Not everyone on a budget needs to sacrifice appearances. In this smaller room, you'll find good-looking equipment that won't break the bank, including a smaller flat-screen television and speakers that blend perfectly with those IKEA bookshelves. Better living definitely includes better entertainment.
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Select a room
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TV
The television is the nexus of home entertainment. For this room, we're going to splurge a bit.
Entry-level, stylish HTIB
There's no reason to knock yourself out mixing and matching home-theater components when you can get a complete audio/video experience in one package. A home-theater-in-a-box (HTIB) system bundles a receiver, an amplifier, a five-disc CD/DVD player, and all the surround-sound speakers together for you.
Digital audio receiver
Like most tech-savvy music lovers, you've spent the last several years ripping your CDs to MP3s. As a result, you have plenty of tunes for your PC and MP3 player. But how do you pipe that music into the living room? The answer is a digital audio receiver (DAR), which can stream your entire digital music collection over your home network.
Notebook computer
Let's face it: a lot of TV fare isn't really worth your full attention. Astute multitaskers (or those suffering from MTV-induced short attention spans) are comfortable with watching TV or listening to music while tabbing through e-mail or surfing the Web. With today's wireless technology, there's no reason you can't do some light PC work from the sofa.
Digital camera
This room needs a digital camera worthy of its character: stylish but affordable. Because we're looking to spend conservatively, we're passing on the highest-end digicams and instead looking at compact, more affordable 3-megapixel cameras.
Universal remote
Remote controls seem to multiply like rabbits. By upgrading to a universal remote, you can reduce unsightly coffee-table clutter.
Accessories
The wireless notebook and digital audio receiver need to interface with the rest of your home network.
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