Backstage Crew: Day one: Richard

You just bought a great big plasma TV, and you want to put it in your family room. It would be great if you could also view the TV from your adjacent kitchen, but there's no available wall that would provide optimal viewing angles in both rooms. Shawrut Furniture's innovative new home video furniture gives you the ability to view the TV from either room by placing this console between the rooms--like a room divider--and flipping the TV around from one side to the other. The rotating section is double-sided: bookshelves on one side, TV on the other. Making dinner? Flip the TV toward the kitchen and catch up on the news. Ready to relax with friends and family after dinner? Flip it back toward the family room and sit back to watch your favorite movie.

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LG's new multiformat Super Multi Blue Player might just put the high-definition DVD video format war to an end. This baby plays Blu-ray, HD-DVD, and standard-definition DVD video discs. This player is expected on shelves within this first quarter of 2007.

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TiVo has just announced and is demonstrating the TiVo service update that will be available to Cox and Comcast subscribers. The software update, downloaded through your cable provider, essentially turns your existing Motorola Cable PVR into a full-fledged TiVo, with some features that outshine even the latest TiVo service familiar to Series 2 and Series 3 owners. New features include integrated on-demand content, episode descriptions in the list of recorded programs, and a window overlay that continues to show your live broadcast while navigating the TiVo menus. Now let's see those features brought back to some of TiVo's other hardware!

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Microsoft is showing an IPTV set-top box from Motorola that pulls television and video content from your provider via the Internet. This box includes a variety of promising features, such as Starz OnDemand programming, which is similar to Starz's online Vongo service.

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Microsoft is partnering with a variety of hardware vendors to provide smart remote controls that use Windows SideShow to control and to interact with Windows Vista Media Center. This particular device allows you to see what's showing on other channels, to review your recorded TV programs, or to preview photographs from your media library before displaying them on your TV. If you find something you want to record, just select it and your two-tuner Media Center will record it in the background without ever interrupting what's showing on the TV. Imagine: virtual channel-surfing without bothering your spouse or partner! Expect to see these devices in stores by this summer.

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Multiple vendors are promoting their Blu-ray devices at CNET this year, but Sony obviously has the biggest stake in this game. In addition to showcasing their existing Blu-ray devices, Sony is showing prototypes of its sleeker, upcoming Blu-ray players. The new players feature streamlined, almost stealth-like interfaces with cleverly hidden and obscured front controls. No release date or pricing is available yet for these models.

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Philips's latest Pronto remote system combines physical buttons with a beautiful, fully customizable touchscreen. Leveraging technology from earlier Pronto remotes, this device adds physical buttons for some of the more frequently used remote functions in a configuration that's more traditional and usable than previous models. This remote also features the "soft" buttons that have become so popular in those previous models--physical buttons that can be customized and labeled for any desired function. Available extenders enable Wi-Fi and serial control capabilities, designed to interface with complex home audio and video control systems. Is this the perfect remote? That depends if you're willing to shell out more than $1,000 for a universal remote. For custom installation jobs, this is a great solution.

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Look, Ma, no wires! This floating plasma screen is a prototype by Philips, demonstrating a two-dimensional Ambilight Surround system--which Philips claims eases eye strain--and a new video transfer capability that's virtually invisible. See any wires here? Not unless you look very closely. The subtle striping leading down from the display is an intricate mesh of fine wires that deliver high-definition video to the display.

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Yamaha's Digital Sound Projector speaker systems have been available for a while now, but with updated models and the increased demand for surround-sound accompaniment for high-definition video systems, this technology becomes more attractive. An army of small but powerful speakers behind the grill bounce sound off surfaces in your room to reflect multidimensional sound that comes very close to true 5.1 sound. The encased system can be wall-mounted or seated below the monitor. Two sizes and colors provide options for a variety of monitors and televisions.

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Is that pay-per-view content on my Media Center? Why yes, it is! Windows Vista Media Center offers a significantly improved Vongo service, seamlessly integrated into Media Center's 10-foot interface. Vongo, Starz's online subscription/on-demand movie service, has always suffered by not being easy enough to control from the couch and not being convenient enough to view at your desk. This new Media Center feature alleviates these problems by making buying, downloading, and viewing Starz-featured movies all possible with your Media Center remote. Of all the online video services available for Media Center users today, this one is by far the easiest and the most convenient. Plus, the all-you-can-eat subscription model for many titles pretty much trumps anything else available today. Video store? We don't need no stinkin' video store!

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Samsung's new DVD recorder includes an onboard ATSC tuner and an integrated program guide, which makes recording over-the-air high-definition television signals a breeze. A cable box control also allows you to control, schedule, and record your standard-definition cable content to disc. The device supports all standard recordable DVD formats and is even certified to play DivX discs. Expect to see this in stores by the second quarter of this year.

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