For 2012, they are focusing on making TVs “smarter” by enabling them to connect to the Internet for apps and video services on the Web.

But that doesn’t mean 3-D is going away. It’s just riding shotgun with smart TVs.

Smart TV is not a new concept, of course. Up until now, it has been defined as Internet-connected television achieved through a separate box or device that connects to the TV and streams Internet content, or via a computer-like processor built directly into the TV.

On the showroom floor in Las Vegas next week, electronics makers including Samsung Electronics, Sony and LG Electronics are expected to show off more television sets that bring Internet connectivity to entertainment centers for the home. Yesterday, Google announced that LG will join the list of companies supporting Google TV; Samsung, Sony, and Vizio Inc. have also adopted Google’s Internet TV technology.

With Apple rumored to have a possible Internet-connected HDTV in the pipeline, TV makers are making all kinds of pushes to bring to market devices that offer consumers a full range of options. For many consumers, the answer for now will still be external devices that offer easy, upgradable solutions, like the Microsoft Xbox, Apple TV, Google TV and even Roku’s latest gadget.

Analysts believe that Internet-enabled TVs will begin to take a larger share of the market by default, eventually becoming a check-off item for consumers, rather than a special feature. Some 60 percent of new televisions being sold in 2012 are expected to have Internet connectivity. According to NPD’s DisplaySearch, connected-TV shipments are expected to reach 138 million globally by 2015, accounting for 47 percent of all flat-panel TVs.

So where does 3-D fit into all this?

TV makers will still be touting 3-D at CES 2012, as many smart TVs will also include 3-D capabilities. Samsung Electronics, for instance, says that more than half of its 2012 TV models will support 3-D. “Our commitment to 3-D is only deepening,” says Ethan Raisel, director of communications at Samsung.

Tim Alessi, Director of New Product Development at LG, estimates that around 20 percent of all LG TV units will support 3-D, and notes that 3-D is featured in 50 percent of the company’s lineup for this year.

But despite the fact that 3-D TV sales in 2011 showed some encouraging gains — with an estimated 21.5 million 3-D units reported to have shipped last year and sales showing significant gains from quarter to quarter — the forced exuberance over three-dimensional screens has been tempered a bit.

That’s likely because it doesn’t matter how well 3-D TV units are selling — for the consumer, anyway. “It’s not really the penetration that matters, it’s the use,” says Forrester Research analyst James McQuivey. “You’d be hard pressed to find a 3-D TV owner that actually uses it in 3-D mode even once a week. That’s not a formula for building consumer momentum.”

For TV, 3-D presents a three-headed monster: To start, there are the technical and psychological obstacles of those pesky 3-D glasses — and while autostereoscopic (glasses-free) 3-D technology is being worked on in many R&D labs, industry experts all agree that quality 3-D without glasses is at least a few years away.

Secondly, 3-D presents a chicken-and-egg dilemma that doesn’t exist with smart-TV features — the question of where the viewable content will come from. Many content creators have been holding off on making 3-D programs. The Discovery Channel and ESPN made headlines two years ago when they announced 3-D channels; but in terms of sports, 3-D has been relegated to key events, due to high production costs.

An increasing number of 3-D movies are available on DVD, but moviemakers that hopped aboard the 3-D train early — think Pixar Animation Studios and DreamWorks Animation — were likely doing so to plant a flag in the ground for when 3-D finally does hit critical mass in the living room, says Scott Steinberg, head of strategic consulting firm TechSavvy.

Sony Chairman and CEO Howard Stringer even said recently, regarding the company’s 3-D TV push, that he hadn’t realized all of the challenges in getting 3-D content in place.

And the third issue affecting the uptake of 3-D has been the cost of the sets. On average, the cost of 47-inch to 50-inch 3-D TV sets is $400 more than similar HDTVs, according to a 2011 report from Retrevo. And while the entire consumer electronics industry has been hurt by a weak U.S. economy, TV sales have been hit particularly hard.

Steinberg says that for the average American household, television purchasing is about being practical right now. “It’s much more important to have the maximum-value TV with Internet capabilities and apps, than to invest in a still-unproven technology like 3-D.”

A December 2011 report from Parks & Associates on consumer purchasing intent also indicates that smart TVs are what’s grabbing the interest of consumers right now.

Even that report points out that smart TVs won’t deliver the killer blow to 3-D. As smart TVs are punched up with even more features — from apps to motion remotes to voice-command capabilities — more middle-class households looking to purchase smart TVs may buy in to 3-D, whether they’re actively looking for it or not.

Whether consumers actually want to sit in their living rooms and wear 3-D glasses to watch TV remains to be seen. For now, TV makers will still insist that they do.

MORE CES NEWS:

• Complete coverage
• HP’s Former CTO: Ultrabooks Are Nothing New, webOS Still Has Life Yet
• Walt Shows Off CES Gadgets for Fox Business News (Video)
• What Kind of Web Video Plans Does Sony Have? (Video)
• Fujitsu Seeking Way Into Crowded U.S. Smartphone Market
• Why Rhapsody Is (Probably) Bigger Than Spotify — In the U.S.
• Microsoft Beefing Up CeBit Presence Even as It Pulls Back on CES
• Inside the CES Lost & Found
• FCC Chairman Has New Tablet, but Same Script: More Spectrum!
• Verizon Wireless: We Want to Connect Five Devices for Every Subscriber
• Ultrabooks From HP and Lenovo That Are (Kinda, Sorta) Different
• Walt and Katie Take a Tour of CES (Video)
• Schmidt-Storm Alert: The Google Chairman Didn’t Like Your Question
• T-Mobile Expands Bobsled Messaging Service
• Intel Shows Just How It Plans to Get Into Phones (Video)
• Motorola CEO: We’re Going to Release Fewer Phones This Year
• Kinect Helps Keep Aging Xbox at the Top of Its Game
• More From T-Mobile CEO: On Pricing, LTE and That Ever-Elusive iPhone
• Exclusive: New Boss Acknowledges Windows Phone Still Has “Awareness Problem”
• And You Thought Jawbone UP Was Going to Miss the CES Party!
• Interview: T-Mobile CEO Says No Second AT&T Deal Out There
• Grover Is at CES and I Am Missing It
• BlueStacks Bringing Android Apps to Windows 8
• Why the Future of TV Won’t Be Here Soon
• Nvidia’s Tegra 3 Tries to Save Battery in All Sorts of Different Ways
• Dynamic Dual Coverage: Ballmer’s Last Act in Vegas and the BCS Championship in 3-D
• Microsoft Phoning In Its Last CES Keynote
• Myspace — Yes, Myspace — Says It’s Going to Sell You Web TV
• Samsung Unveils “Super” 55-Inch OLED TV
• Nokia Unveils That LTE Windows Phone It’s Been Dying to Share
• Steve Ballmer Gives Ralph De La Vega a Very … Vigorous Greeting (Video)
• Interview: AT&T’s De La Vega on LTE, Tablets and Life After T-Mobile
• AT&T’s De La Vega: Shared Data Plans Still in the Works
• LG: 55-Inch Glasses-Free 3-D Screen Is on the Way
• LG Pushes 4G Smartphone Through Verizon: The LG Spectrum
• Live: AT&T’s Vegas Act Stars LTE and, Making Her Return to the Stage, Nokia
• CES Notebook: The Constant Search for Power and Vegas’ Worst-kept Secret
• Belkin Bringing Mobile TV to Lots of Cellphones, Will Anyone Tune In?
• Acer Introduces “World’s Thinnest” Ultrabook and a “Me-Too” Cloud Service
• There Better Be Some Cool Stuff at CES, Because CE Holiday Sales Data Bytes!
• CES 2012: Snooki and Bieber Are In, Gaga Is Out!
• Coming to a Smartphone Near You: Gorilla Glass 2
• RIM Hopes Next PlayBook OS Will Impress at CES
• Ultrabooks, the Ultra-Fancy New Name for Laptops
• At CES, Expect More Gadgets Telling You to Get Off the Couch
• Intel to Detail Its Phone Plans at CES Next Month
• Microsoft Pulling Out of CES After Upcoming Show
• Intel to Detail Its Phone Plans at CES Next Month
• Dell Will Drop the Flashy Vegas Act for CES This Year
• Ultrabook Conga Line Preps for CES 2012

Over at Jeffries, analyst Peter Misek suggests that Sharp is retooling a production line at its factory in Sakai specifically to manufacture modified amorphous TFT LCD panels that will be used in the so-called iTV. If all goes well, the line should be ready for commercial production by February of 2012, which means we could see Apple’s take on the TV by midyear.

But what form it will take remains a mystery — one that the entire TV industry is evidently eager to solve. “Based on our discussions, interestingly other TV manufacturers have begun a scrambling search to identify what iTV will be and do,” says Misek. “They hope to avoid the fate of other industries and manufacturers who were caught flat footed by Apple.”

Good luck with that, guys. Without Apple’s software acumen — or a rival to its new iCloud service, which will incorporate video sooner or later — that’s a tall order.

Says Misek: “Mainstream TV manufacturers are likely to be at least 6 to 12 months behind in a best-case scenario.”

Mr. Ro does contract research for South Korea’s two big electronics makers, Samsung Electronics Co. and LG Electronics Co., on a difficult problem: How to build OLED screens big enough for large televisions.

It’s one of the hot topics among display researchers and manufacturers who are meeting in Los Angeles for the annual conference of the Society for Information Display, or SID. More academic gabfest than trade show, engineers will trot out their latest ideas for displays as small as sheet-like films that roll up in a pen to as large as roadside billboards.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

• In a research note today, Chowdhry asserts that the company “may announce” a new Android-based phone for the AT&T (T) network; he says sources indicate the phone will have an OLED screen and a physical keyboard, and may run the “Google (GOOG) experiences” software environment, rather than the company’s proprietary MotoBlur software.
• He also says the company “may announce” a second Android phone for Verizon Wireless (VZ); that one he says will have an OLED screen and a soft keyboard.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

This fourth-generation Zune (Zune.net) is ultra thin and has a stunningly vivid 3.3-inch touch screen that covers most of its surface, doing away with the old device’s touchpad. It comes in one small size rather than the older large and small versions, and has capacities of 16 and 32 gigabytes for $220 and $290, respectively.

The Zune HD does a nice job of integrating and artistically displaying content about an artist, song or album whenever possible. It has an acceptable built-in browser that surfs the Web using a Wi-Fi connection, and a customizable Quickplay menu on the home screen that displays your content using tiny, stylish tiles. The corresponding Zune Marketplace finally offers movies—about 500 for renting or buying, half of which have HD resolution. And a $90 docking station works with the device to display its HD content on your HDTV.

Given all the improvements of this new Zune, it’s a shame that this makeover stopped short of revamping its commerce system, which is still too confusing. Rather than inviting newcomers to the Zune and its online store by allowing them to use real money to buy content, it is still tied to the points system made popular by Microsoft’s (MSFT) Xbox gaming console. In this gamer-friendly system, the cost of one song is 79 points, roughly the equivalent of a dollar, and users must buy points in buckets ranging from 400 for $5 to 5,000 for $62.50. People who are trying to watch their budgets don’t need the hassle of calculating points per purchase. And Amazon’s (AMZN) Kindle e-reader and Apple’s (AAPL) iTunes Store have proved that using dollars and an uncomplicated one-click system is a successful strategy.

The way I prefer to get the most out of the Zune system is by using the Zune Pass for $15 monthly. This charge allows free continuous streaming of music from any computer’s browser as long as you log in, and includes 10 free MP3 downloads a month that are yours to keep even if you bail on using the Zune software. The Zune Pass lets you listen to Smart DJ playlists that can be built in one of three ways: using your own library; using a mix of Marketplace content and music from your library; or using only songs from the Marketplace. These also can be set to last for a certain amount of time—say for a 30-minute jog or a two-hour party.

I created several Smart DJ playlists including one using Dierks Bentley as the seed artist from which other suggestions were generated. This country singer was a good test for the Zune software because Mr. Bentley’s music blends new and old country sounds. I set the Smart DJ to produce a mix using only content from Marketplace and it returned a great list that included songs from newer group, Little Big Town, as well as older stuff like Joe Diffie’s “John Deere Green.” Any Smart DJ list can be dragged onto the Zune HD.

Apple’s iPod Touch is the Zune HD’s biggest rival and its iTunes Store has much more content in all categories compared with Zune Marketplace. But let’s put music, movies, TV shows, podcasts and music videos aside and say we’re satisfied with the amount of content offered by Zune Marketplace.

One of the iPod Touch’s best features is its ability to access Apple’s App Store, a catalog of 75,000 applications. The Zune HD only dips its pinky toe into a pool where Apple is already swimming laps: Only nine apps can be downloaded from the Zune Marketplace (all are free). They’re colorful and simple to use, but nine apps won’t be enough to compete head on with the iPod Touch.

The Zune HD uses Quickplay (shown on second player from left) to instantly display certain content.

It would be a real boon to Zune if it somehow inherited the gaming genes of Microsoft’s already-established Xbox, especially considering how Apple has heavily marketed the iPod Touch as a portable gaming system. Microsoft will only say that later this year Zune will offer apps for Twitter and Facebook as well as 3-D games like “Project Gotham Racing: Ferrari Edition.”

The only same-capacity model in the Zune HD and iPod Touch is the 32-gigabyte, which costs $290 and $299, respectively. The Zune HD is smaller than the iPod Touch so its organic light-emitting-diode touch screen is 3.3 inches compared with the Touch’s 3.5-inch screen. The Zune fits easily in any pocket and is just 0.35-inch thick. A thin horizontal button on the face of the device takes you to the home screen, and a hidden button on the left side pulls up an on-screen menu for volume and playback controls—or just tap the screen when content is playing. It doesn’t have a speaker like the iPod Touch, so you’ll always need earbuds to hear anything that’s playing.

Quickplay is one of my favorite features on the Zune HD. It uses tiny tiles to visually represent your content in four categories: currently playing; anything pinned (or labeled with a shortcut tile) to Quickplay; a history of recently opened content; and anything that’s new to the player. This includes all of your photos, videos, music, Web pages and apps. I easily pinned AllThingsD.com, a “Saturday Night Live” video and a favorite photo to the Quickplay menu. Clever animation sends this menu to the background of the home screen or swiftly pulls it into the foreground when needed.

I rented and downloaded the movie “Girl with a Pearl Earring” and opted to pay 360 points for the HD version rather than paying 240 points for the standard-definition version. A helpful on-screen explanation described the advantages of each according to where it would be played. Movie rentals last for 14 days or 24 hours after you first press play.

Listening to music on the Zune HD is a lot of fun—and even educational. Whenever the screen goes idle while playing a song, large images of the artist and album cover fill the entire screen while text—album name, artist name, song name—scrolls across these images. With one touch, I saw a list of other albums and songs by that artist, an artist biography, related artists, and pictures of the artist. This is a lot more interesting than staring at one image on the screen, and I learned a lot of new information about musicians I’ve been listening to for years.

The newly added Web browser on the Zune HD gets the job done, but has downsides. Its on-screen keyboard for entering names of Web pages has very small keys and doesn’t use predictive typing to fix your mistakes. Some Web pages rendered normally on the browser, but a couple—like Georgetown.edu—looked normal only when I turned the Zune HD horizontally.

As with other Zunes, this Zune HD has a radio receiver and now uses HD radio for finding more stations with clearer signals. If you like a song, an on-screen button tags it for buying and downloading immediately or later.

The Zune HD is a great-looking little player, and users will especially appreciate its Quickplay menu, rich collection of artist information and mesmerizing screen. If its points system was scrapped and its Zune Marketplace was filled with more content, I’d like it better.

Edited by Walter S. Mossberg.

Write to Katherine Boehret at mossbergsolution@wsj.com

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090922/microsoft-packsthe-new-zune-hdwith-bells-whistlesand-plenty-of-style/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090527/d7-tech-demo-whats-in-greg-harpers-bag/ http://allthingsd.com/20090527/d7-tech-demo-whats-in-greg-harpers-bag/#comments Wed, 27 May 2009 20:45:45 +0000 Oliver J. Chiang http://d7.allthingsd.com/?p=246

In this session of D7, Greg Harper, president of Harpervision and co-founder of Gadgetoff, always sure to bring the novel and the wacky, will present a plethora of gadgets the technophile has collected. Harper says that in total, he brought “$20,000 [worth] of portable tech gadgets.” (Note to the Four Seasons Aviara: Increase security.) He’s known for doing these demos, at which he pulls out one interesting product after another from his cornucopia of gadgetry–to the astonishment of the crowd! Papa Harper’s got a brand new bag, and we’re about to find out what’s inside….

Session Highlights

Live Blog

• Kara apologizes for starting up again late: “Carol Bartz just trashed my hotel room.”
• Walt and Kara: Greg is sure to be funny and fun. This gadget maniac travels the world collecting the coolest.
• Harper comes out to the accompaniment of the theme from “Inspector Gadget.” Apropos.
• Harper: Talking really fast–Sony (SNE) camera (HDR TG5V) with GPS built-in.
• Walt: Where’s my Red Sox video?
• Harper: A complete media server (an MVIX, I think). Kara: It looks like a bomb. Harper: Hook it up to any device! It has many gigs! Etc.! Walt: Why don’t you just use your iPod? Harper: Says something about some headphones being custom-made for his ears…and other stuff.
• His Digital SLR is the Canon (CAJ) 5D Mark 2: He likes. Also, here’s a new camera from Panasonic (PC). It goes underwater and shoots in HD. Now, this! A Casio, Exilim FC100, which shoots up to 1000 FPS–watch water drop, one drop at a time.
• Now: A GPS system that automatically transmits to satellite. OK, now a water-purifying straw! Its an “Istraw” that freaking purifies your water all on its own. Amazing.
• If that’s not enough for you, says Harper (insert an editorial “Uh…”), it’s a flashlight/alarm/smoke detector, from Flare Safe. Even more amazing!
• “Astro” Dog Collar: It has GPS so you can keep track of your dog. That’s pretty handy. From Garmin (GRMN).
• Portable radio: AM/FM/HD. Walt: I think radio sucks in general.
• Harper: Now this doohickey you wear maybe/probably around your neck at the beach registers how much UV you are exposed to. Walt: If you wear this, you won’t get laid. Harper: Maybe you!
• Breathalyzer/Bad Breath Monitor: Also a music/video player. It detects bad breath if you blow on it. Listen, I prefer the old fashioned method: someone awkwardly handing me a breath mint. That’s the natural way.
• New Mifi!–It’s portable WiFi, from Novotel. Now back to GPS–hidden in my bag is a… drum roll… tracker! No one better steal my bag! Kara: Who? Like terrorists?
• Oops, missed something. He’s the Micromachine man. Speaking of whom, he’s now showing a microcomputer of some sort.
• Blu-Ray player: It grabs YouTube, Picasa directly, and plays DVD and SD cards. Walt: WiFi? Harper: No. You can take it on the road. Walt snarks about the lousy Panasonic UI. Nice one.
• Sony OLED music player: Has noise cancellation–built in; it’s digital noise cancellation. Also has Slacker, which is “Tivo for music.” Walt: Slacker’s on BlackBerry too. And, do you think this will take over the market iPod dominates? Harper: Heh heh, it’s an interesting product. (Translation: No.)
• A pocket-projector, the PK 101 from Optoma: Very cute. You can use it when you’re sitting on the plane on the back of the seat of the person in front of you.
• And now: A Chinese knock-off of Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone. Typical Chinese. But instead, it says “Welcome” upon loading. Imagine that! Look, the UI is so terribly different! It has mode-switching, which means it too has a built-in video projector. Did the Chinese steal the blueprints for the next-gen iPhone somehow?
• Some funky looking mask: For diving, it’s good to up to 100-plus feet. There’s a built-in camera with HD video. Walt: And how scared were the TSA guys? Audience laughter.
• Whoa! Harper has some super-spy illegal device that can automatically shut off everyone else’s cellphones. It’s like something out of “Men In Black,” but for cellphones instead of depressed housewives.
• Another media server. Is he starting to repeat himself. Kara: one more crazy thing, OK?
• Glasses with built-in Blutooth headset.
• Kara: Thank you so much. Every year, Greg brings weirder and weirder stuff
• And the “Inspector Gadget” theme plays him out. Excellent! On the nose, but just so.

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]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090527/d7-tech-demo-whats-in-greg-harpers-bag/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20090113/nope-sonys-not-recession-proof-set-for-1-billion-loss/ http://allthingsd.com/20090113/nope-sonys-not-recession-proof-set-for-1-billion-loss/#comments Tue, 13 Jan 2009 10:30:25 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=3077 No wonder Howard Stringer couldn’t promise he was “recession-proof” when the Sony CEO spoke at the Consumer Electronics Show last week: The company is set to record a $1.1 billion loss, according to the Japanese newspaper Nikkei.

That’s something Sony hasn’t seen since Hollywood producers Jon Peters and Peter Gruber managed to incinerate the company’s balance sheet in the mid-90s. Variety:

This contrasts with the $2.2 billion operating profit Sony predicted in October.

The Nikkei said the loss could balloon to $2 billion, depending on how successful Sony is in cutting inventory in the January-March quarter.

If the Nikkei forecast comes to pass, it will be Sony’s first loss in 14 years, when it took a one-time charge for its pictures division.

Black ink has turned red because of lower-than-expected sales of Sony’s flat-panel TVs and other products, primarily in the U.S. market, while the rapid strengthening of the yen has devastated the bottom lines of all Japanese export industries.”

Upside? Sony (SNE) still makes really cool stuff. Last year at All Things Digital, Stringer showed off a super-thin, super-expensive TV that used organic light-emitting diodes. Last week at CES, the company was showing off a different application for OLED: flexible screens.

Here’s a Sony rep telling you about the technology, but not doing a good job of showing it off:

And here’s video from Obsessable, which actually displays the goods:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090113/nope-sonys-not-recession-proof-set-for-1-billion-loss/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20080904/a-streaming-comes-across-the-sky/ http://allthingsd.com/20080904/a-streaming-comes-across-the-sky/#comments Thu, 04 Sep 2008 18:00:57 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=4483

[ See post to watch video ]

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20080904/a-streaming-comes-across-the-sky/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20080904/blu-ray/ http://allthingsd.com/20080904/blu-ray/#comments Thu, 04 Sep 2008 12:30:47 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=4434 Blu-ray will be obsolete in five years. That’s not exactly the endorsement the consumer electronics industry needs as it heads into the holiday shopping season. But it’s the one Andy Griffiths, director of consumer electronics at Samsung UK, has given. In an interview with Pocket-lint, Griffiths said longevity isn’t one of Blu-ray’s strong suits. “I think it [Blu-ray] has five years left,” he predicted. “I certainly wouldn’t give it 10.”

Not the sort of proclamation you’d expect from a Blu-ray backer, but then, Samsung’s always been one to hedge its bets. For a time, the company backed both horses in the next-generation DVD race, launching a dual-format high-definition DVD player that supported both HD-DVD and Blu-ray Disc.

So what’s Samsung hedging its bet on this time? OLED displays, according to Griffiths. Which presumably means the company sees HD streaming video and low-cost holographic storage hitting the mainstream sooner than you might think.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20080904/blu-ray/feed/ 3 http://allthingsd.com/20080813/sony-and-roku-try-to-join-tv-to-web-but-no-merger-yet/ http://allthingsd.com/20080813/sony-and-roku-try-to-join-tv-to-web-but-no-merger-yet/#comments Thu, 14 Aug 2008 01:06:44 +0000 Walter S. Mossberg http://ptech.allthingsd.com/20080813/sony-and-roku-try-to-join-tv-to-web-but-no-merger-yet/ Perhaps the biggest disconnect in the digital landscape today is between the Internet and the TV set. Consumers have been buying big, new high-definition TVs in large numbers and, separately, are watching more and more video from online sources like YouTube, Hulu and iTunes. But the two trends have yet to merge. Despite the efforts of big names like Microsoft (MSFT), Apple (AAPL) and TiVo (TIVO), relatively few people are watching Internet video on their shiny new sets.

[ See post to watch video ]

Now, two more set-top boxes have been launched to try to marry the Internet and the TV. Both adapters, from Sony (SNE) and Roku, worked well in my tests, but each has limitations. The problem is that one of the boxes supplies content from a wide range of Internet video sources, but only works on selected models of one brand of TV set; the other works on a wide variety of TVs, but only provides a single source of content.

Sony’s adapter is the Bravia Internet Video Link. This is a $300 module that attaches to certain Sony HDTV models. It can either be set up beside the TV or snapped onto the back of the set. Once it’s connected to your TV and to your home network for Internet access, a new menu appears on the TV allowing you a choice of videos from numerous online sources, including YouTube, Yahoo (YHOO), Blip. TV, Sports Illustrated, AOL, Wired, and the Web sites of CBS (CBS), Showtime and more.

Setting up the Bravia Internet Video Link was straightforward, even though it involved a welter of cables. There is no built-in Wi-Fi — you need either a cable or an add-on wireless adapter to connect to the Internet. The primary hookup to the TV is via a modern type of cable called HDMI, for High Definition Multimedia Interface.

I tested the Sony Link using the company’s most unusual HDTV set — a tiny, very costly model that uses a very thin, very vivid new screen technology called OLED, for Organic Light-Emitting Diode. This TV provided a spectacular picture, but it isn’t required to use the Sony module. The Link works on many larger, more common Sony sets with more common screens. It just doesn’t work on non-Sony TV sets.

Sony’s Bravia Internet Video Link adapter

The Sony module doesn’t have its own remote control. It uses the one that came with the TV. This makes for an awkward experience, because there are no standard play and pause buttons, and various other buttons on the remote meant to do one thing on the TV may do another when watching Internet video via the Link module.

Also, I found some of the Internet content to be disappointing. Many of the items labeled “movies” on various Internet channels were really just trailers, and some content was stale. For instance, some baseball news videos on Yahoo were weeks old.

However, Sony plans to make one of its feature films, “Hancock,” available through the Link module before it’s released on DVD. More important, it will be adding access to Amazon’s (AMZN) forthcoming video-streaming service, which promises to contain a wealth of full-length content.

The Netflix Player by Roku is much simpler. In fact, it was the simplest set-top box I have ever tested. It costs just $100 and does just one thing: It allows Netflix (NFLX) subscribers to view its movies and TV shows via the Internet on a television set instead of on a computer. It can’t get you any other video content from the Internet.

The Netflix player is a small, plain black box that works with most TVs, not just digital or high-definition models. It connects using both old-fashioned cables, like the kind used by many VCRs and older DVD players, or an HDMI cable.

Unlike the Sony, the Roku box includes both wireless and wired Internet connectivity, and has its own remote. While the box is capable of displaying high-definition content, the Netflix service isn’t currently streaming movies and TV shows in high definition, so you get varying quality, depending on your TV and Internet speed, up to DVD-type levels.

There’s no added monthly fee required to use the Roku box, but you must be a Netflix subscriber. The box merely displays the movies or TV shows you have placed in your Instant Queue on Netflix. You have to do this on your computer before viewing the videos on the Roku box. You can choose from around 12,000 streaming movies and TV shows, far fewer than the 100,000 titles Netflix makes available via DVD, but a sizable collection.

In my tests, the Roku box set up quickly and easily, the interface and remote were simple and effective, and the movies and TV shows I tested streamed quickly and without hesitation over my fast home Internet connection.

Both products are meant to promote sales of other things — Sony TVs and the Netflix movie-rental service. They do these tasks well, but neither is the breakthrough solution that will connect most TVs to most Internet video content.

Find all of Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos online, free, at the All Things Digital Web site, walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com.

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