Barely larger than a deck of cards, Netgear’s Internet TV Player bridges YouTube and other online video services with your TV: no computer or complicated media center extender nonsense required.
All it needs is a pipe to the net and a HDMI cable, and it’s ready to roll. Demoed today at CES by Netgear’s Vivek Pathela, VP of home and consumer products, it was a low-end, no-nonsense appliance designed to get any TV surfing the net.
It’s not all of the net, unfortunately: there’s a simple UI for browsing and searching available content, but no web browser. Given its tiny size–you could pocket it and take it anywhere–and a reasonable $200 tag, it’ll be enough for some. There were even some features unusual for such a small device, like movie rentals that can be stored locally on USB drive. “It downloads directly to the unit, Pathela said.
Those wanting 1080p output, hookups to network storage–and the broad codec compatibility that entails–will prefer the Digital Entertainer Elite. A full-size slab, it has 500GB of built-in storage, Ethernet, WiFi and surround sound.
It even has the bit torrent file-sharing protocol, with Pathela bringing up a really quite dubious-looking list of links to popular movies one may download directly to the box, which doesn’t require a PC or Mac.
“It’s the most powerful, highest-performing HD digital receiver ever,” Pathela said.
Compatible formats include avi, dixv, xvid, wmv, mov, mp4 and iso images. It’ll be available in February for $400, and the drives are “easily upgradable” by the user.
Also announced was its 3G Mobile Broadband Router–just plug in your USB cellular modem and get an instant hotspot–similar in look and function to existing gizmos from Cradlepoint. It supports SPI, intrusion reporting, DoS protection, five IPsec VPN enpoints and NAT.
Wow. HDMI only. Not for me.
Only the latest-n-greatest TVs have HDMI. I have a large-screen-hi-def projection TV without HDMI. My last LCD TV (which the kids broke) did not have HDMI either. I am not going to replace a TV for which a more modern equivalent is over $1000 just to use their box.
Roku can spit out component and composite output for under $100.
@8 I think we have different perspectives on “latest and greatest”. HDMI has been in use for 5+ years and you can get an HDMI capable TV for less than $200. My year-old laptop has HDMI. And all that said, you can get a converter box for pretty cheap.
My first thought scanning this post? That man is holding a delicious ice cream sandwich (or Klondike bar, perhaps).
Just thought I’d share.
My Popcorn Hour A-110 with 802.11n adapter should be delivered today or tomorrow. The Elite sounds like a cool device but for the money the Popcorn Hour seems like an easy choice.
@ Pork Musket
If popcorn hour wasn’t a pain in the ass to buy from, I’d have two or three by now. I’m just not a fan of “buy this, and we’ll let you know when your unit is manufactured, shipped on the slow boat from china to California, and then we’ll mail it to you.”
How about building more, shipping them to California and sell direct from there?
So, what am I using? In the living room, a Helios 500 media player (almost awesome), a modded xbox in the basement, and a laptop running xbmc/iMedian in the bedroom.
Rob, the VP of any company showing .torrent links in a presentation is priceless.
Pork, that actually looks like a pretty cool device! Please do let us all know how it works out for you.
@2 Maybe I got lucky, but I ordered on the 29th, it left China 2 days ago, and according to DHL they tried to deliver it this morning. I was a bit worried about the shipping but that turnaround is good enough for me.
too bad the popcorn hour UI sucks and it crashes a bunch…i got rid of mine and just built a really cheap HTPC and am running XBMC on it about 10000000x better.
I’m running a Linux box as my media server and use a PS3 in one room and an Xbox 360 in another. It’s “okay.” The Linus media serving stuff has serious strides to go before it even matches the Windows Media Player 11 level of reliability and service quality. Which is irritating.
I still can’t believe no one’s made anything that can beat an original Xbox with XBMC. I know it comes up every time one of these devices comes along but seriously, my jankety old xbox does more than any other device I’ve seen. Yes it’s big and ugly, and it can’t do HD but it’s been so long, surely something similar could be made with a bit faster processor and smaller size with the same flexibility for a pretty reasonable price? I can’t imagine paying $200 just to watch youtube on tv. I’m not flaming this at all but it’s so painful to have seen something years ago that worked so well and no one has stepped up with a decent replacement even now.
it has a 3.5 mm jack port for this kind of cable
http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.10633
That being said $200 bucks for that seems a bit steep, but I guess it’s still mostly covering the software. Dose it have wifi? Dose it have bluetooth for keyboard? If the usb are for drives the why are they on the back? It seems like it still needs work.