Orchestrating the digital living room

My experience was a lot more complicated than that. Let's start with connecting the PC to the TV.

My decade-old 27-inch set doesn't have any of the modern inputs on the back to make the connection. At the very least, an S-video line is needed. Rather than suggesting a way to work around the problem, Gateway came up with what it called a better idea: Why not sample our 30-inch wide-screen, flat-panel LCD TV ($2,499.99) and really see what the FMC 901 can do?

Two more large boxes containing the TV and its own remote speakers arrived.

Conclusion No. 1: Adding a piece of electronics is like buying a new carpet. It's not long before you realize the sofa, armchairs, and drapes now look drab. It's called "obsolescence": You're in danger of discovering that your stereo and TV set are considered antiques.

Now I needed to bring the Internet into the system. My broadband connection was in an upstairs office, where we use our computer. My cable TV box was in the downstairs family room, where I wanted to install the FMC 901. I needed to be connected to both to make it work.

Running a wire between the floors was possible but complicated and expensive (if you hired an electrician). Hooking them up using a wireless router ($149.98) was hip (look Ma, no wires!) - and the wave of the future (the Yankee Group estimates that by 2008 there'll be about 37 million networked homes). It also meant that other devices in the house could tap in to the network, too, such as a notebook computer (if I had one).

My brother-in-law Tim, a tech-savvy customer service manager for a computer company, had just set up a wireless network in his house and agreed to set up mine.

But what, in theory, should have taken only a few minutes took hours. The signal strength was low or nonexistent. He tried changing the channel the devices used to communicate. We moved the wireless antennas around the family room, searching for a decent signal.

Even after we got it working, it tended to cut out from time to time for still unknown reasons (other wireless signals in the area, such as cordless phones, can sometimes be the culprit).

Conclusion No. 2: For most people, setting up a PC-based media center is going to involve at least two projects: (1) setting up a wireless network in your home and (2) connecting up to the TV and its video source, such as a cable box.

As Tim continued to help me, seemingly little things became obstacles that took minutes or even hours to figure out. A picture finally emerged on the beautiful big screen (note to readers: Remember to turn on the TV as well as the computer). Hurrah! The FMC 901 was booting up. Double hurrahs! But wait, where was the sound?

Eventually, Tim figured out it hadn't been turned on yet. Later, when we tried to upgrade from the S-video to a higher-resolution RGB computer monitor cable between the TV and computer, we lost the sound again. The audio had to be piped in a different way. Another cable. "Really annoying design," Tim muttered.

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