The box of tricks for £45,000

We Brits now spend an average of 25 hours a week slumped inert in front of the box.

If that sounds like an appallingly high figure, we've still got some way to go before we catch up with the Americans, world leaders with an average 51 hours spent goggle-eyed every week. This year Britons will buy a record 4.4 million TVs, spending around £1.3 billion (30 per cent up on last year). Not bad going, especially for a device invented by a chap whose original plan was to come up with a money-spinning haemorrhoid cream.

The cathode ray tube telly (CRT) in your living room does not differ hugely from the original 1930s versions derived from John Logie Baird's concept. But look at what is coming: rear projection TV, so crisp it is watchable in normal daylight (from around £1,200); ultra-thin plasma sets, which offer great picture quality but sound awful (you'll need an external home cinema sound system) and will set you back at least £6,000.

Conventional squarish CRT TVs are out, widescreens are in. The biggest widescreen TV has a 36in screen. There are totally flat screens, which are superior to conventional "bowed" widescreens because you get fewer stray reflections.

So-called IDTVs have integrated digital TV receivers; fully integrated sets have an in-built digital Pay-TV decoder. Virtually all flavours of TV (aside from plasma display) can be had with built-in Dolby Surround Sound, though if you own a DVD player, models with Dolby Digital sound much better. Still with me?

But the main difference now is widescreen broadcasting - all digital TV will be widescreen in 10 years, which is when the analogue service will be switched off. When new technologies like plasma displays become truly affordable, Baird's legacy will finally fade into the background.

For a growing number of cutting edge technophiles, however, expectations already seem to be pretty space age. For the average Briton, a week's earnings are more than enough to secure a decent TV, but not for customers of Peter Alloway, "home automation technologist" with the company Musical Images. For these enlightened individuals, there is now an almost competitive thrill to be had from forking out thousands of pounds, even hundreds of thousands, to reach home entertainment nirvana. "Most of our customers are after displays with greater visual impact than the average 28in TV,' says Mr Alloway. "On the jobs that we handle, front projectors are the most popular choice, followed by rear projectors and, increasingly, plasma display panels. Big is definitely better." When Mr Alloway says big, he means anything up to a cinema size. Provided you've got the house for it. "We bring to life the fantasy of the automated home," he says. But if you thought the idea was to transform the home into a hi-tech showroom, you'd be wrong. His clientele lays claim to rather more sophistication than that. "We transform the house by invisibly integrating modern consumer electronics into its very fabric," he says. "In our hands a TV can become the centrepiece of a home-cinema-cum-security-system-cum-IT-network. We bring order to technological chaos."

Expense is not an objection that crops up in many of Mr Alloway's conversations with clients. "Costs are really down to what the customer can afford and what they want to achieve," he says. "One of our most recent jobs, for instance, cost the owner £45,000."

For that sum, the Regent's Park apartment was fitted with a 50in plasma screen, full Dolby Digital home theatre surround sound system with DVD player, five speakers plus a subwoofer, the latest DVHS video and, controlling it all, colour touchscreen remote control. Not to mention all the cabinet work and making all the wires and infrastructure completely invisible. "We've done quite a few £250,000 installations, too," says Mr Alloway. "In America, $1 million installations aren't uncommon - there are simply no limits as to what can be achieved." Just imagine how much haemorrhoid cream you could get for that kind of money.