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Netgem netbox with a smart card.


I have been playing with the dial-up PSTN version of the Netgem netbox The first thing I will say about the Netgem netbox is that it is a very small set-top box. It has a built-in V90 56kbps modem, a Linux-based operating system, and Netgem's proprietary browser software which supports HTML 3.2, javascript, GIF, JPG, TIFF, WAV, AU, AIFF, GSM6.10, BMP, AVI, MP3, PNG, Flash, and MIDI. The midi sound is great compared to other set-tops I've listened to. There is also the expected smart card reader built into the netbox. And a smart card came with the evaluation model of the netbox that I've been playing with. And it is all in such a small set-top box. The box itself is a plastic box that is 9x6x1 inches in size making it about the size of an external modem. And that's much smaller than a VCR.





The netbox is as small as
the netbox remote keyboard


In addition to the PSTN version of the netbox, there are also ISDN and Ethernet versions of the netbox for high-speed internet access. And there is a Netgem netbox³ with an embedded cable-modem (DOCSIS). The netbox was first developed for the European marketplace. So, the evaluation model I was playing with is a box in the process of being tweaked for use in the American market. Since the box is still being worked on for the American NTSC standard, the video picture-in-picture (PIP) had a little black margin at the bottom of the PIP. Also, as an evaluation model, the START screen's onscreen buttons for EPG, News, Town, and Life were not working (the Netgem folks say those buttoms are the TV-Top "service" buttons). The netbox was relatively easy to set up. On the back of the netbox are output jacks for the telephone line, power, an external IR blaster (transmitter), and SCART auxiliary (for input from a VCR, cable, or camcorder) and TV (for output to the TV).





Back of the netbox


The external power plug and the phone line are easy enough to attach. Then there are a couple of SCART cables. They are really SCART cable adapters for the American market. SCART cables are used in Europe and you don't really see them in the U.S. except maybe at those rare stores catering to travelers who travel with their own TV equipment. SCART cables are probably easier to use since you just plug in one end of a SCART cable into the box and the other end into a TV. With the way TV audio/video cables are set up here in the States, you have to plug the audio to audio, video to video (or S-Video to S-Video), yellow to yellow, white to white, red to red, etc. That can be a tangled mess if you have a lot of electronics in your audio-video system. In Europe, it's SCART to SCART. No fuss, no muss. With this netbox made in France being used in the U.S., it's the SCART adapter to the tangle of cables and plugs for the American device. Not too complicated, but seeing this SCART makes me appreciate how others are making it easier to hook up electronics in other parts of the world.





netbox and SCART cable adapters


Once I had it all plugged in and had the TV turned on, I got a screen on the TV telling me to configure the settings on the netbox. Keep in mind that if you ever get a Netgem netbox, and it will most likely be sold by another company under a different brandname, you will most likely NOT have to configure the technical ISP settings. You may only have to insert a smart card, set up a new account for billing purposes, and you're ready to go. With this evaluation model, I had to insert the smart card and configure the settings. I set up the netbox evaluation model with an ISP account for both access and email and the netbox was ready to go surfing the internet. Again, the regular consumer may only have to plug and play without having to configure the actual ISP technical settings. The consumer should have a more automatic set-up process compared to the tedious technical set-up I had to go through in configuring the netbox evaluation model.

The netbox came with an interesting handheld remote control with a built-in "joystick" for moving around a webpage. Instead of a bunch of buttons and cursor keys on the remote control, there is a "joystick" along with a blue button for going to the "Last" page and a green button for "validating" your selection. "Validating" is clicking a link on a screen. You can also use the remote to go to the TV side for watching TV and to pull up the menu guide on the Internet TV side for accessing Internet functions.





netbox handheld remote control
with joystick in the middle that you
operate with your thumb or finger


I ended up using the remote keyboard most of the time with the netbox. The keyboard looks like the standard rectangular remote keyboard you get with other set-top boxes such as with the WebTV. The layout of the keyboard is generally what you would expect for a keyboard. There is a TV/netbox key where an escape key normally would be in the upper left on the top row for turning off the netbox so you can watch regular TV. Also on the top row to right of the TV/netbox key are F1 through F9 keys where F1 is Home, F2 is WWW (for inputting a website address), F3 is Favts (Favorites), F4 is Search (default was Yahoo on this evaluation model), and F5 is email. Further on the top row are keys for Reload, Prev. (Previous), Next, Help, Print, Option, and Stop. The Stop key was useful to cancel requests to go to a website that wasn't responding. You could use the Stop key as you would use an escape key on a regular computer keyboard. On the right side of the keyboard are the expected Top of Page (labeled as an Arrow pointing upwards to the upper left), PgUp, PgDn, and End (of page). And there is the usual inverted Tee of cursor keys in the lower left of the keyboard. In the lower right of the keyboard are keys for Menu, Ctrl, and Alt. to the right of the space bar are keys for Alt and Bookmark. An interesting key to the left of the space bar is a key for typing the @ sign and the € Euro currency sign.





netbox standard keyboard


Consumers may have to purchase the remote keyboard separately from the netbox. The netbox would come with the handheld remote control. If you don't get keyboard, the netbox does have an onscreen keyboard that you type with using the handheld remote control. But you may want to get the remote keyboard to use instead of having to poke away at the onscreen keyboard with the remote control.

Netgem onscreen keyboard

Since this netbox did not have a built-in TV Tuner, I had to hook up the netbox to another box, such as a VCR or a cable box, to get a TV picture for the picture-in-picture (PIP). It took me a while to figure out how to do that, but once I got that working, I started surfing the net and watching TV (using the PIP) all at the same time.


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