Saturday heralded the return of popular show The X Factor and with a whole host of changes to the show, it seems like the talent show may manage to win back the British public. 9.21 million people tuned in to watch the show on Sunday, topping the Saturday ratings by nearly 500,000 viewers so it appears that the changes have all been positive.

Returning for the tenth series, The X Factor has brought back celebrity judge Sharon Osbourne. Anyone watching the show on Saturday and Sunday could see what a difference Sharon makes to the judges panel, uniting all the judges and helping create a warmer feel to the show.

There has also been a return to the show’s roots by overhauling the audition system, eliminating the first round arena auditions in favour of their prior method of auditioning within a conference room. This method seems to offer an opportunity for more constructive criticism, with the intimate setting allowing the judges to deliberate based purely on their own opinions without the influence of the audience.

However, the arena auditions haven’t been taken out of the show, instead being moved to the Sunday show. This method seems to separate the wheat from the chaff, allowing for more serious viewing on Sunday after the judges panel screens the contestants on Saturday’s show. The overall calibre of contestant on the Sunday show has now obviously increased exponentially.

Here at 123 Brackets, we understand how important your TV experience is to you, so if you’re watching The X Factor this year, and want to enhance your viewing experience like the producers have enhanced the show, it pays to invest in some TV brackets to mount your TV. A mounted TV offers a cinematic viewing experience right in your living room, and we offer a huge selection of high quality TV brackets to suit your needs, so don’t hesitate to contact us if you want to enjoy the newest shows in the best way possible.

There are many reasons why we buy TV brackets, but generally speaking, it isn’t so that we can see and hear the ads better. Despite this, many people are of the opinion that broadcasters whack up the volume when it’s the ad break – something they will generally deny.

However, in the US, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has felt it necessary to pass a new regulation requiring broadcasters to keep the volume for TV programmes and adverts equal.

FCC chairman, Julius Genachowski, said:

“Most of us have … experienced this ourselves: You’re watching your favourite television program, or the news, and all of a sudden, a commercial comes on, and it sounds like someone turned up the volume — but no one did. Today, the FCC is quieting a persistent problem of the television age: loud commercials.”

The FCC has received 6,000 complaints about loud adverts since 2008. While this doesn’t sound like many, the gripe is supported by research from the Consumers’ Union, which found that the issue was a top grievance in 21 of its last 25 quarterly reports.

The new rule will apply to all broadcasters, be they cable, satellite or terrestrial, although unfortunately, it won’t be implemented until this time next year.

Until then, the FCC helpfully reminds people that they have a volume control on their remote control and that the mute button ‘is also useful to control excessively loud audio’.

We use TV brackets not only to save space in our rooms, but also to improve the TV viewing experience. Flat screens mean we can now mount our TVs on the wall, improving our view, but they also have a downside.

Bizarrely, this downside is the result of another strength. As a flat screen saves a lot of space, we can have much larger screens as well. This comes at a cost, because above a certain size, normal resolution loses sharpness. This is the main reason why high definition TV is becoming more common. On smaller screens, you can’t really see any improvement, but the larger the screen, the more important it becomes.

We can get high definition video from multiple sources. Blu-ray discs were one of the first ways of seeing HD footage, but now it is increasingly available via conventional TV services. However, it does require a digital signal. In India, this is being addressed by a new bill which will see the digitisation of cable services.

This will benefit both broadcasters and consumers. There could be more channels on offer as well as superior viewing. In India, where between 75 and 80 per cent of TV homes have cable, this will have a huge impact.

In a way, digital TV and TV brackets go hand in hand. They combine with flat screen TVs to provide a superior viewing experience.

3M have commissioned research into what consumers want from their LCD TVs. One of the findings was that people expect brightness and picture quality, no matter what the viewing angle. TV brackets allow you to rotate a TV screen to face wherever you want, but it is impossible for everyone to sit in the optimum viewing position when there are multiple viewers.

Las Vegas research firm, CBS Vision carried out the study which showed that older viewers were even more concerned about picture quality from different angles, expecting brightness and clarity regardless.

3M physicist Dave Lamb, the scientific adviser on the study, said:

“We wanted to understand how important wide-angle luminance — a combination of off-axis viewing and brightness — was to consumers, since this is something 3M technology enhances. This study shows that wide-angle luminance is very important, even if consumers are not initially aware of the measurement.”

It seems consumers don’t always realise that the way they watch an LCD TV has an impact on the image they see. Around 44 per cent of people were unaware that the viewing angle had an impact.

Even so, with 84 per cent of respondents saying that they view their TV from different angles, we can easily the importance of mobile TV brackets. Swivelling and cantilever brackets minimise the problems associated with viewing from an angle, as well as providing a better view in a more basic sense.

In most homes, the TV is the centre of attention. Mounted on TV brackets in pride of place, it is the object that is looked at more than any other. However, a French photographer, Olivier Culmann, has spent several years recording what we viewers look like.

Culmann has trained his camera on TV watchers throughout the world, capturing the positions and facial expressions we adopt when indulging in this most common of pastimes. He says the aim was to try and capture the moment when people zoned out, becoming wholly absorbed by what they were watching, be it a film, soap opera or football match.

The people in his photos are in all sorts of positions, curled up on settees, in bed. They are sometimes alone, or with family or friends. However, whether they are in India or Mexico, all are transfixed.

The main challenge was to get the viewers to forget he was there, because he took the pictures himself rather than relying on automated technology. This demanded that he spend hours watching people watch TV until they relaxed and got sucked in.

There were other issues too. In Morocco, people wouldn’t let him into their house without giving him tea and he would sometimes spend a full day in a home before they could relax. Even then, many weren’t comfortable with being photographed. He said India was easiest because people liked being photographed and he would often be invited in after simply knocking on a door.

Games consoles are really nothing more than computers built and packaged for playing games. These days, that fact is becoming more and more obvious as additional services are provided. Perhaps chief among these is access to internet TV. It allows people to watch on-demand programming from their settee on a large screen mounted on TV brackets. This is much more convenient than using a laptop or desktop PC and so this feature of modern games consoles is becoming ever more popular.

Internet TV can be accessed via the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and the Wii and according to a recent survey conducted by Nielsen, it is increasingly common for people to do so. Around 14 per cent of the usage of the Xbox 360 is now accounted for by TV viewing compared to 10 per cent a year ago. 15 per cent of PS3 usage is for video streaming, while 33 per cent of Wii usage is for TV. The Xbox and PS3 figures do not include paid downloads, which account for a further five per cent of total usage time.

This means that games consoles are actually the most popular way to watch high-definition TV. Ailing TV networks will be taking note and attempting to establish deals to get their content accessible.

The online streaming service Netflix is doing particularly well out of games console owners, which account for half of its user base. The PS3 and Xbox are also DVD players and in fact the PS3 is also considered the best-selling Blu-ray player as well.

Buying a new television is really exciting and plenty of people are doing it at this time of year. This is the time of year when people decide to invest in a plasma TV or a LCD or LED television, so that they can really sit back and watch some festive viewing in style.

There’s nothing better than gathering the family around your new television and settling down to watch some Christmas films. But this can only be done if your television is correctly mounted and for this, you need TV brackets.

It’s important that you invest in TV brackets, because it is these that will help to keep your television safe and secure. With the help of the right TV brackets, you can ensure that your television is properly mounted, so that it is not likely to get damaged or broken. But as well as this, the right TV bracket can help you to have an even better viewing experience. For example, by choosing a cantilever bracket, you can mount your television in a corner and there are plenty of other options too.

This is the perfect time to choose a new television for your home, but remember that you always need the TV brackets to match.

We’ve previously looked at how YouTube’s new long form offerings won’t negate the need for TV brackets, but there’s more to the development than that. Yes, YouTube is increasingly available on home TVs via all manner of modern gadgets and gizmos, but the easy access to it may have another effect.

YouTube’s 100 premium channels change the face of TV broadcasting. It means that programming is no longer a geographic thing. Someone in New Zealand or Fiji can watch the same things as someone in Wales or Guatemala.

This means much more content – a world of content, in fact. It also means watching what you want, when you want to, which is a huge advantage for the viewer.

It may also lead to better entertainment. This is not simply because you can find new, better programmes, but also because there is more competition. Any broadcaster who produces a great series can reap greater reward, so there is more incentive to get things right. Equally, make something lacklustre and it is likely to get lost in the ocean of choice.

The barriers for entry are also lower. YouTube already has its stars, but as technology has improved, home-made video has improved too. It’s possible to make something reasonably professional at minimal cost. Furthermore, if you make something good, it will now be available through people’s TVs, not just via their PCs and laptops, meaning you can potentially command a much larger audience. All of this could be good news for viewers in the future.

These days, you can access all manner of TV programmes on the web via your Xbox. The great benefit of this is that you can watch them on a TV correctly positioned with the aid of TV brackets, rather than hunching over a laptop, enduring a small screen and giving yourself neck ache.

The latest Xbox 360 update brings live TV to the games console, as well as an expanded on-demand offering. You can pretty much get rid of your set-top box, it would seem – particularly if you’re in the US, where HBO, Comedy Central and PBS are all available.

Microsoft has gone to great lengths to establish partnerships with many major broadcasters, although you’ll still need to subscribe to their channels in order to see their video content.

However, this development is not so significant as the earlier one that allowed Xbox owners to play online video through their TV sets. This is undoubtedly the future of TV and it is only the relative paucity of high quality on-demand programming that is holding it back from becoming the normal way we interact with our TVs.

Increasingly, we will be able to watch whatever we want, whenever we want to. No longer will we be limited by what is being broadcast or what we have already recorded on a digital video recorder. We will simply select from a giant online video archive and then press play. Furthermore, we will do this on our current TV sets – the ones that give us the optimum viewing experience.