With such an array of video standards out there, accommodating each and every variant of internet video channel will be a challenge, even though the chip could theoretically be flashed with firmware updates to accommodate new standards. But then, Philips’ goal here seems to be to strike particular deals with a chosen few suppliers, rather than to provide open access to the wealth of video on the desktop web. If Philips built a device that could subscribe to videos from the gamut of producers - from the smallest vidcaster to the latest Rocketboom episode, from the my friends’ YouTube vids to the BBC News Channel - it would have a winner on its hands.

Though Net TV also promises access to web pages, like the semi-walled garden approach to video, and while Nintendo Wii is already showing full web pages to those on the sofa, Philips is using CEHTML, a variant of the web language crippled for telly. Evoking parallels with its old CD-i, Sony’s (NYSE: SNE) Bravia Internet Video Link and yesteryear’s Microsoft Web TV, Net TV is due out next year.

(Photo: inajkruse)