Michael Antonoff

The mutual embrace of A/V and PC got considerably tighter at this year's CES, most visibly with the proliferation of devices that let you experience all kinds of music and video entertainment on your TV and stereo. And almost every one of these products could connect to some kind of wired or wireless network - yet another sign of how deeply the PC mindset has taken hold in the home.

Family gatherings are always a convenient excuse to pull out the camcorder and start shooting. If you thought your choice of weaponry was confined to the 10-year-old MiniDV tape format, guess again. You'd be ignoring two of the hottest trends of the last few years: hard-disk recording and high-definition TV. It's not your fault.

Welcome to the secret language of consumer electronics (CE) retailing. To the public, a set that discos should be mounted on a turntable so that the screen can be swung around by viewing partners from opposite directions. But to those who sell TVs, the term is shorthand for discontinued.

A DVD player is already a terrific bargain - an inexpensive black box that can play discs full of razor-sharp images, immersive surround sound, and fascinating extras. But what if you could wed a DVD player with another popular entertainment device like, say, a TV, VCR, or game console? Well, it's already being done.