The new device can play videos from several large streaming sites, including YouTube, Google Video and Metacafe. However, its true power comes from the built-in BitTorrent client. Millions of people use BitTorrent to download TV-shows every week, so there are a lot of potential customers out there.

‘Whenever’ and ‘wherever’ are two words that are often heard when people explain why they use BitTorrent, and Netgear cleverly acknowledges this with their new player. “It is ideal for those who are geographically displaced from their preferred television content, such as international sporting events and Bollywood productions,” is how Netgear’s marketing promotes it.

If Netgear is indeed hoping for BitTorrent users to embrace the device, most of the potential lies outside the US, where 90% of all the TV-torrent downloads take place. The main reason being that fans sometimes have to wait for weeks or even months before the show airs on TV in their country.

For those who have a large library of video files downloaded already, the Internet TV Player also supports external USB drives. Plug it in, and all your videos will be available on your TV instantly, easy as that. Netgear expects that the Internet TV Player (ITV2000), priced at $200, will be available in stores early Summer 2009.

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If BitTorrent Inc really plans to compete with the pirates, the pricing of the content should be reasonable, the catalogue extensive, and all without DRM. If they can meet these ends they might have a good chance to convert some of the present BitTorrent users. Navin says that he hopes that BitTorrent users, all of whom he calls “members”, find the BitTorrent store a better experience than piracy.

The BitTorrent store will be launched next month, and videos will be ‘protected’ by Windows DRM. Ironically, Navin said on a panel at the international Consumer Electronics Show (CES) that DRM inspires people to pirate content. So they have to find a way to convince their media partners to remove the DRM first, if they really want to compete with piracy. Bram Cohen, the inventor of BitTorrent and co-founder of BitTorrent Inc, told us last week, “Right now most of our content partners are insisting on DRM for the content we’re making available. It’s causing an awful lot of headaches, but we’re trying to minimize the impact on user experience and support”

The BitTorrent Video Store will be filled with movies and TV shows from Warner Bros, 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures, G4, Kadokawa Pictures USA, Lionsgate, MTV Networks (Comedy Central, MTV etc.), Palm Pictures and many other mainstream and independent content providers. In total there will be over 10,000 titles listed in their store, from classic TV shows to the latest blockbusters. According to Navin, this will make the BitTorrent store the biggest online video store on the Internet.

Ashwin Navin on the Netgear Entertainment Box, and the upcoming video store.

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