The Web Served Family Style
Surfing from your Easy Chair
by Jeff Rottman
March 1998The entertainment value from browsing World Wide Web sites is being emphasized as more companies hope home Internet surfers will do it from the comfort of their living rooms. The lowly television set is now becoming the web window of choice for thousands of people across North America, and some other parts of the world.
Small set-top boxes bringing the internet to the TV big screen are being manufactured and touted by several big name electronics companies and the king of software, Microsoft Inc. WebTV was recently bought by Microsoft Inc.
Other manufacturers boxes using different interfaces are also popping up. The biggest selling products are WebTV, and WebTV Plus, manufactured by Sony, Philips Magnavox, and Mitsubishi, and the NetChannel unit, developed by Oracle, Inc. and built by Thomson Consumer Electronics-RCA and Acer Inc. Other lesser known set top Web boxes are being touted by companies such as NewCom Inc., Batra WebSurfer, NetTV, Curtis Mathis, Akai Electric, Sega Net Link, and some others. With prices ranging from about $100 to $350 US they're aimed at families who don't want to buy or can't afford a new computer to surf the Web.
Web to TV boxes have both pluses and minuses when surfing the web. I had a chance to take a close look at WebTV's new "Plus" unit which was released in late 1997. The company's marketing firm sent a review box to hook up in my home for about a month and it was used nearly everyday for testing and surfing. It's a slick unit with a fast 56K Flex modem along with a 1 gig. hard drive. It also comes with a wireless remote control unit and wireless keyboard, which is nearly essential for anyone sending any type of E-mail messages across the net.
I looked at and worked the WebTV + as a person who learned about the web by surfing from my computer screen for the past several years, so adjusting to looking at a TV screen, which has a much lower resolution took some getting used to. Some sites had text which was very hard to read because it was so small, other sites looked just fine on the TV screen. The navigation procedure using the WebTV is so different for a computer user because there is no mouse or pointer. To change pages, or click on choices, you move a yellow cursor box over the choices on the page and then press GO on the remote or enter key on the small black keyboard.
Setting up the WebTV+ unit is actually very simple and easy, it does most of the work for you, like finding your local access number, to giving you a monthly newsletter on line. You can also access lots of help files on screen. It took me less than 30 minutes to unpack the unit and have it hooked into my TV set and phone line. Cables and connectors are included. The purchaser also needs to pre-program the remote control unit so it will work with your brand of Television and Cable box, if you have one. With the "plus" unit, a printer port is on the back to hook up certain models of the Hewlett Packard Deskjet printer or soon for some Canon Bubblejet printers.
The "Plus" version of WebTV definitely lets you know that its geared toward regular TV viewing by its daily updating of local TV listings that it downloads early every morning. The TV side of WebTV+ lists a synopsis of your local Cable TV channels and when you scroll down the list of channels it automatically changes the channel on a small framed screen on the TV. While browsing the Web you can actually watch TV shows with sound in a small box near the bottom of the screen. The feature is called WebPip for picture in a picture.
You can add up to six users with their own E-mail boxes and their own set of favorite web sites they may want to set up. The users can also have certain adult oriented sites blocked out using the "Surf Watch" and "Kid Friendly" programs included in the browser software. To use WebTV you either sign up with them for the monthly fee of between $14.95 to $19.95 US, or use another ISP and Pay $9.95 a month. Other brands of set top boxes vary their fees.
Overall, the WebTV + and its competitors for the TV set make a valiant effort at bringing the Web to the entire family. New technology pundits say this way of viewing the Net will become more and more popular as Net surfing becomes a part of the daily life of families around the globe.
Check back again soon for another edition of the Web Served Family Style!
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