My name is Stuart Richardson - I've been installing custom Audio/Video systems in Southern California for over 15 years (L.A. and Orange County), and have seen a lot of good and bad along the way. If you're interested in learning more about the best in whole-house A/V and lighting automation, read on to fill-up on the latest and greatest...
Probably the best place to start is at the beginning, with a description of some of the things you should expect from a modern whole-house system: the electronic heart of today's luxury home is the Low Voltage Distribution Panel - this is a centralized in-wall enclosure (usually made from formed steel) which houses the 'home runs' of most of the TV, telephone, and network cabling for the house. When I say 'home run', that means any group of cabling that begins in one single location and fans out from there - this is the preferred cabling method by today's standards (although not all cabling needs to be home run...). Along with the cabling, this distribution panel will also contain various termination equipment for each type of signal: RG6 cabling for TVs will terminate into an RF splitter and/or amplifier, telephone cabling (usually CAT5) will converge into a variety of phone blocks, and Ethernet cabling (again CAT5 or CAT5e) will go into a network switch or hub (in combination with the router or gateway device).
Audio/Video cabling is typically home run to a different central point, usually within close proximity to the home's main home theater system. This includes speaker cabling to as many different rooms as can be imagined, in combination with various control cabling (usually CAT5) for remotely controlling centralized A/V equipment. Most home systems are strictly for distributed audio, but today's top-of-the-line systems also offer distributed video - this allows, for instance, someone in one of the upstairs bedrooms to watch a DVD from the main system downstairs, and simultaneously listen to the audio from in-wall/in-ceiling speakers.
Of course the Home Theater system is key - the best systems will feature a projection or plasma display. If it's a projected picture, the screen can either be fixed (perhaps behind a motorized curtain, like in big theaters) or one which automatically extends when the projector is switched on. Speakers can be any combination of in-wall, in-ceiling, or conventional cabinet-style speakers - this includes the latest in thundering subwoofers (which can also be hidden behind walls or ceilings - or under the floor...). The sound processor should be able to decode a variety of signals, including AC3, DTS, and a few other less popular formats.
Remote controls have come a long way, and high-end systems should include what's now called "positive control": this type of system actually gets feedback from the various system components (via a mesh of tiny wires for current sensing, signal sensing, etc.) to determine the power status, then uses if/then/else logic for conditional control. Here's one example: you come into the theater room to watch a movie, and simply press 'Watch DVD' on the remote control. This sends the signal to a processor, which discovers that someone left the tuner on and the TV off. It compensates for this by turning on the TV, switching the tuner input to 'DVD', and pressing 'Play' on the DVD player. It then dims the lighting by 90%. This is what's considered a 'smart' system, and can be found with names like Elan and Niles.
And that brings us to lighting control - the big name is Lutron. This company offers a few different systems and methods to dynamically control the lighting in any home - the most popular of which uses the RadioRA controllers. These include high-end wall plates and/or table top remote controls which use RF (Radio Frequency) to wirelessly control lighting relays from a distance, and can be controlled by Audio/Video remotes for that real theater experience. One of the other benefits of Lutron's wall plates is the ability to control up to 5 switches in one single-gang unit.
Other features of the latest whole-house systems include distributed surveillance: imagine being in the back room of a very large house and the doorbell rings. Instead of dropping everything just to find out it's a pushy solicitor, you just look at the 7" color wall controller in front of you and see who's there. Pick up the phone and talk to them (through a speaker in the doorbell mount) - without even getting up. Then tap the touch screen once to see if the baby is awake on camera 2, or watch all four cameras in one single quad-view!
It's obvious that we've come a long way since the rotary volume controls you see on the walls of many older homes - these can still be useful and save you some money if you're not hungry for features.
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