Black Boxes:
RCA MSN TV 2
$200
Thomson Consumer Electronics
10330 N. Meridian St.
Indianapolis, IN 46290
(317) 587-5000
www.rca.com
Microsoft's new MSN TV 2 set-top box is the company's latest attempt at bringing the Internet to non-PC-equipped homes. It's certainly far from their first, of course. In a way, we've really got to give Microsoft credit for persistence. They bought WebTV Networks in 1997 to give people who were afraid of the PC (or who simply wanted a second terminal) access to the Internet. It peaked at a base of about 1,000,000 subscribers, which began to shrink once broadband speeds zoomed past the dial-up only access that WebTV offered.
Then in 2000, Microsoft teamed up with DirecTV and RCA to build a digital video recorder with Internet access, and dubbed it UltimateTV. But because it still didn't include an Ethernet connection to allow the unit to connect to broadband, and sales were limited to DirecTV subscribers who wanted an early PVR, the unit never reached a critical mass of sales.
Now Microsoft is debuting MSN TV 2 (not to be confused with its own MSNBC cable TV network, or MSN ISP for PCs), which (finally!) allows for broadband Internet access. No PVR this time, but that's understandable: most consumers would probably prefer to keep that function separate anyhow. But MSN TV 2 does have several other features designed for a high-tech household.
A Sleek Silver Box
The silver MSN TV 2 box, with its rounded corners, is much sleeker than its black box predecessors are. It connects to a home network without too much difficulty. If you access your broadband connection via a proxy server, and you have the skills to set up such a network in the first place, you shouldn't have too many problems getting MSN TV 2 connected to your home network. The unit comes with two attractive and well-written instruction manuals (one for getting started, the other for day-to-day use), but they weren't necessary for us to consult when connecting the unit to our network.
Like its older brothers, MSN TV 2 has two tools for input: a comfortable, familiar handheld remote that's based on a time-tested RCA design tweaked for easy Web surfing; and an infrared-equipped, battery-powered keyboard. The remote is useful for casual pointing and clicking, and the keyboard makes typing in data such as URLs and other information easier. At least, it's supposed to. The layout of the keyboard is a great plus, and the placement of the Home key on the upper left-hand side of the keyboard is very ergonomic, making it easy to return to the home page in a flash. But the keyboard is extremely stiff and is difficult to get used to. Many times we found ourselves having to reenter information, particularly if typing a word or number with the same character repeated. For example, it was extremely easy to type "205" for "2005". If you do an extensive amount of posting on message boards or blogging, using this keyboard could be a very frustrating experience. The keyboard is especially annoying when initially registering the unit, which requires the user's name, address, credit card info, etc.
Home Page
Once signed up, paid up, and patched up, the unit boots up to a home page with the local weather (nice touch), and news, sports and entertainment info. If you use a preferred home page on your main PC, or a source that collects news, sports and entertainment info, you might want the unit to default to it. Unfortunately, because the home page serves a central function in the control of the unit, you cannot do that. You can, however, save it under the Favs (short for Favorites) button.
MSN TV 2's Ethernet connection allows it to do more than just surf Web pages faster. Using the MSN TV 2 box, you can view photos saved in the JPEG, GIF, BMP or PNG format on the den TV, via the unit's USB-2 port and a digital photo card reader (not supplied). If you connect the TV to external speakers, so much the better, because the MSN TV 2 box will play Windows Media and MP3-compatible audio. You can also print your photos from any printer that's compatible with the Windows CE operating system, and a nice feature is the ability to view email attachments like Microsoft Word and Adobe Acrobat documents.
Actually, these are all nice features: not everybody wants to have a PC in their living room or home theater, but increasingly, multimedia and the Internet is where the action is when it comes to entertainment, and more and more, news as well.
Many broadband users, especially those with a home-wide Cat-5 or wireless network, would welcome the opportunity for a good set-top box to tie their home theater or living room to the ‘Net. But if they're sophisticated enough to install such technology, they may find the MSN TV-2 box frustrating. On the other hand, it looks like a reasonable successor to the original concept of WebTV, and if you've got parents or grandparents who want to connect to the Internet, but are scared off by the idea of learning how to manipulate a Mac or Windows PC, MSN TV-2 could be for them.
Ed Driscoll is a freelance journalist who has covered home theater and the media for the past decade.
Inputs: USB x2, Ethernet, RJ-11 phone jack
Outputs: S-video, composite video, stereo audio
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