HTNut

LG web-enabled sets just hit the shelves.

The 47LH50 (LCD) and the 50PS80 (Plasma) are 47 and 50-inch HDTVs.

They’re the first HDTVs to ship with built-in Netflix support and the Netflix library has over 12,000 movies and TV episodes, streamed directly to the TV.

Pretty cool stuff.

How much is Netflix streaming movie service?

Netflix offers streaming movies to subscribers - Ars Technica <--This article link is from 2007 for netflix streaming costs, if anyone knows of any updated pricing, let me know.

O-O

No Wifi? No Bluetooth? It's just another device to run some CAT 5 to in the house. I will not be an early adopter.

HTNut

So, no streaming TV for you in the future at all? To me, it's no different than having another computer in the house and having to wire it. Not sure if WiFi is fast enough for streaming HD movies. How many bluetooth routers are there? Not many I suppose, especially with the maximum distance for bluetooth being much shorter than WiFi.

One thing that should concern manufactures of these TVs are the amount of people with HTPCs and or just a completely seperate dedicated PC in the room that could stream netflix. Is there really a need for a web-enabled TV?

bicker

Wireless IEEE 802.11n, certainly is fast enough. (It is much faster than Ethernet @100 Mbit/s.) Even wireless IEEE 802.11g is fast enough for the low bitrate HD that Amazon Unbox provides -- I'm not sure if Netflix goes much higher.

I'm personally opposed to the propagation of streaming television until after the FCC imposes requirements to support closed captioning for the hearing impaired on such services. There is no excuse for our society to allow services to engage in this cynical end-run around society's standards for accommodations for the disabled that it has determined to be in the public interest.

Aaron62

With watching on PCs and voice recognition software available, I'm not sure why companies like Hulu or TVShack haven't "grabbed the bull by the horns" with close captioning. It shouldn't add that much more cost. I wonder if it would be more efficient for the actual movie player like Window Media Player to do the captioning on the user end, than the company broadcasting the streaming video.

Piggie

I run my entire network in the house wired. I am one those that prefer wire. My opinion wireless is for devices that are other wise untethered.

The TV itself is powered by wire. But since power technology hasn't changed much in 60 years nor more important likely to change it's easy to wire a house for power.

I built a building 15 years ago wired with Ethernet RG-58, to say the least, it's obsolete.

Soon though fiber will be affordable to prewire a house. Then it "should" have enough bandwidth to withstand many generations of upgrades of senders and receivers.

Jay

This cnet article mentions some statistics on readiness to buy internet-connected TVs,

divxhacker

Trying to tune into Wifi is just the same as trying to tune into OTA. I've tried to watch streaming through Wifi. I had to put a huge antenna on my DSL modem in order for it to work right when used outside of the surrounding 2 rooms...

Aaron62

I watch streaming all the time from my router and it works just as well as a hard wired connection. Of course, I live in an apartmnet, so the signal doesn't have to travel too far, but it still works pretty well for me. Is your router a 802.11n? I can get close to 300 mbs. I just grabbed my boxing and it lists that it has a range of up to 1,400'.

Piggie

That is so true. Sometimes you buy the right equipment for the right house. Sometimes you don't and fight through a few generations of modifications to get your Wifi where you want.

I am a HUGE believer in running Tomato firmware, but unfortunately the list of routers that will run the code is limited. A BUFFALO WHR-HP-G54 will end most range problems. If not buy two or three and run them in WDS mode. A friend of mine has 3 and covers his large 2 story house very well. Strategically places the two in "repeater mode" beside two desktops so they just plug in the repeaters wired port so those two desktops don't need wireless cards. Tomato FAQ | polarcloud.com

But yes yes yes, a BUFFALO WHR-HP-G54 is a G series router. But unless you have some kind of very fast home server or multiple servers and multiple users all streaming stored video at once it will keep up.