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John Sciacca

The Custom Installer: Next Big Thing - Computers!

There might be a PC in your living room's future

Considering the rapid way A/V technology evolves, I'll bet Charles Darwin would have been a Sound & Vision subscriber. And survival of the fittest and natural selection are definitely alive and well in my equipment rack. In fact, all you have to do is look at it to see the history of recorded video at a glance.

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Sirius S50 Portable Satellite Radio

Sirius S50 portable satellite radio
The Short Form $330 plus Sirius subscription / 2 x 3.875 x 0.625 IN / 6 OZ / sirius.com / 888-539-7474
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Control 4

Whole-House Music Server/Automation System

To quote Janet Jackson (Ms. Jackson if you're nasty), "This is a story about control." And whether your lifestyle is Joe Schmo, Average Joe, or Joe Millionaire, control is something we can all use a little more of in our lives. Fortunately, achieving some level of control over our A/V systems is easily done.

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The Custom Installer: Front and Center

You're ready for a front-projection video system, but is your room?

My first experience with front projection was nine years ago in a swanky A/V boutique in San Francisco - the kind of place where "I'm just looking" really means, "I can't afford anything in here." This store carried brands I'd never heard of at stratospheric prices I'd never thought possible.

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The Custom Installer: Garden Party

Building your own HDTV paradise at home.

One highlight of the Custom Electronic Design & Installation Association's annual Expo is the Garden of High Definition Delights. Flagship HDTVs from nearly every manufacturer are lined up in this large, darkened space, all displaying pristine high-def images. You can call up programming on any set to compare performance with identical source material.

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The Custom Installer: CEDIA Showstoppers

This year's custom-installation show offered a glimpse of the entertainment future.

People often ask me, "How do you keep up with all the new technologies? The market changes so fast." One of the best ways to stay current is to attend trade shows where the latest gear is on display and you can actually talk with the folks who designed it.

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The Custom Installer: From iPod to My Pad

It's not the end of quality sound, but a new beginning

For all of the benefits the digital revolution has brought to music - like streaming, unprecedented portability, and the ease of sorting and managing large collections - some people see it as not only a travesty but also a threat. Granted, these are usually the same people who lament the supposed lack of any advancement in audio quality since the birth of vinyl. But do they have a point?

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Qsonix Q100 Music Server

That Magic Touch
What We Think This multiroom music server offers excellent sound and an interface as gorgeous as it is easy to use. A board game called Othello came up with the ingenious
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The Custom Installer: Punk'd

Installers are happy to give you advice — but not for free.

After returning from our honeymoon, my parents took my wife and me to dinner at one of San Francisco's swanky restaurants. To commemorate the event, I brought a prized bottle of wine - a 1982 Sterling Private Reserve cabernet. Instead of being offended that I had my own bottle, the sommelier asked if he might have a taste. But the restaurant still added a $20 corkage fee to our bill.

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The Custom Installer: Irreconcilable Differences

There's nothing standard about A/V connections.

The first thing my wife told me when I returned from the Consumer Electronics Show in January was that our eight-year-old garage-door opener was broken. When it still produced a banshee-like screech after a liberal dose of WD-40 - the universal cure-all for ailing mechanical devices - I decided we needed a new opener.

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