How many acronyms can a monitor have before it chokes on its own resolution? We have all come to expect CRTs, LCDs, TFTs and God knows what else but now Samsung has come up with a monitor with so many acronyms it will leave you gasping.

It's a close race between this draft-n Vista Media Extender and the Xbox 360 for getting HD video to your TV. If you watch video from your Vista PC, read on.

The Viewsonic airPanel V110 is the first of its kind – a wireless, portable display that unfetters you from your PC and allows you to work around the home and office while your PC sits in another room. It runs Windows CE for Smart Panels which is like a pared-down version of Windows XP, and mimics your system desktop allowing you to access files and programs without needing to be next to your PC.

The concept of fitting normal PC hardware into a tiny package has been proven to work and small form factor (SFF) systems are now commonplace.

A very tidy solution for streaming your downloaded video to the TV, without the need for a full Media Center PC.

A stylish, silent well-featured Media Center PC at a decent price.

A Media Center PC and 32in LCD TV all-in-one.

It doesn’t do anything apart from simple music streaming, but the price and ease of use make this a good choice for getting music from one room to another wirelessly.

Altech's Maestro Pro is a Home Theatre PC based on Microsoft's Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005.

Similar in nature to the Zinwell ProV (June 2002, page 46) but with better execution, the X-Media DreamBox is a small set-top box for your desktop that lets you watch TV, video, console games and DVDs on your monitor without the need to power on your PC.

When everything from your movie collection to your photo album is digital, why would you want to watch it all on a tiny monitor with tinny speakers while your big television and surround sound sits idle in the lounge room?

Total Home Theatre PC is a company you’d expect to know about these things and you can tell it’s put a great deal of thought in to this system.

This rather optimistic time assumes no use of the backlight, but we found half-brightness to offer the best compromise – and even at this setting, the V35's screen impresses.

There is something totally decadent about playing your favourite PC game on a 30-inch LCD monitor with stereo sound from two banks of speakers - one on each side.

The idea of using your PC as the central control point for your home theatre has been bandied about for some time.

HP is adamant that the digital home of the future (and now for that matter) has a midi-tower PC in it next to the TV.

Think of sound cards and chances are you're probably thinking of Creative. Thanks to its phenomenally successful Sound Blaster line of cards, Creative is easily the leader of consumer PC audio. The Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Platinum Ex is the latest in this range, and is by far the most feature rich. The question is do you need most of these features?

In the mid-1990s a debate raged over whether we would eventually end up watching television on our computers, or whether television would take over from the PC. In 1995 a PC called the MyGeNie went on sale boasting that you could watch TV while you worked...

Quiet PSU with good efficiency.

The tightest firewall and administration system is all for naught if an employee walks away from their PC without locking it up.