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Hi. I'm Bill Becker. I'm the CEO and founder of BDI. At BDI we're a design driven company
so we really focus on how do we improve on products, how do we innovate, and how do we
create something better. We're very much interested in creating products that improve on what's
out there.
So one of the core values at BDI is sweating the details and that sweating the details
really carries itself throughout the manufacturing process. We are very focused on the materials
that we select. We're very focused on the hardware that we use and the design details
that go into the product so that it meets the needs, for example, of a home theater
system. Anybody who has a home theater system and looks at it realizes there's a tremendous
amount of cable so we realized early on that it was important to control these cables and
also to hide these cables. We use passive ventilation so the air basically, through
convection, comes up through the underneath of the cabinet and out through the rear of
the cabinet and that keeps the components cool.
It's really important to be able to get to the back of furniture so that's why we incorporated
wheels early on. It's very difficult to move a large piece of furniture with a large TV
full of components away from the wall and the wheels were a very, we felt was a very
important innovation and something that really set BDI products apart from other things that
were available.
A/V components come in all sizes and because of that the shelves really need to be adjustable
and there needs to be good adjustability. All of our cabinets have threaded inserts
and pins that are dampened so that the shelf doesn't vibrate and can easily be moved up
and down and it's a very secure connection for the shelves to hold those very heavy components.
Avion was our first cabinet, our first enclosed product. For Avion we developed these doors
that would be IR compatible so that it would work with IR remotes. Avion is in thousands
of homes out there, and many, many people have really enjoyed using that product. We've
recently redesigned Avion to make it even better, and we've added a steel structure
so that it no longer has a middle leg. We've changed some of the other hardware and we've
incorporated slow-close doors. Since one of our core values at BDI is continual improvement
it was really important to us with Avion to make it the best product it could be and so
we took a really great product and we made it better.
When we developed Novia, it was really to reach that customer that wanted all the innovations
that BDI builds into our products but in a design that may be more compatible with a
little more traditional home environment. The drawer that is used on Novia is a multi-function
drawer. You can use it for your center channel speaker as well as for storage. The other
features that Novia includes are slow-close doors so that as you close the door they don't
slam shut, which is nice in a home theater environment that you don't really hear those
doors when they close. Novia has a glass top. It's a black glass top which has a great look
with the black TVs that are out there now and it really helps to integrate the TV in
with the piece of furniture.
Cirrus is a cabinet that incorporates the features that BDI is known for. It has wheels.
It has ventilation. The difference with Cirrus is it uses sliding doors as opposed to pivoting
doors as most of our cabinets use. The sliding doors for many customers is appealing because
you don't have a door that's swinging out and the door can be left open all the time
if you want so if you want to have easy access to those components the door can basically
be kept open.
Valera was a challenging product to engineer because you have a very wide span that needs
to support the TV and so we have to use steel in Valera. Even though it's a wood stand it
has steel incorporated into the structure. And the Valera stands are very sculptural.
They really take advantage of the qualities of wood. Most of the Valera units also swivel,
and Valera allows you to orient your TV to whoever is watching it.
One of our products that's designed for audio components is the Mirage 8222. So the Mirage
8222 has a very sleek appearance. It has black glass doors that are IR compatible and it's
really designed to accommodate several A/V components and the cabling that's needed for
those components.
We really want to make sure that the product that we produce is aligned with who we are
as a company and so we're very focused on quality and we make sure that at all parts
of the production of our furniture the people that are involved in it also are aligned with
that core value of sweating the details.