Best Stuff of the Season

From fitness and photography to home entertainment and hi-def computing, we've rounded up some of the best stuff of the season.

DISH Player DVR 522
Satellite provider DISH Network has a great way for families to watch TV in every room in the house without buying multiple boxes. Its two tuner DVR 522 makes it easy to network your home for multiple TV viewing using your existing wiring. But that’s not all --its internal personal video recorder allows you to record up to 100 hours of your favorite shows onto a hard drive - no messy videotapes. But it's like no other PVR, because two different TVs can share the hard drive. That means you and the kids can watch different recorded programs on different TVs at the same time --and you can hook up to as many TVs as you want. Available to new Dish Network customers at no charge. www.dishnetwork.com

HP Digital Entertainment Center
Convergence, once a dirty word in the PC business, is no longer taboo. Leading the pack is HP with its Digital Entertainment Center. Designed for Hi –def TV owners and running Microsoft’s latest TV-friendly Media Center Operating System, it combines two television tuners, a personal video recorder, digital video recorder, recordable DVD drive, Intel's optimized 7.1 surround-sound chipset, a huge 360 GB hard drive, integrated Wi-Fi, Ethernet, and all the AV inputs and outs (cable/satellite, component), but HP offers a twist—a removable hard drive, called the Personal Media Drive, that pops out of the front of the unit and allows you to not only save all of your digital content, but take it anywhere. The 160 MB Personal Media Drive is about the size of a Kate Spade purse. It pops in and out of the Digital Entertainment Center and has a USB port that allows playback on any USB-equipped PC or device. Imagine taking every digital image to grandma’s for the ultimate slide show, walking the Sopranos over to your neighbor’s for playback on his/her PC, or simply backing up all your important files and storing the drive in the family safe or lockbox. You can have one or more PMDs. The Digital Entertainment Center still has 200MB of internal memory without it. The z-540 starts at $1499 and the z-545b starts at $1999. Couple the DEC with any of HPs new Hi Def TV’s and you have the Ultimate Entertainment Experience or the best Couch Potato Experience in town.

Note: Also available is a smaller single tuner Digital Entertainment Center ($1,499) and desktop system . www.hp.com

Instant Home Theater
Turn the family room in to an instant theater with HP’s ep9010 Instant Cinema Digital Projector, the world’s only front projector with built-in DVD player, speakers and a subwoofer. All you need is a plug and your favorite DVD movie and the HDTV-ready projector is ready to go right out of the box. The projector includes two speakers and a sub plus inputs for game systems, PCs or other video sources. Perfect for the family room or the back yard, it gives new meaning to home theater in a box. $2500; www.hp.com

Clean Keyboard and Mouse
The computer keyboard and the mouse are probably the two most contaminated products in your home or office. Now office product giant Fellowes has developed the world’s first line of computer keyboards, mice and mouse pads with Microban antimicrobial product protection. These peripherals provide an added level of cleanliness by not allowing damaging microbes, such as bacteria that can cause stains, odors and product deterioration, to function, grow or reproduce.

• Basic 104 Keyboard ($19.99)
• Cordless Keyboard ($59.99)
• Cordless Keyboard/Mouse Combo ($89.99)
• Split Design Keyboard ($49.99)
• 5-Button Optical Mouse ($29.99)
• Cordless 5-Button Optical Mouse ($59.99)
• Mouse Pad ($4.99)

www.fellowes.com

Electrolux Oxygen Ultra, EL6989A
This lightweight pure air canister vac features a True HEPA H13 filter that captures up to 99.97% of all dust and allergens entering the system. Great for the car, stairways or around the house you can use it vertically or wheel it around the house horizontally. The unit also features electronic indicators that tell you when to change the bag or filter. The power head has a separate motor to drive carpet cleaning, and its low profile allows for cleaning under nearly all furniture. $600; www.electroluxusa.com

Epson PictureMate Printer
More and more people are giving up their 35mm cameras in exchange for the digital alternative. The big complaint is that printing digital photos tends to be a hassle unless you are computer and photo software literate. An option to ease the intimidation of printing your own quality photo prints is the Epson PictureMate-- a dedicated 4”x6” photo printer that addresses the all the barriers associated with printing your own digital pictures at home.

• Quality-water and smudge resistant -20x more fade resistant than traditional photo printers-can’t tell the difference between studio print and yours because of the archival 6-color print technology used in the Epson PictureMate
• Ease of Use-one button operation-no computer required-compatible with most popular memory cards-lightweight and portable
• Cost-about 29 cents a print (comparable with most pro labs)-half the price of other photo prints!

$199. www.MyPictureMate.com

Philips/Nike MP3Run
This has to be one of the coolest new products of the season. It combines a tiny, disc Shaped 256 MB MP3 player/FM Radio (for hours of music) with a separate pedometer (which attaches to your shoe) that tracks speed, pace and time and beams the information (VIA Bluetooth wireless) back to the portable player where users can store up to 200 workouts tracking performance over time. Much like a digital coach, athletes can upload information to nikerunning.com training log and compare workouts, plus have fun listening to up to up to eight hours of music on its FM radio. $300. www.philips.com