CES: Netgear tries to make online video fit for the living room
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Having unveiled a series of online-video set-tops at the previous few Consumer Electronics Shows, Netgear showed off a couple of technologies this morning that make online video streams look considerably better on a big TV screen.
The demos involved prototypes, and it’s not clear how close they are to release (‘later this year,’ Netgear says). But as demos go, these were fantastic. And by moving online streams closer to broadcast-TV quality, they represent an important step in the process of making online channels competitive with cable and over-the-air ones.
The first Netgear technology converted standard-definition streams -- think user-generated content and low-bandwidth TV -- to something approximating high-def. Som Pal Choudhury, a senior product manager at Netgear, said the technology involved ‘a lot of re-encoding and upscaling,’ done on the fly. It’s expected to be included in selected Netgear routers and digital-entertainment set-tops, with the models still to be determined, Choudhury said.
The second new technique, dubbed Ziexi, greatly improves the flow of video from the Net (or a server in the home) to the TV screen. Through a combination of caching and redundant streaming, Ziexi effectively triples a user’s bandwidth, Netgear executives said. The technology will be included in all the company’s set-tops and wireless routers, Choudhury said.
In both cases, the results were impressive. Fuzzy images were sharpened; stuttering streams became smooth and crisp, with no pauses for rebuffering. Here’s hoping Netgear can pull these feats off in actual products.
-- Jon Healey
Healey writes editorials for The Times’ Opinion Manufacturing Division. Follow him on Twitter: @jcahealey
