Toshiba 'Space Chair' ad redefines armchair viewing (video)
By Thomas Ricker 
posted November 16th 2009 6:15AM
posted November 16th 2009 6:15AM
There's something wrong when an advertisement is more memorable than the product. Nevertheless, here we have Toshiba's Space Chair ad campaign promoting its new 2010 REGZA SV LCD TV series, Toshiba's first with LED backlight and local dimming. The campaign will later expand to include a second take featuring the Satellite T Series of 11-hour CULV laptops set for introduction in 2010. The ad follows the journey of "an ordinary living room chair" to the edge of space before falling back to Earth where the ground crew relied upon a GPS beacon to locate the craft. A few facts about the shoot:
- A helium balloon lifted the chair and Toshiba's own IK-HR1S ultra-compact 1080i camera to a height of 98,268 feet above terra firma
- FAA regulations required that the weight of the rig had to be less than four pounds
- The chair is made of biodegradable balsa wood at a cost of about £2,500
- The rig was launched in Nevada's
Burning ManBlack Rock desert - The temperature dropped to minus 90 degrees at 52,037 feet
- The chair took 83 minutes to reach an altitude of 98,268 feet and just 24 minutes to fall back to earth
A cheap way to get rid of the crap on earth? I think not.
But fun none the less
But a great way to make me want that ... ARMCHAIR!
soo the impression Toshiba is sending with this add is that they will pop you on an armchair, send you to the edge of space... then drop you?
nice
No, the idea they're sending is: "your TV will fall apart just like this chair as soon as it lands in your apartment".
I have this sudden need to go SKYDIVING!
I wanted to see it fall :(
Balloon Boy 2.0
Escape Vehicle No 6, Simon Faithfull (2004)
Larry Walters would be proud
to boldly go where no chair has gone before.
Argh, split infinitive!
Huh... Not a comfy looking chair - now if they had used the chair from the TD commercials....
I've gotten high in plenty of chairs.
Yes, and when I was a child I've been quite some high chairs of my own.
killed it.
Imagine being high in an armchair that high, hmmmm maybe the all new 2011 REGZA SR LCD TV add might want an actor? :P
Too soon.
Dangerous for those on the ground...wouldn't want to get hit by any of that. Not a smart idea at all really.
I know, which makes it even more irresponsible that they filmed this over NYC and made the chair out of depleted uranium.
I think terminal velocity of balsa wood chairs (or pieces of balsa wood) is probably about 10 mph.
I still don't get it: who was there , 100 000 ft high over nevada, to shoot the vid and pics?
Was he (the photographer) sitting on a second flying chair?
Yu're not serious, are you?
LOL a camera and balloon was attached, how on earth would a camera operator get that high and stay alive at -90 on another chair?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
that made my morning, almost spat out my coffee!
Hah ! LOL - a Good mornings laugh XD
A wizard did it
HAHAHA! Epic.
I wonder if the investment will pay off? Seems like a lot of money to spend on an ad campaign for a pretty standard new line of LCD LED TVs. Great ad though. I enjoyed the minute of footage it obviously took them months to create.
whaaaa??? It's a $2.5k chair, a $7k camera, and a $5k-$10k balloon. For an international corporation, that isn't expensive at all.
Actually it looks like a fairly inexpensive commercial to me. Tiny HD camera, armchair, ballon, string, couple phone calls to NASA. Cheaper than some goofy CGI ad.
Wha? $2.5K chair, try $20 dollars at a flea market.
Reading Is Fundamental
The chair's 2500 pounds, not dollars. But the camera probably survives, and I doubt the balloons cost that much.
Also the cost of production is probably nothing compared to what it'll cost airing the spot.
stuff you abid_rihd, we dont need ur pro acai bullshiuit
I can still see the wires!
Looked more like mono-filament fishing line.
Yeah it's fake! They winched it up!
Ballon Boy, eat your heart out!
Seeing the horizon of earth's atmosphere never gets old. So amazing.
Ah..you thought that was earth, huh?
I, for one, welcome our armchair overlords.
It's raining chair!
must....not.......watch......ever........again.....AHHHHHHHHHH
Why the hell does a balsa wood chair cost £2,500 to make? Also, why no read link?
had to weigh less then 4pounds so maybe it had to be hollowed out and such?
The Mars Rover costs millions of dollars for a glorified RC car. Things are more expensive in space.
Because when a major corporation asks a shop "How much to do X?" (where X is a custom job on a short schedule) and the shop quotes a figure like £2,500, the major corporation looks at its pool full of money (think Scrooge McDuck), shakes its ear, upon which £10,000 falls out like lint, and says "Make it sooner and you get to keep the change."
Cloudy with a chance of armchair.
thats awesome
How did they beam the footage back down, must have been some pretty serious radio equipment to handle an HD video...
Other video shoots like this were done by collecting the camera and its storage card after they fell back to earth. Only RF involved was the GPS tracker needed to locate it after it fell.