OTHER TECH

A voice booms from the ether of the home theater like a female Jehovah. "Pick up Line 2," it commands. "Meryl wants to talk to Natasha." I'm alone in the room and, tech-savvy guy that I am, can't figure out if I should shout a response back into the void as I fumble around looking for a handset to pick up or a button to press.

When someone says he's an accountant, a stockbroker, or a trash collector (excuse me, "Sanitation Engineer"), you know what he does for a living. But when I say I'm a custom electronics installer, I usually get a blank stare in return.

Many A/V enthusiasts dream of having a custom theater designed by home theater pioneer and Sound & Vision columnist Theo Kalomirakis. But mystery novelists Jonathan and Faye Kellerman (Capital Crimes, When the Bough Breaks) have something twice as nice: two theaters designed by Theo.

Accell's UltraAV HDMI 2-1 Switch The good thing about HDMI is that it reduces the wire tangle in an A/V system by carrying digital high-def video and multichannel audio signals on a single cable. The bad thing is that many HDTVs sold over the past few years have only one HDMI input.