Two things really irritate me. One is the miles of wire that you can see strung behind and between all the electronic devices in my home. The other is plastic--specifically, the 300 shiny plastic CDs stacked under my desk, waiting to be ripped into MP3s. And don't get me started about all the DVDs under there.

I want an easy, affordable, wireless way to move audio and video around my home. For years, the consumer electronics industry has promised us exactly this technological advance--in fact, the "wireless HD streaming demo" has become a Consumer Electronics Show cliche. But the show fades from memory, and we remain tangled in a wired/plastic world. Frankly, I'm tired of it.

21st-Century Sneakernet

Right now I move my music around my house by taking my Zune Mini and plugging it into the auxiliary jack of whatever stereo system happens to be nearby. Sure, wireless alternatives for audio exist, but they're hardly ideal.

The first option is a whole-home audio system installed by a custom integrator for $5000 or more--a tad pricey for my gadget budget.

Next are slightly less expensive stand-alone wireless audio systems. The gold standard here is the Sonos Digital Music System. Attach a Sonos ZonePlayer to a computer or hard drive containing your music, and it beams tunes via Wi-Fi to any other ZonePlayers in your house. A nifty handheld remote makes setting up different zones (jazz in the bedroom, hip-hop in the basement) easy. I really like the Sonos, but at $1000 for two rooms plus $350 to $500 for each additional zone, it's out of my range, too.

Logitech's Squeezebox Duet does something similar for about half the price (PC World Editor Edward N. Albro has recently written a detailed review of the Squeezebox Duet). But neither the Duet nor the Sonos can play copy-protected songs from iTunes (Sonos does support DRM music from the Zune Marketplace). Yes, screwed by DRM once again.

Finally, there are lots of cheap point-to-point wireless setups. For example, you can attach a matchbook-size i2i Stream ($130) to your computer or stereo, hang another one around your neck, and beam music between them. It works okay within 20 feet or so. But I still end up walking around wearing earbuds and lugging a device that's almost as big as my Zune but doesn't sound nearly as good.

Dreaming of Streaming

I think wireless music will survive its awkward adolescence and become common in homes. High-def video is another story. Dozens of vendors dream up wireless HD systems, but I've yet to see one work outside a CES exhibit hall.

"Point-to-point wireless video will be big, but I don't think we'll see a single solution," says Patrick Hurley, director of research for Telechoice. Instead, proprietary products, such as Belkin's Flywire and Gefen's Wireless HDMI Extender, will wirelessly link an HD video source to a single display. Flywire is set to ship in October; Gefen won't say when its product will be ready.

And 802.11n won't solve your problems. (See "New 802.11n Routers: The Best Wi-Fi Yet" for a review of n routers.) Most n products are faster than g versions but work in the crowded 2.4-GHz spectrum, and video is more sensitive to interference and packet loss. An n device that runs at 5 GHz has less signal noise but a shorter range, too, so it's far from a whole-home option.

Looks like I'll be snarled in wires and shuffling plastic for a while longer. Sigh.