Black and Decker, which last year demonstrated some terrific audio-video tool sets that make custom installation easier and safer for consumers, installers alike, advanced into new electronic motorized locks featuring interoperability with leading home security and automation companies and for the first time with several home audio-video entertainment systems. Price and availability will be announced soon.

Flatwire, which shares booth space with a number of installation products, had made further advances in their almost invisible audio-video and lighting, accessories and now offers a component system which is virtually seamless on your wall or floor.

And Microsoft, still trying to crack this market, gave media, installers and everyone who wanted to listen, a training seminar on the basics of using Windows Media Center on their upcoming new Windows Home server. A surprising aspect of this not so new technology, is that in the face of having lost several home server partners like HP and the never signed Panasonic, the Redmond based company’s 2009 version of this technology that ties and delivers all your home media content to any room in the house, is actually much improved and more reliable than their entry at last year’s show. Perhaps some of the audio-video makers will come back to this technology.

TiVo, never a darling of this market because of its low capacity DVRs, but still arguably the easiest of the home networking products available, may have shored up its custom install entry by showing off a 150 hour HD model dubbed TiVo HD XL. This model now comes with THX certification, a backlit remote and a HDMI cable. Thus unit will still cost around $400 and requires a monthly or yearly subscription, but consumers and installers who trade up from their Series I or II models, can continue their previous subscriptions. Reportedly there will be a huge holiday promotion cutting some subscription packages and also offering several free months of service.

While still in its infancy in the U.S., Internet radio, a niche market with a huge popularity in Europe and Asia and a steady base of four or five under $125 portable devices, has finally attracted the high audio segment, with Denon and Sony battling it out in the over $2,000 A/V receiver arena…and Sonos and Logitech’s Squeezebox systems running below $500.

And while several other audio component firms showed off prototypes, the TV makers with their almost useless Internet based TVs have still eschewed the Internet Radio technology, despite the fact that it might be the most requested new entertainment content consumer have been asking for.

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