Remotely Possible

Over the years, I’ve written a lot about outdoor audio and video. Today, most of the people I talk with know about outdoor speakers, especially the portable Bluetooth type—although it’s generally the small, water-resistant models that they think of. (They’d be so much better off with the Soundcast Melody. It’s $399, but I have yet to find a portable, outdoor speaker with Bluetooth that sounds and looks anywhere near as good. Two years after it was introduced, it’s still the best of the portable outdoor bunch.) A smaller number of people know about outdoor speakers that can be permanently installed under the eaves of your home, on a back patio, or around a pool. Some have even heard about outdoor speakers that look like flower pots, rocks, landscape lights, or, sometimes, lifesize dogs, slightly larger-than-life-size frogs, and even angry Tiki heads. But when I mention outdoor, weatherproof TVs—if they’re still talking to me—people either blankly look at me like I’ve just said something in broken Klingon or they say, “Really? They make those? That’s cool.”

You wouldn’t expect to see a high-end, 17-seat “microcinema” in the middle of an airport, but that’s exactly what I found at Oregon’s Portland International Airport (PDX) after I’d landed there in late July of this year. After being in the air for hours, scurrying through DFW to make a connection in a different terminal, and then spending more hours in the air, I was in no mood to explore anything other than the baggage claim carousel once I finally shuffled off the plane. So, despite glancing at the 30-feet wide, neon-emblazoned Hollywood Theatre marquee as the moving walkway carried me passed it, I remained blissfully ignorant as to the who, what, why, and how of the whole thing. (Even in my air travel-induced stupor, I was able to deduce the “where” part…)

Televisions are one of the most popular items to purchase during the myriad Black Friday sales extravaganza that’s already begun—even though it isn’t Friday, yet. Last year, for example, Target sold 3,200 televisions per minute in first hour of opening on Thanksgiving. With prices coming down on 4K UHD TVs with HDR, you can bet that TVs will be as big—if not a bigger—a sales success.