Every September, thousands of the world's best custom installers converge at the CEDIA Expo - the Custom Electronic Design & Installation Association's big annual show - to check out the latest and greatest products. This year's event, held in Denver, offered an amazing array of things worth swooning over. There was so much to see that, even after four days of marching up and down the Colorado Convention Center, I still didn't visit all the booths I wanted. Fortunately, we have the Consumer Electronics Show in January. Until then, here are the things that got my attention.

VIDEO TRENDS

Just when you thought you were riding the cutting edge with 1080p, the TV manufacturers roll out the latest must-have feature: 120-Hz processing. By handling images twice as fast as traditional 60-Hz displays, these new sets have pictures that are blur-free and much smoother. Nearly every manufacturer will be touting this on their upper-end sets - and, fortunately, almost all 120-Hz sets have a demo mode to show off the technology.

For the space-challenged, Sharp and Toshiba have put their LCD sets on a diet. By drastically reducing the size of the bezel surrounding the screen, a 46-inch set can fit into the footprint of an old 42-inch flat-panel TV. Toshiba's new Regza lineup features the thinnest bezel, at less than 1 inch.

No matter how many pixels your set has, it's still limited to just two dimensions - unless you have a 2007 Samsung DLP or Mitsubishi Diamond DLP HDTV. All of these 120-Hz sets are 3-D ready! Texas Instruments showed demos that included clips from Star Wars: Attack of the Clones and A New Hope that had amazing depth of field and the kind of "in your face" effects you'd expect from 3-D. (Packages that include 3-D generating software and two sets of glasses will be available shortly for around $199.) Also new in the DLP world is DarkChip4, a chip set that increases the native contrast ratio by at least 30%. It should be available in a host of products starting in 2008.

Ultimate iPod Accessory While iPod docks have delivered cool audio features, they've treated video like chopped liver. Meridian tackles this problem head-on with the iRIS (due in November), the first dock that upconverts an iPod's video output to 1080p via HDMI. Beyond just adding millions of pixels, Meridian's scaling technology transforms iPod's native 320 x 240 images into what looks like DVD quality, making iRIS the perfect accessory for your mega-capacity 160-gigabyte Pod. The only thing more shocking than the performance is the price. At $375, iRIS will bring the Meridian nameplate to the masses. The company also launched the Ferrari co-branded F80. At just under $3,000, this iPod-ready product is either the cheapest Ferrari or the most expensive table radio ever. Either way, the audio quality was unbelievable, and the F80 comes in five authentic Ferrari finishes. Che bella!

Media Center Not long ago, using a PC to run your house's automation and A/V distribution systems would have been unthinkable. But Microsoft's Windows XP Media Center Edition PCs have been gaining a strong foothold in the custom market. And why not? With a terrific user interface, support from the world's most powerful software company, and improved reliability, Media Centers have a lot going for them. With the introduction of Vista, they're now engineered for the high-def world - and with audio-distribution giant Russound throwing its hat into the Media Center ring, you can expect even bigger things to come. Also, Microsoft is sponsoring a competition looking for the coolest Media Center installation. Check it out at microsoft.com/ceinstaller.