CES: Is 'Web TV' back? LG Electronics introduces movie-streaming TV system

LAS VEGAS -- Remember Web TV, the Microsoft Internet/television system from the 1990s? It flopped, but the marriage between online and TV is back in a big way at the Consumer Electronics Show this year -- without the Web surfing, e-mail and practical stuff like that.

This time it’s movies. Several manufacturers are jumping on the trend of streaming HD movies directly into your home via the Internet.

LG Electronics was first up with a press conference that talked about (but didn’t demonstrate) a Netflix system to be embedded into some of its new LCD televisions for 2009. LG already has Netflix-enabled Blu-ray players, but this TV system will supposedly skip the technology middleman, allowing rented, streamed movies to start up in as little as 30 seconds.

The first models are scheduled to arrive in the second quarter of the year, in 42-inch, 47-inch, 50-inch and 60-inch sizes.

No prices were given.

-- David Colker