The Ultimate Digital HomeA show-stopping digital home is born from the thoughtful balance of easy-to-grasp technology and drop-dead design.

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“People like these multipurpose spaces because you're not confined to a boxed room,” says Joe McNeill, senior systems consultant for Electronics Design Group in Piscataway, N.J. “You can entertain many people within the space during a party and still have phenomenal electronics, a big screen, and great sound from an elegant system.”

Projectors are also finding their way into the great room. In the past, bulky CRT tube projectors had to be located in a prescribed location and distance from the screen.

Credit new projector technologies like DLP, D-ILA, and SXRD for creating images bright enough to be viewed comfortably in ambient light. Also, variable-length lenses allow a projector to throw a large image from the rear of the room.

“Today's single-chip projectors offer us enormous flexibility,” says McNeill. “A projector can sit five feet from the screen or 50 feet because of the various focal-length lenses that allow you to put the projector wherever it needs to be.”

The ultimate home technology today might be next year's standard fare, but it's clear that home entertainment and control are fixtures of next-generation homes. Electronics give enterprising builders a way to stand apart in a slowing market.

For builders like Brookfield Homes, the time is just right. “Half of the people are very sophisticated about technology, and the other half are wowed by what they can have that they didn't know existed,” says Lehman. “As time goes by, we're going to see more and more people asking for it.”

Rebecca Day is a freelance writer based in Chestnut Ridge, N.Y.

Though TVs get cooler-looking every year, designers still prefer to hide them.

THE FLAT-PANEL TV CONTINUES TO scorch the sales charts and is the hottest thing in video. For many, a plasma or LCD TV on the wall is a style statement and a status symbol. For others, a TV flat enough to hang on the wall offers entertainment in formal spaces—but in the end it should still be hidden from view. The need to hide the flat TV has spawned a new category of products ranging from furniture with motorized lifts and revolving partitions to framed paintings that cover a TV screen during off-viewing hours.

“Interior designers love the concept of a flat TV that hangs on the wall, but they still don't want to see it,” says Bill Anderson, president of integration firm Irvine, Calif.–based Genesis Audio and Video and inventor of the Solar Shading System's Vision Art motorized shade system.

VisionArt artwork consists of 150 framed prints that homeowners can choose as the cover material—or they can select their own family portraits or artwork. When it's prime time, the canvas rolls into the frame by remote control.

As with any home theater, multi-room audio, or home control system, planning for a motorized shade system should take place early in the construction process, Anderson notes. A plasma or LCD TV requires AC power and framing. Extra space behind the wall is also required for the back can that includes the ducts, fans, and thermostats required for proper ventilation. VisionArt adds roughly $1,000 to the cost of a TV.