Netgear banks on internet television

 

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Posted on 7 Jan 2009 at 20:29

Netgear is aiming to make a splash in the internet television market, as it releases fifteen new products at this year's Consumer Electronics Show.

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The flagship product is the Digital Media Elite player, a media extender capable of streaming content from a computer or NAS drive directly to the television. The Elite player is a successor to the Digital Entertainer HD launched in 2007 and contains a number of significant improvements.

Most importantly, the device comes with half a terabyte of storage, meaning users are no longer restricted to simply streaming content from other sources. The Elite also features Draft N wireless, offering potential transfer speeds of up to 300Mb/sec.

The Elite can access a broad array of online video sites, including YouTube, and supports the BitTorrent protocol, allowing users to download their own files, whatever they may be, directly to the device.

There's also a neat search function that will automatically root through all supported sites simultaneously whenever you type in a search term. Netgear says the list of supported sites will be updated regularly as more content providers are signed up, though users will not be able to add to the list themselves.

The company is currently working on deals with Flickr and MySpace which are notable absentees from the list.

The Elite will arrive next month for an estimated $400, though the company has yet to confirm UK pricing.

Alongside the Elite, Netgear also revealed a new 3G router that allows users to share their mobile broadband connection with others, and an 4-port Ethernet switch for its Powerline range. Powerline gives users the ability to share their internet through electricity sockets, rather than over wireless, and offers potential transfer rates of up to 200Mb/sec.

Internet television has been one of the big themes of the show so far, with Intel, Microsoft, Samsung and Toshiba all readying announcements.