Consumer Reports Gives Seal of Approval to "Connected TVs"

Tests streaming on broadband-capable TVs and Blu-ray players

By Glen Dickson -- Broadcasting & Cable, 2/3/2010 10:09:51 AM

Consumer Reports, the popular magazine of consumer advocacy group Consumers Union, has addressed the growing interest in bringing Internet video to the TV by testing new Internet-capable TVs and Blu-ray players and rating them in its March issue in a "TV meets Web" report.

The magazine has rated over 20 TV sets starting at a list price of $1,000 that can stream online movies, as well as four broadband-capable Blu-ray players starting at $150. It said that lab tests showed that setting up the devices and using them to access online content was easy, and that "picture quality was decent if not quite up to the claimed resolution."

Consumer Reports also tested another dozen or so TVs that can display other types of online content besides movies, such as YouTube videos or digital photos stored on Picasa and Flickr, but noted that "Internet browser capabilities on Web-enabled TVs and Blu-ray players are limited." The magazine also rated online-capable devices such as TiVo's HD DVR and Microsoft's Xbox 360 gaming console.

In advising consumers on adopting the new Internet-capable devices, the magazine noted that buying an Internet-enabled Blu-ray player or a dedicated streaming box like Roku was a more cost-effective way to get the new online movie services than buying a connected TV. It also warned customers to check which movie services were available before buying a device, noting that certain brands were aligned with different services like Netflix or Amazon Video On Demand.

As for picture quality, the magazine claimed that Vudu's HDX movie format was the "only movie stream that looked like real HD" but pointed out that it required a high-speed broadband connection of 4.5 to 9 megabits per second.