This week Netgear launched the Digital Entertainer Live product, the latest in the Digital Entertainer series of products, which has the capability of streaming internet video from YouTube and other popular sites as well as viewing digital media from your home network. It has integrated support for VuNow which is basically a search engine that searches a limited number of internet content websites, and also allows some pay-per-view or download-to-own services such as Roxio CinemaNow. The Digital Entertainer Live is a lower cost model than previous versions and presumably with a lower cost point to entice consumers with fairly simple features. I found it listed on Amazon for $149.99 and if you want to connect wirelessly to your Wi-Fi router the Wi-Fi wireless USB adapter is an additional $39.99. The connection to the TV is through HDMI and in order to keep the cost down it’s the only option. The kit comes with a remote that can be used for searching internet content on the websites that are supported, with an on screen keyboard. This can be a bit arduous at times but none the less gets the job done. The product supports a wide variety of media formats, so just about anything you have saved in your personal digital library should be viewable. Setup is fairly simple IF you already have a home network with digital media sharing enabled. It will automatically search your home network for digital content and even the wireless setup is relatively easy with an on-screen guide to help connect to your router.
Okay enough of the propaganda. Overall I think it’s a pretty cool product with an attractive price point, but unfortunately that’s not enough to make this product a success. So why will this product fail as Netgear makes another attempt to go beyond what they are good at? It’s simple really. The basis of this product as it should be for a Netgear product is the home network. As we all know with Wi-Fi, results may vary depending on a wide variety of conditions. The other challenge is that only a small percentage of consumers have the technical savvy to setup a home network with media sharing capabilities. Lastly because you are not running a real internet browser, the content is limited to subset of internet websites. VuNow also makes a disclaimer that some content from the available websites may not play properly.
So while the Digital Entertainer Live tries to address how we get digital media to our living room, unfortunately it falls a little short in too many areas. While I am glad to see yet another attempt to provide a solution to view internet content and digital media on the living room TV, we deserve more than this. Something simple that allows all possibilities of content without restrictions. NoWire is coming, stay tuned……..
