WEBTV PLUS IS SMART TV: The new WebTV Plus boxes are about to descend upon us from either Philips-Magnavox, Sony, Mitsubishi or another manufacturer. The WebTV Plus was previously announced in September 1997 and will be made available in either another few days or a week or so from now. My sources say the Philips-Magnavox version of the WebTV Plus box is supposed to be available December 19, 1997. CNET reports say that the Mitsubishi version of the WebTV Plus box is also supposed to be available soon or now. I have not seen any specific information about when the Sony version or a Hitachi or other manufacturer's version of the WebTV Plus is supposed to be out, but I would guess that they may come out sometime "soon." It's kind of like the Oscar nominations: get the movie or the product out before the end of the year in time for the nominations for the current year.

The WebTV Plus was previously announced in September 1997. That announcement was made around the time when Oracle was introducing its first generation version of its NetChannel box and when WorldGate was first trumpeting its cable Internet TV set-top service. The NetChannel boxes were previously released to stores in October but were recalled because of some technical problem, but are apparently now in stores according to recent advertisements for various electronics audio video stores; I should hopefully have a review about the NetChannel box from someone who told me he has one sometime in the future. (For any Oracle, RCA, or NetChannel folks out there, I would love to try out a demo unit for my own review for this Net Page; according to website stats for November, a lot of NetChannel users have visited this site.) The WorldGate service looks to be revolutionary. But WebTV was here first. The September announcement of the WebTV Plus was apparently a counter-attack to try to mute the NetChannel and WorldGate announcements. This is the battle for marketshare in the next step in the evolution of Internet TV and the convergence of the computer and TV. With Microsoft behind WebTV, it's no wonder WebTV came out with all guns blasting when others said they were going to make announcements about their Internet TV products and services.

Okay, what is the WebTV Plus? The WebTV Plus is an upgrade to the older webtv boxes that are currently available in stores (some advertisements show that the classic boxes are available if you want the cheaper box; but my sources seem to indicate that the supply may be limited to what may have been bought up to be put in stores). The older webtv boxes which were introduced last year are now called WebTV Classic boxes. The WebTV Plus provides more than what you get with the WebTV Classic. The WebTV Plus provides the basic "Web Home" Internet access that you get with the WebTV Classic. This is the regular "home" page you go to when you log onto the WebTV Network; that's "Web Home." The "Plus" in WebTV Plus is the extraordinary Smart TV portion that is exclusive to the WebTV Plus: WebPIP and TV Crossover Links. "WebPIP" is the previously announced Picture-In-Picture feature of the WebTV Plus where you have a display of both a TV show and the Internet on the screen at the same time. The TV Crossover Links are revolutionary in that you can click links or icons that may appear as part of TV shows to get Internet-type information. So a popular primetime TV show or a weekend TV sports broadcast may possibly have special webtv icons pop on the screen that only WebTV Plus boxes can display and that WebTV Plus users can click on to get more information.

WebTV CEO Steve Perlman's
WebTV+ intro during the
September 1997 announcement

This is revolutionary. There are apparently two networks for the WebTV now with the regular WebTV Network for normal Internet access and a new WebTV Plus Network for the extraordinary smart TV features of the WebTV Plus boxes. You need the WebTV Plus to get both the Internet access and the smart TV features. You will not get them with the older webtv classic boxes or with the other current batch of competing Internet TV set-top devices. WebTV is in the lead at this time regarding Internet TV with these revolutionary smart TV features. When more people see how the WebTV Plus can turn an ordinary TV into a smart TV where you can watch a TV show and get more information by clicking a TV Crossover link, the WebTV Plus will have the potential for really taking off.

WebTV Plus Option Control
has a new "TV Window" button

As already reported in the News section of this Web TV Net Page, the November 30, 1997 issue of the Sunday Parade magazine supplement to American newspapers had a good write-up on the WebTV Plus. The WebTV Plus was mentioned as the first hi-tech gadget to get for 1998:

This new product, WebTV Plus, enhances television itself by merging regular TV and the Web. It provides an electronic TV program guide and clickable links that appear right in regular TV shows and connect you to Web-based additional information, product offers, and more.... This is in addition to the capability to surf the Web and to send and receive e-mail from your couch, using a remote control and a wireless keyboard....

As for new technical aspects for the WebTV Plus, they include a TV tuner with stereo decoder for the WebPIP so you can do the TV Crossover Links, a faster 56Kbps modem, a "VidModem" for very unique downloading of Internet-type information from a certain portion of the TV broadcast frequency which is probably where the TV Crossover Links will come from, a huge 1.08GB hard drive for what is called Directed Caching.

Although I still have to see the WebTV Plus in action, I'm guessing that the Directed Caching is apparently for Internet-style "Channels" where Internet information and pages are downloaded overnight or at certain times when people are not actually using the webtv+ (presumedly at night when people are asleep) so people can easily download the information and view the pages locally later without actually being connected online to the Internet. This would avoid the "World Wide WAIT" that everyone goes through when accessing the Internet in realtime. Think of this way: it would be like instantly accessing an Internet newspaper on the webtv+ 1.08 gigabyte hard drive without having to actually go online with a live telephone connection. This is like the computer desktop "channels" that you have with Microsoft Internet Explorer's Channels, Netscape Communicator's NetCast, the FreeLoader program, and the PointCast service. You can still go online and surf the Internet, but a "channels" function would help to make the Internet experience faster, immediate, enjoyable, and more TV-like for users.

So ... should you get a WebTV Plus? Well, please excuse my bias, but I say get one particularly if you want to turn your TV into a smart TV.