Dee Brown can improvise. The former professional basketball player is probably best remembered as the diminutive guard from the Boston Celtics who won the 1991 NBA All-Star Slam Dunk contest, first by "pumping up" his Reeboks and then with his gravity-defying slams, including an electrifying finale in which he covered his eyes with his arm in midair.

OK, so some of the act was rehearsed, but Brown knew how to engage the crowd and fire up their imaginations. The guard was known in basketball circles as being pretty savvy in ways off the court as well, making his closest travel companion a laptop computer, on which he did his own computer programming.

Today, after stints with the Celtics, Toronto Raptors and Orlando Magic, Brown has made a happy home in the Orlando area with his wife and three young daughters. He's no longer active in professional basketball, but he remains very active in computers and the growing arena of home entertainment and technology, where he continues to perform some impressive improvisations.

Take his new Ultimate Game Room, part of a 1,000-square-foot addition to his home that includes a 61-inch plasma screen, on which he can view TV, movies, games from several different video-game players, and a computer screen, operable via a wireless keyboard. The game room also has a row of arcade-style games, some of which tap into the Internet for updates and downloads.

But the "Ultimate" part of the game room--the convenient control of several different video-game modules--might not have been possible had it not been for Dee's improvising mind.

Dee wanted an easy and convenient way to switch between the Sony PlayStation2, Microsoft Xbox and Nintendo GameCube controls, so he installed a simple four-port manual switcher beneath his sofa in the game room. The switch enables him and his daughters to pull out and play any of the three game systems simply by pressing a button on the switcher. "If we had put them all in the rack, we would have had to have wireless control for three game players," says installer Mark Elble of Interface Systems Integration, now a part of Home Theater Gallery by Stram Electronics of Tampa, FL.

And the fourth port in the switcher? Let's just say that when Dee or his daughters pull out a microphone, the improvising can become somewhat more musical. A karaoke player is mounted in a nearby closet. "When he first set it up, Dee even knew enough to route the karaoke player through the VCR," says Elble. "Not many people realize they can do that."

When Dee wants to use a computer on the big screen to surf the web or do some programming, all he has to do is press the computer button on his wireless AMX ViewPoint controller, grab the wireless keyboard and go to work. He admits, though, that he doesn't get much work done in this entertaining space.

After all, the main purpose of this Ultimate Game Room is play. A card and roulette table and the row of arcade games attest to that. Arcade-style games such as Golden Tee and ArcadePC have Internet connections. The Golden Tee game updates tournament scores from other players of the golf game, while ArcadePC allows Dee to play 50 different games from around the world as well as download older games. So far, he estimates he has about 2,500 games, including "classics" such as Asteroids, Centipede, and Donkey Kong Jr. He has, in effect, become a video-game collector.

As for the room's big screen: No matter what is playing on the 61-inch plasma screen, its accompanying Runco ViViX processor can "scale" it to a higher resolution, and for high-definition TV images, display them in the PlasmaWall's native, true high-definition resolution. Even surfing the web looks great on the PlasmaWall. "It's nice when you have a 61-inch monitor, especially when you get streaming video," says Dee.

For those roving the room, the big game on TV can be shown on the 27-inch Sony TV located on a bracket in the corner, or on the 15-inch Marantz LCD on the bar.

All the audio, whether playing some Xbox or singing karaoke, watching a big game or surfing the Net, goes through the Marantz SR9200 audio/video controller and is played by a combination of Triad Silver-series InWall and InRoom speakers. The center channel above the plasma monitor is in the wall, the front left and right channels fire through small but powerful stand-alone "InRoom" speakers located on shelves on either side. The rear left and right speakers and a rear subwoofer are all in the wall above the arcade games, while another in-room subwoofer is positioned directly behind the couch.

The Game Plan

The Ultimate Game Room and addition started with a plan, but along the way Dee once again did some improvising.

"Originally, Dee came to me and said, 'I want a plasma screen. I want a flat screen, and this room is for me,'" Elble says. "We laid down a system for the game room originally. Then he'd come back and say, 'Can we do this? Can we do that?'"

For example, Elble says, they had originally agreed on a 50-inch plasma screen for the room. "Then Dee saw a 60-inch on display and thought that the 50-inch would be too small." As a result, the cutout for the plasma screen in the stone entertainment hearth had to be enlarged to accommodate the huge 61-inch Runco PlasmaWall and to provide enough ventilation space around it.

Dee also decided to upgrade from an Escient TuneBase 200 CD music library system that works with a large CD changer to an Escient FireBall that also includes a hard drive to store MP3 files and burn CDs for instant access. Like the TuneBase, the FireBall also allows him to browse a music collection stored in a large CD changer and to access them via a touchscreen or TV monitors.

But perhaps the biggest change in plans occurred as construction started on the game room addition. "During construction, Dee said, 'Let's do the theater,'" says Elble. Dee had an existing home theater that was about six years old, with some aging equipment, a lighting system that forced him to trigger it by pointing a remote over his shoulder, and a popping noise in the speakers that no one could figure out.

Elble swapped out an old Runco CRT projector for Runco's newer VX1000c single-chip DLP projector. At one time, the Runco IDP-900 projector was the top of its line, but it has a hard time today outshining the brightness of this single-chip DLP projector. "With this one, you can put the lights on and still see the picture," Dee says.

An AMX NetLinx system was added to tie together all the audio, video and lighting for easy control from one wireless ViewPoint touchscreen. No more over-the-shoulder trick dimming shots required of Dee.

And finally, Elble's crew pulled out the old speaker wire to find the source of the popping sounds: nicks in the cables, which probably had been caused during the theater's initial construction. "We pretty much started over from scratch [with the wiring]," says Elble, who also added a JBL surround processor in the theater. He kept Dee's original McIntosh speakers and Sunfire subwoofer, which sounded a lot better once they were free of popping sounds. A pool table is near the home theater, so Dee will often put a big game on the 125-inch Stewart screen for him and his friends to see while shooting pool.

The addition also included a computer room for Dee's three daughters. The game room is supposed to be for Dee, but they actually play most of the newer video games there. And if they're anything like Dad, they'll be doing their own programming soon. The oldest, an 8-year-old, is already pretty tech-savvy.

Off the Ultimate Game Room is an exercise room, which previously shared a zone of a whole-house audio system with a room downstairs. Elble installed the dedicated audio system in this room, with an FM tuner and a Jamo MPA-101 amplifier. And from a 32-button AMX remote, it can also access all the shared components in the game room, including the Escient FireBall.

Throughout the house is an old whole-house music system by AudioEase, a company that was purchased several years ago by AMX. Dee, his wife or children can now listen to anything on the FireBall hard-drive music server or the CD player throughout the house via the system, though according to Elble, they haven't stored much music on the FireBall or the accompanying CD jukebox. They tend to listen to Internet radio from the FireBall instead. The family also has a separate Lutron lighting control system in parts of the house.

In a family room they enjoy a Sony 48-inch rear-projection HDTV and two-channel sound, with control from a high-powered Marantz RC5200 remote. High-definition TV, naturally, is also available in the theater and Ultimate Game Room. Dee says he can also take the remote outside to cue up a TV in the patio area or fire up the rock speakers by the pool.

Learning how to use the new systems has not been a problem for the tech-savvy Dee. "I've given them 15 minutes of instruction on how to use the system, and they've been able to take it from there," says Elble. He can also talk Dee through making changes in the network configuration by adding some patch cords in the FutureSmart panel.

So far, there are only a couple of zones for the powerful AMX NetLinx home control system, which may seem like a waste, but with a little technical improvisation, Dee Brown's family just might make it a house-wide affair. "The guy knows what he's getting into," Elble says. "He knows what AMX does. He can envision the big picture."

So far, anyway, the new high-tech in Dee Brown's house has been a 10.0: the score of a perfect slam dunk.

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They've Got Game(s)

Think you've got video game? You do not want to get into a video shootout at Dee Brown's house. And we're not talking about challenging Dee: It's his daughters who may be the ultimate gamers.

They're what the scouts would call triple threats, and not because they can shoot, pass and defend. They can play on any of the three most popular video gaming systems in Dee's Ultimate Game Room. Say you're having some success on PlayStation2 ... So how about trying your luck on the GameCube? Or perhaps you'd like to play a game with others online via Xbox Live.

Dee and his daughters have a full arsenal of video games at their disposal. And they can do all this from their Ultimate Game Room couch, thanks to a simple manual four-port switch Dee placed beneath it. Audio and video from each game console is routed through the switcher and an accompanying Inline interface plate, then to the surround-sound system via component video and stereo cables. This enables the video-game sound effects to be played in ultimate surround sound through Triad's powerful speakers and subwoofers. Talk about a home court advantage.

The Inline interface plate also contains an Ethernet connection that is tied into the house-wide network, so a computer can be plugged in, and friends located in other rooms can play against Dee or the girls while they're in the Ultimate Game Room. And, of course, they can play against others online via Xbox Live, or any PC games via a rack-mounted computer, a wireless keyboard and perhaps--they may still be working on this--a wireless joystick.

Even the wall of full-size arcade-style games feature some Internet thrills and chills. ArcadePC and the Golden Tee golf game access the Net for downloads and updates on video golf tournament results, for example. We don't want to know what the snowmobile attack game does.

No, you do not want to go one-on-one with these gamers. And we would definitely not challenge Dee, or anyone in his house, to a game of NBA Live.

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Four Bedrooms, Two Baths, One EC

Mike Stram and company at Home Theater Gallery in Tampa, FL, are out to add a new room to the house. It's called the equipment closet.

According to Mark Elble of Interface Systems Integration, whose company recently merged with Home Theater Gallery, the emergence of an equipment closet is comparable to that of the water closet or bathroom when indoor toilets were first introduced. No one knew where to put them, but now we wouldn't think of building a home without one.

Elble points to the installation his company recently completed for former basketball star Dee Brown and his family in the Orlando area. Not only is there a full equipment closet, but the Browns were kind enough to put in air conditioning, and had the floor tiled as well. Elble says as a result, he was able to just sit on a stool in the room for the couple of days required to terminate all the connections to a FutureSmart Networks panel.

OK, but ... where did he go to the bathroom?

Steven Castle is a Senior Editor and the resident wit of Electronic House magazine. Email Steve at scastle@ehpub.com.

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