Video displays are getting bigger and bigger, and they're not just for watching movies.

Some things you like to watch on the big screen, while others are best viewed in small doses. Just ask the Smith family of South Portland, ME. When they built their 12-by-14-foot theater, they put a 34-inch Panasonic direct-view TV in the armoire for casual viewing and a real-deal Sony projector on the ceiling for larger-than-life entertainment.

It's easy to switch from one TV to the other using the Crestron touchscreen, part of the audio/video installation engineered by Custom Electronics of Falmouth, ME. Homeowner Eric Smith, a computer whiz, made it a little more fun by programming an Austin Powers image as the home page for the remote. "He says, 'Push my button, baby,' Eric says, "and away we go." The room kicks into gear: The 6-foot screen drops from the ceiling, the projector and DVD player power on and the Lutron lighting system dims.

For the local news, he hits the tv button, and the screen and projector reverse, leaving only the 34-inch TV visible in the armoire.

The Smith theater, aka "the Bat Cave," is a popular place during special TV events. An annual Super Bowl party is a given, but Eric and his wife, Sue, manage to lure friends for any major sporting event. Golf was the big draw last spring when it meant viewing the azaleas in high definition from the Masters tournament in Augusta, GA. "You could read the lettering on the golf balls," Eric says. "And that time of year with all the flowers blooming in the South is just beautiful."

Boys Will Be Boys

The Smiths' sons are in college now, but the Cave was a popular hangout when they were in high school. "A theater is a good thing to have with teenage boys," Eric says. "It's nice to know where they are and that they're not out running around looking for something to do." It's still the place to go during school breaks. "They bring a lot of friends over, somebody picks up a movie and they have a great time," Eric says.

Take a closer look at the equipment stack, and you'll see this theater is about more than just movies and sports. You'll find every video game player you've ever heard of, a couple of them in both Japanese and American versions. "There was a time when I imported a lot of games from Japan," Eric explains, "and you can only play Japanese games on Japanese players." Eric is the curator of this arcade timeline, but the players are more than just museum pieces. "It's fun to have a bunch of friends over," says the father of three, "and with four players it gets really interesting."

Twelve game machines could be a nightmare to juggle, but Custom Electronics rigged three automatic video switchers to handle the job. Eric went the next step and programmed each game's logo into the Crestron controller. "When I want to play original Nintendo or 3DO, I just hit the logo for that game," he says, and the switchers make it happen. Put a snowboarding game like SSX on the big screen, "and it's like you're right there," he says.

When he's not playing games or watching TV, Eric may be surfing the Net from the wraparound couch. MSNBC.com has even more impact when headlines are a foot tall. Sue uses the theater PC to check out the latest from marthastewart.com and to hunt down bargains on overstock.com. And you can be sure Eric is checking out the latest electronics online: "I'm always trying to find ways to keep everything up to date or enhance what I have."

Big Entertainment Value

The Smith family isn't alone in its love for the big screen. Americans are buying large-screen TVs in droves, whether it's affordable CRT rear-projection models, theater-like projectors or glitzy flat panels. And these theaters are getting more play than just on Friday night at the movies. "Most of the time, the large screen is all about movies," says Steve Hayes of Custom Electronics, "but we are seeing an increase in the percentage of these systems that now include mega-gaming capability."

The growth in large-format displays is being fanned by competitive pricing. "Costs are dropping radically, so larger screens are more affordable for more people," Hayes says.

That includes even HDTVs, which fully exploit the superior resolution offered by DVD movies and high-definition TV programming. Once people see HDTV, it's hard to settle for anything less. "The picture quality of HD is so far superior that it's physically easier to view a large picture without all of the fuzziness, blurring and motion artifacts that used to exist on analog TV," Hayes says. "The bottom line is that the technology has matured rapidly over the past few years and costs have come down to a level where lots of folks can afford it."

Digital TV Revolution

More than 4 million digital TVs were sold in 2003, according to the Consumer Electronics Association, and close to 8 million sets are forecast to sell in 2004. Some 10 percent of U.S. households have digital TV whether it's standard, enhanced or HD and 90 percent of households have access to five or more channels of HDTV TV programming. Although the turn-off date for analog TV won't likely stick to the original 2006 target, the transition to digital TV with all its high-def benefits is well underway.

While big screens are hot, flat-panel TVs of all sizes are scorching the charts, outpacing CRT and projectors in annual growth. Sales of LCD TVs are expected to triple to more than a million units this year, and plasma TV sales will hit half a million, compared with 158,000 in 2003. It's not hard to reason why: You can fit a 50-inch TV on a wall when a rear-projection CRT TV required a foot and a half of floor space or more. And then there's the bling factor. Glitzy flat-panel TVs say you've arrived.

"Flat and thin is the natural answer to this new big-screen trend because the consumer's living room will always have to find enough space for these large displays," says Jeff Cove, vice president of the consumer electronics group at Panasonic. Manufacturers hope so, because people are willing to spend more for the look of a plasma or LCD. Competition is so tough in CRTs that Panasonic has announced it is exiting the rear-projection CRT TV business altogether. That's good news for consumers, because rear-projection CRT HDTV is one of the best bargains around. Our search for a rear-projection CRT TV last fall brought up a sale-price Toshiba 46-inch HDTV monitor you add the HDTV tuner or HD cable box for $1,399. Prices for the same size Toshiba screen in the thinner DLP category start at about $2,300. DLP, based on Texas Instruments' digital light processing technology, offers a thinner cabinet design and less maintenance. You don't have to converge the picture tubes as you do with CRT rear-projection sets.

Projectors, too, are becoming more popular as they dip to prices more consumers can afford. The business projector has collided with the home theater projector at the entry level of the market, with the fallout benefiting consumers. A Panasonic HD LCD projector a with resolution of 1280 x 720 was selling for under $1,599 last fall. It can throw a picture from 40 to 200 inches, which could serve a small crowd in the basement or the entire neighborhood outside all from a very portable 6.4-pound chassis that's less than 1 foot square.

From the Smiths in Maine to the Joneses everyone wants to keep up with, families all over are discovering the stay-at-home joys of big-screen entertainment. It's a big world. Why not look at it that way?

Rebecca Day has been writing about consumer electronics for longer than she can believe. Her articles have appeared in HOME, Rolling Stone, Popular Mechanics, Ladies' Home Journal and many other consumer and trade magazines.

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