I was at a family gathering just the other day (my wife’s family, to be concise). One of her sisters was celebrating a birthday, so we all converged on another sister’s house nearby. It’s a big house in an affluent suburb of Chicago. Two words: Cha. Ching.

Anyhow, the man of the house (TMotH) has deep pockets, and had his basement completely remodeled a couple years ago. Walk-in wine Cellar, antique Brunswick billiard table, the works. I think the square footage of the basement alone is bigger than my townhome. And the A/V system in the basement is something to behold. The equipment has its own closet, which requires a fan system to keep it cool. The centerpiece is a high-def projection system with a 12-foot-wide screen.

So we were all down there playing a friendly card game called “31″ and somebody put some music on using the color touch-screen remote. I think the music was simply a channel on the satellite feed. But you usually get some kind of picture with the music, with the artist and song info. We weren’t really paying attention… the music was playing and we were happy with that.

So eventually, this little detail of “no picture” got noticed by TMotH, and it was clearly irking him. He tried to put on some kind of baseball game. No picture. I could see the beads of sweat forming on his forehead. I’ve been there, albeit with my puny low-budget system. When you have company over, it’s even more irksome. But I built my modest system on my own, so I generally know what to do when it misfires (granted, there’s a lot less to go wrong). But when you pay somebody else big bucks and things go wrong, what do you do? I glanced over and saw TMotH’s teenage daughter making a funny face, mimicking her father’s displeasure at the A/V system’s malfunction. I was sure a call would be made on Monday to the installation company.

He opened the closet and fidgeted with some components, and then he fidgeted with the remote. Still no picture. I thought the projector wasn’t on the right input setting. It was on, but it was just not displaying a picture, other than the brief self-test and calibration info it displays when you power cycle it. I heard grumblings from some people that “maybe Matt should look at it, he’s a computer genius.” I nipped that prospect right in the bud… this was about as high-end as A/V systems get, and while I can tinker with the best of them, this was well above my skills. There were little in the way of manual overrides, either. The remote was pre-programmed with activity macros.

It could have been worse – it could have been a Super Bowl or other big game that people came over to see. But I had to chuckle. Big bucks don’t always guarantee things work any better than the gear us “average Joes” have.

[tags]av,high def,card game,high end,expensive stereo,projection system,31,rec room[/tags]