The current flux in the television market is embodied by the emergence of two closely related categories, namely, the Smart TV and the connected TV. While the former category is being actively promoted by Google (and, till recently, Intel), the latter is in the hands of the usual TV manufacturers like Samsung, LG, Vizio etc. The popularity of OTT (over-the-top) premium content in the form of Netflix, Vudu, Hulu Plus etc. in the US has also aided in popularizing the concept of Smart / connected TVs.

With the upgrade cycle for TVs being in the order of 5 - 10 years, there are a large number of consumers who have yet to jump onto either of these bandwagons. This has opened up the market for an intermediate device to bring connected features to their existing TV sets. It is precisely this market that has made devices like the Roku boxes and the Sony network media players successful. Last year, we looked at one of the Roku models that Netgear rebadged, and came away satisfied. This time around, Netgear has decided to come out with its own device for this purpose.

In today's review, we will take a look at the NTV200, the next generation refresh of the rebadged Roku model. Can Netgear one-up the Roku 2 with its own product? How does the NTV200 stack up? Read on for our take.

In the last year or so, three major SoC manufacturers vied for market share in the media streamer market. While Intel's CE41xx took the high end path with design wins in the Logitech Revue and Boxee Box, Sigma Designs and Realtek continued to retain design wins with their existing customers. Sigma's customers used SMP 8642/8643/8655 while Realtek customers migrated from RTD 1073 / RTD 1283 to RTD 1185. We have had media streamers based on these SoCs in-house for quite some time now. Almost all of them have been touched upon in one piece or the other. However, a comprehensive comparison piece was never published.

Read on for our comprehensive comparison of the Boxee Box (Intel CE4100), the A.C.Ryan PlayOn!HD2 (Realtek 1185) and the Netgear NTV550 (SMP 8642).

Netgear's ReadyNAS lineup is well respected in the sub-$5K SMB / SOHO / consumer NAS market. In November 2010, Netgear updated their Ultra lineup meant for the high-end prosumer / SOHO market. In the economical prosumer market, Netgear's last introduction was the ReadyNAS NV+ and ReadyNAS Duo in June 2008. Today, Netgear is launching the update to their economical prosumer lineup with the 2-bay ReadyNAS Duo v2 and 4-bay ReadyNAS NV+ v2.

The products being introduced today are the first Marvell based units from Netgear. We were given early access to the 2 TB version of the ReadyNAS NV+ v2. Read on for our review.

Call me a Luddite, but I've always found the whole idea of setting up a dedicated wired connection just to get an AC-powered gadget connected to the network to be a superfluous hassle. I've already hooked up one (thick) wire, the AC power cord. Why can't I just use it for network packet-shuttling purposes, too? In fact, I can; that's the whole premise of powerline networking, although few devices (save the occasional router) currently integrate the power-transported-packets function within them. Instead, indicative of the still-embryonic state of this particular market, you're forced to externally connect a dedicated Ethernet-to-powerline bridge adapter, which you then connect to a different AC socket.

Conceptually, however, the single-connection vision remains valid. And I've noticed encouraging signs of market maturation in recent months. Now-conventional '200 Mbps' powerline adapters are now advertised on sale for around $50 for a two-pack; that's less than half the price that manufacturers and retail partners were promoting not so very long ago. And latest-generation '500 Mbps' adapter two-packs are selling for not much more moola; $75 or so.

I've been daily using as well as periodically evaluating various powerline networking technologies since mid-2004, back in the '14 Mbps' HomePlug 1.0 days. Given recent trends, I figured I was due for an evaluation revisit. How well do latest generation adapters fulfill their marketing promises? Can we finally dispense with burrowing through dirty, spider- and snake-infested crawlspaces and drilling holes in walls and floors in order to route Cat5e cable around?

The world of wireless networking products has been slowly advancing over the past decade or so. We started at 11Mbps 802.11b and 54Mbps 802.11a in 1999, added 54Mbps 802.11g in 2003, and then 802.11n in 2009 (though we first saw this in Draft-N form in early 2008) brought us support for 150Mbps and up to 600Mbps connections, depending on the controller and antenna configuration. We have yet to see any 600Mbps parts, and since the launch of 802.11n, the major differentiating factor among the product landscape is what level of 802.11n support they provide. Is the card 2x2:2, or 3x3:3 MIMO (or something else)? Does it have dual-band support or is it 2.4GHz only? How many data streams can the card support on each frequency? All of these elements affect potential performance and throughput, but is there still a difference between products that are otherwise specced the same? Enter the Bigfoot Killer Wireless-N 1102.

In order to prove that all wireless networking products are not created equal, Bigfoot is entering the market and claiming to be the new king of the hill. We’ve been testing their 2x2:2 MIMO part, the 1102, for the past couple of months. It has dual-band support with connection speeds of up to 300Mbps. Bigfoot claims to have the best throughput of any current wireless device, including most 3x3:3 solutions, and they have custom drivers, firmware, and software to help improve latency and other aspects of performance. To help us do some real apples-to-apples testing, Bigfoot shipped us two identical notebooks, courtesy of Mythlogic Computers, with the only difference being the wireless chip in each laptop. Of course, we have other wireless devices on hand, so we decided to throw additional combatants into the ring. Can Bigfoot’s Killer 1102 live up to their claims of overall superiority? Join us as we investigate performance under a variety of situations.

NETGEAR has introduced their latest 4x4 MIMO wireless bridge device designed specifically for video data. This isn't an area where we've focused a lot of time in the past, but let's will see how well the NETGEAR 3DHD stacks up to a couple other wireless bridging solutions. Can you reliably transmit high bitrate data and video over a wireless connection using the equipment?

Instead of the usual booth at CES, Netgear opted for private demo suites at the Marriot this time around. They also had a press conference on Tuesday, which I deliberately refrained from writing about because AnandTech is all about digging up the actual interesting news and doing the analysis right before getting it to the readers.

I had covered some Netgear press releases about their powerline networking products and the NeoTV 550 last August. At CES, we have some refreshes on top of that list, as well as some updates on the NTV 550 front (which has already found its way into the hands of a small number of US customers). Without further ado, onto the details!

Today I have in my hands the Netgear Roku XD media streamer, the latest media streaming solution for the living room to get retail store distribution by allying itself with a company best known for networking solutions. Does the Netgear Roku HD have what it takes to compete with the likes of D-link's Boxee Box or Logitech's Revue? What are the limitations and benefits of this particular media streamer? Let's find out.