High-Tech @ Home: Homeowners seek entertainment value

From movies to music to games, homeowners have a plethora of new options and new technologies from which to choose.

Fun and games

Technological advances are most obvious in the home theater sector. One product – Cinewide – aims to enhance the visual experience when watching videos or playing video games at home.

Cinewide is a projector system that takes “wide-screen” format movies and stretches them vertically and horizontally to fit new wider-screen TVs.

Mitch Smith, general manager of rAVe Design Services, a division of Carnahan-White Inc., said the system addresses a common complaint among owners of new wide-screen televisions.

“They say, ‘I bought a wide-screen TV, but I still have those bars,’” Smith said. “This stretches the image out on the top and bottom so there’s no space on any side, like you’d see in a movie theater or high-end private screening room.

“It fills the whole screen. It’s a really cool experience.”

The new product is not for the occasional movie-watcher – the projection system starts at $8,900, which Smith said makes

it a product only for high-end home theaters.

Homeowners also can get the full theater experience, including acoustic panels, theater-style sconces and risers for stadium-style seating.

Daniel Millikan, president of Silverstone Custom Homes, had a $25,000 home theater system installed in a home his company built in Olde Ivy, including an overhead-mounted projector, acoustic panels and theater lighting.

Millikan said he decided to have a theater installed in the home, which was featured in the 2006 Home Builders Association of Greater Springfield Parade of Homes, because of demand.

“Most of the homes we build cost $500,000 and up, and a common request we get is to have a media room,” Millikan said.

Inside the game

Game lovers also have many options to upgrade their entertainment experience and integrate gaming into their home theaters.

While ForresterTech, a division of The Forrester Group, does not sell the actual gaming consoles, Sales and Marketing Director Thad Forrester said tying the game system into the rest of the home is simple.

“It’s really just a matter of connecting the cords into the receiver you’d have in your home,” he said.

“Xbox 360 supports high-definition component video, so you just plug that into your receiver and it becomes another part of the system, with your DVD player and your satellite or digital cable.”

It’s all part of a move toward making the gaming system more of a media center for the home, Forrester said, noting that the Xbox 360 can show photos stored on a home computer or on its own hard drive, and download TV shows and high-definition movies.

Gamers looking for an additional facet to game-playing will, later this year, be able to purchase the D-Box GP-100 Gaming Platform, a game chair that shakes, leans, twists and turns along with the game on the screen.

The chair is not cheap, though. Forrester, whose company will be the exclusive local carrier, said the chair system will sell for between $10,000 and $15,000.

Easy listening

For home entertainment on a smaller scale, rAVe offers a whole-house system that an iPod can be plugged into, and song information appears on keypads throughout the home, as well as on a wireless remote that can control volume in specific rooms.

Smith said kids have the option of listening to their favorite iPod tunes through the use of a special dock that plays music overhead in their own rooms.

“Kids want to plug an iPod into the speakers in their room, but maybe Mom and Dad don’t want to listen to that,” Smith said.

“Kids put their iPod on (the dock) and the sound comes on overhead, independent to their room, and it’s not bothering their parents,” he added.

The iPod docking stations start at about $350.

The entire home audio system to accommodate the docks starts at $2,500, Smith said.

Music lovers without iPods can still take advantage of the whole-home stereo experience, as Lee Fraley did recently in his new Springfield home.

Fraley spent about $20,000 on both a whole-home audio system and a basement theater setup, complete with big-screen TV and surround sound. He said he’s thrilled with both the system and its ease of use.

“It’s great. Things are complicated when they’re installing it, but they simplify it for you when they’re done and show you how to do it all,” he said.

Increased iPod options also are available on the patio.

Steve Greene, salesman for Le Dipping Parlor Spas, said his company offers spas with built-in waterproof radios and CD players.

“It also has an input for MP3 files or iPod,” Greene said, “and there’s a compartment that you can put your iPod in to keep water from getting on it.”

The stereo is an option that can be added to most spas for $700 to $900.

Manufacturers also offer TVs for the spa. Greene, however, said Le Dipping Parlor doesn’t offer them through the store due to their cost. The smallest, a 32-inch LCD waterproof screen, starts at $5,000.