

Posted in Aerial | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off

4G Mobile Broadband for TV in The North East

Posted on February 18, 2013

The 4G technology or 4th generation wireless technology is able to provide very high data rates to effectively enable ultra-broadband wireless internet access with gigabit data transfer capability to mobile as well stationary users.

The high data transfer rates should provide an alternative to terrestrial aerial based TV reception once the systems become properly established here in the UK

Currently EE is one of the few companies to advertise 4G but costs realistically preclude its use for streaming film and TV with 5GB of data packages currently costing over £50 per month. It should be just a matter of time before transfer allowances increase as other major players start to enter the market and look at home technologies not just mobile options

Posted in TV | Tagged , | Comments Off
x