Thread: The new internet televisions

Those who love surfing through YouTube will know how much fun one can have with online videos. However if you want to enjoy them sitting on the sofa in the living room, you need either an expensive media center PC or at least a new-generation gaming console with a television set.

Now, the major entertainment electronics groups claim that they can improve this situation and will offer new TV sets which can connect to the Internet without requiring any additional hardware. Under brand names like "AppliCast", "Net TV" and "Internet@TV", Sony, Philips, Samsung and others are launching new, Internet-compatible televisions. They have also brought a known content provider, the internet giant has all the important information like news feeds, weather and stock tickers ready on its servers. The new internet televisions call up this information
via wired or wireless connections and display it in so-called "widgets"

Widgets vs browsers

Initial attempts to create Internet TVs turned out to be disillusioning. In some of the earliest models, for instance, the Yahoo widgets offered only restricted services. They took several seconds to appear on the TV screen and most of the time, one had to press the remote control again and again.

The internet experience turned out to be agonizingly slow on these early TVs. This was mainly to be blamed on the hardware and also the lack of purpose-created content, which has now prepared. Now, the latest generations of internet televisions will use an internal image processor for all the required computations. The advantage is that adding this feature to devices rarely makes them more expensive.

A new concept from Phillips has bigger aspirations: the "Net TV" televisions support the Opera web browser. This way, the potential of the Internet is very well tapped; content providers must only upgrade their websites the same way as they have already optimized them for mobile devices. Then one will comfortably be able to enjoy these from the sofa with only the remote control The CEHTML standard exists for this purpose. Many others can already be surfed and accessed easily on a "Net TV".

But this is only a miniscule part of the entire range of Internet-enabled activities. In the case of Phillips, one also has to do without some performance-related functional aspects: At present, the browser in the television does not support Java applications and also fails to display Flash content and PDF documents.

Intel's CE 3100
More computing power for Internet televisions

By September this year, the first devices with Intel's new CE 3100 "media processor" will be on offer, led by Samsung and Toshiba. The core of the CE 3100 is made up of a Pentium M-derived processor (800 MHz), which is equipped with independent TV-specific auxiliary units. It supports the high-resolution 1,080p format as well as 7.1-channel sound and it can also decode the MPEG-2 and H.264 codecs in hardware. In addition, a memory controller and a simple 3D graphics core are integrated. As a "System on a Chip" (SaC), it implements almost a complete PC in the television. A much quicker and more power-saving version based on the Atom processor core will follow next year, code named "Sodaville".

In order to test new Internet TV Internet at the press of a button A new button on the remote control opens the widget bar on the TV functions even on old television sets and make them broadly available, the CE 3100 will also be offered in low-cost add-on set-top boxes as well as in DVD or Blu-Ray players, also probably by the end of this year.

Updates and viruses
New prospects and risks

An Internet connection on your next television will have yet another major advantage: The TV manufacturers can continuously offer widget channels or CEHTML websites to users. Therefore even long after the purchase, your Internet television will have new ways to leverage the Web. On the other hand, more functional enhancements such as support for Flash applications will be possible only with a firmware update.

It still remains to be seen whether such technology will be accepted in living rooms, especially with audiences much broader than just tech lovers. And the PC-like capabilities will give rise to another potential problem which is presently alien to televisions: security. For instance, anyone who uses an Internet TV to shop online and enters his/her credit card details through' an infrared-remote control will be at risk of having those details intercepted by a hidden spy device or a tech-savvy neighbor.

Future TV devices will also open up a completely new field of activity to virus writers; this is why Intel has spent a lot on a separate "security processor" for its CE 3100. This is also important since content providers could probably hesitate from adopting the new technology if they hear that people can watch movies free of charge with hacked CE 3100 boxes.

Verdict
Will this really take off

Internet on the television is still in its infancy. By the end of 2009, the first devices with Intel's CE 3100 chip will be available. It would certainly help them to take off if popular websites optimize their content for televisions through downloadable/preinstalled widgets or CEHTML pages.