The Best Devices to Get Movies, Sports and More from the Internet to Your Television Screen

More and more TV shows, movies and live sporting events are available for you to view on the Internet. But the stumbling block has been how best to get those images from the computer to your TV so that you can watch them on a big screen in the comfort of your living room.

That’s where a growing assortment of affordable, easy-to-use gadgets known as streaming media devices come in. Typically, you connect one of these boxes to your TV and link it to the programming from the Internet via a wireless or wired router, such as those available from Netgear or Linksys.

What you get: These devices can give you anytime access to a wide array of on-demand programming, often for free or at lower cost than on cable-TV or satellite-TV, and they can allow some cable and satellite customers to cut back to less expensive packages… or even stop subscribing to cable or satellite entirely.

What you need to know first: Even though online programming tends to be cheaper than cable- or satellite-TV, it often isn’t free. You may have to subscribe to a service such as Netflix, which offers more than 20,000 TV and movie titles for instant streaming but tends not to stream the most recent films ($7.99 per month, www.Netflix.com) and/or Hulu Plus, which offers many recent TV shows ($7.99 per month, www.Hulu.com). Or you can rent movies à la carte from Amazon.com (www.Amazon.com) or Apple (www.Apple.com/itunes) for between 99 cents and $4.99 apiece. Also, Amazon recently began offering unlimited streaming of 5,000 mostly older films and TV shows to subscribers of Amazon Prime, which provides free two-day shipping on merchandise bought from Amazon ($79/yr.). And subscriptions to sports packages from various services can cost $100 per season, even though the local teams’ games are likely to be blacked out.

But if you are a film, TV and/or sports fan, the convenient access provided by these services may be worth the price.

The leading devices all deliver picture and sound quality about as good as the standard- or high-definition programming offered by cable or satellite providers if you have a fast, strong Internet connection.

But there are important differences among these devices. Some are easier to set up and use than others, and they don’t all offer access to the same online content. Among the options…

BEST ALL AROUND

Roku XDS (www.Roku.com)

Advantages: Roku offers access to a wide range of content, including Netflix, Hulu Plus, Amazon Instant Video, the free Internet music service Pandora and live Major League Baseball and National Hockey League games, as well as news programming from a variety of TV networks. Since the recent uprisings in the Middle East, Roku has added Al Jazeera’s English channel for free.

Roku is easy to set up — on-screen directions guide you through the process. You then use a Roku remote control to browse among and select movies, programs or sporting events.

Disadvantage: You can’t access content from most free Web sites, such as free TV shows on the basic Hulu site and on TV network sites.

Price: $99 for Roku’s top-of-the-line XDS model or $79 for the mid-range XD. The Roku HD model costs $59, but the ability of the XD and XDS to stream the highest-resolution HD pictures (1080p) and avoid WiFi signal interference is worth the cost.

BEST FOR FREE CONTENT

Veebeam (www.Veebeam.com)

Advantages: The Veebeam lets you transfer any online content to your TV screen. That includes content you have paid for from services, such as Hulu Plus and Netflix, as well as free content that other streaming media devices cannot deliver, such as TV shows from basic Hulu and the TV networks’ own Web sites.

Some similar devices, such as the $199 Boxee Box, have promised to provide free Web sites on TVs, but popular free content sites, such as Hulu basic and TV networks, end up blocking access on those devices. By not signaling that programs are being transferred to a TV, Veebeam sidesteps attempts by networks and other sites to block such transfers.

The Veebeam is very easy to set up — just download its software to your computer, attach the computer to your TV, then push a small antenna into one of the computer’s USB ports. You don’t even need to add the Veebeam to your home WiFi network.

Disadvantages:Veebeam will not give you the classic couch-potato experience. While the other devices listed here provide easy-to-use remote controls and on-screen guides, the Veebeam requires that you use your computer to locate and control programming. That makes it a better choice for people who have a computer that can be positioned close to the TV — especially one that won’t be needed for other purposes while someone is using the Veebeam — rather than a computer in a less convenient location. Your computer must be relatively modern and powerful, or your picture and sound could be choppy. Use the compatibility tool on the Veebeam Web site (click “Downloads” under “Support”) to test your computer before buying Veebeam.

Price: $99 for the standard definition model or $149 for the HD model, which works with standard-definition TV sets as well.

Apple TV (www.Apple.com)

Advantages: Apple TV can stream content from your iTunes library and other Apple devices, including iPads and recent-model iPhones and iPod Touches, in addition to video from Netflix and YouTube. It’s very easy to set up and use on Macs and PCs.

Disadvantages: Apple TV does not offer Hulu Plus, Pandora or live major league sports. Its highest available resolution is 720p, not the highest resolution of 1080p.

Price: $99.

BEST IF YOU ALSO WANT A BLU-RAY DISC PLAYER

Top Blu-ray players: Sony BDP-S570 3D Blu-ray Disc Player (www.SonyStyle.com)… Samsung BD-C6500 Blu-ray Disc Player (www.Samsung.com)… and LG BD570 Network Blu-ray Disc Player (www.LG.com).

Advantage: Buying a Blu-ray disc player with built-in streaming media capabilities is cheaper than buying these devices separately. Sony, Samsung and LG Blu-ray players in particular tend to offer a reasonable range of online content and are easy to use.

Disadvantage: These Blu-ray players offer access to Netflix and Pandora — and Sony offers Hulu Plus, too — but they can’t match the range of content available through a Roku or Veebeam.

Price: As of early 2011, the models listed here could be found for between $150 and $200. They’re likely to be replaced by newer models by mid-2011, but any Sony, Samsung or LG Wi-Fi Blu-ray player in the $150-to-$180 range that has “built-in WiFi” is likely to be a solid choice.

Warning: “WiFi Ready” is not the same as “built-in WiFi,” though an electronics-store salesperson might imply that it is. If you purchase a “WiFi Ready” Blu-ray player, you’ll need to purchase an additional piece of equipment to connect it to your WiFi network, and that can cost up to $80.

IF YOU HAVE A GAMING DEVICE…

Some people already have a streaming media device at home but don’t realize it. The gaming devices PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Wii can serve as streaming media devices. High-end HDTVs that have built-in WiFi capabilities can do this, too.

Advantage: There’s no need to purchase additional hardware.

Disadvantage: The gaming devices offer more limited programming options, and the reception quality varies. PlayStation 3 offers better resolution than other gaming devices.

Price: Free, if you already own these devices — though the Xbox 360 offers Netflix streaming only if you subscribe to Xbox Live Gold ($60/yr.). If you don’t own one, the gaming devices generally cost between $199 and $299.

THE BEST CONNECTION

Some devices in this article work best with an HDMI cable. Helpful: Very good HDMI cables are available for $10 or less on Amazon.com and other Web sites. Do not pay the inflated HDMI cable prices charged by most electronics stores — $30, $40 or even $100.

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