So you have a flashy MP4 player, a 50" LCD screen and your laptop. But what you would really like to do is to watch a movie on any device you choose.
But how can you do that efficiently and legally without dodging the copy protection to run off one copy for each device?
Microsoft wants to re-educate us. They want us to put all our media in one place where multiple hard drives are treated as one great tomb which can be accessed by all our gear. Welcome to the Home Server.
Todd Headrick, product planner in the Windows Home Server team said: "Here on my Home Server I have access to all my family videos, HD videos, music, family photo albums. I can also remotely access that.
"There are two ways to get it. You can buy a hardware/software solution through some of our partners like HP, Tranquil and Medion, or, if you're an enthusiast, you can actually get the software and build your own home server.
"There's a little piece of software you load on your home PC, called the Windows Home Server Connector, which creates a link between that computer and the Home Server so that they're backed up and you have access to the files on the home server."
The purpose built Home Servers start at around $500 (£250) and you will need another box - a media extender - if you want to put the films or photos on your telly.
The Xbox 360 will do the trick, or you can buy a dedicated extender box for another few hundred dollars.
A cheaper alternative is a dedicated PC to TV box. They plug into the big screen and allow you to watch media files over cable or wi-fi. Like the extenders, it is one box per TV and file compatibility can be an issue.
Wireless solutions
Having all your media in one place is not the only answer.
A consortium of companies, including Samsung, plan to release a system called Hana by the end of this year.
It seeks out the media on your "Hana enabled" PVRs, PCs or DVD players anywhere in the home and lets you play that content on any screen.
"Those of us in the tech industry get it, but there's still too high a point of entry right now when it comes to understanding technology."
We featured Ultra Wideband (UWB) last week and it is now being used to beam HDTV from one area to another, up to 15 metres away. I saw the first LCD screen to have Ultra Wideband built in, allowing all cables apart from the power cable to be removed.
Much like getting TV pictures over the air it looks for a UWB signal from our storage devices. So you would plug your DVD and PVR recorders into a UWB transmitter.
But setting all this up, whichever route you choose, is still something that for many is just too complicated.
Natali Del Conte, senior editor at CNET TV said: "Those of us in the tech industry get it, but there's still too high a point of entry right now when it comes to understanding technology. Most consumers just don't.
"There's a device that I saw which I liked a lot, the Iogear portable media player, which holds 250GB of HD media. I would love that, but if I handed it to my mother she would not want anything to do with it.
"And that is, I think, our best bet right now at portability of our media."
Iogear's portable media hard drive is one of several that feature media file decoding and a graphic interface on board.
Available from next month, just copy the movie files onto it and then plug it into almost any telly using the AV cable.
Of course iPods, PSPs, Archos video players and other portable media players can also all be plugged into TVs with the right cables.
The Slingcatcher also supports direct play from hard drives. It also wirelessly streams films from your PC to the plasma.
Wireless networks seamlessly streaming media throughout the house seem pretty straightforward at conferences like CES, but we know from bitter experience that it is not always that simple.
So if you are wary of setting one up, or simply cannot be bothered, then why not take your PC content and walk it over to the TV.
Sandisk's Take TV involves no hard drives, and no wireless connections. Plug the USB into your PC, download the film, plug it into the cradle attached to your TV, and pick up the remote.
But even here simplicity comes at a price; it only works with formats that are not copyright protected.
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