one of the fundamental beliefs of those who love the internet is that this medium will be a source of entertainment like television... a brave new communications tool that will permeate every home, competing not only with tv, but with your telephone as well...

towards that end, some pretty smart people have put together a way of accessing the net that does not require an expensive home computer. WebTV is a 325 dollar black box that you connect to your television. plug in a phone line and you have nearly instant access to the internet via a high speed modem.

philips, magnavox and sony have teamed up to bring out the first consumer-grade internet device that is truly affordable... and i must say WebTV is a pretty impressive, if somewhat limited, device.

Buying WebTV is simple... there's only one model and only one maker. Assuming you have about 350 bucks to spend, there is really only one decision to make: whether to spring for a 70 dollar wireless keyboard. Monthly internet access runs 20 bucks no matter how long you stay online.

Setting up WebTV is even easier than buying it. Three wires, one for video, two for audio connect the unit to your television. Plug in a phone line, turn web-tv on, and it automatically launches you into the sign-on process. There are no local internet access numbers to look up, no IP addresses and other arcane details to figure out. I was online within 10 minutes of opening the box. Compare that to the hours and hours it took to get my home computer online and so far web tv is looking like the ultimate pc- killer. (1:15)

But once you get online, the flaws in the system jump out in 21 vertical inches...that's how TV's are measured. My television's resolution.... that is, how clearly it displays images.... is not all that great... but that's the nature of American television screens. The first thing I noticed about the web on tv is that everything is just a bit blurry, especially text. Reading long stories online has always been difficult, web tv makes it even harder.

Also, when i am online on my computer, i am about 2 feet from the screen. my living room isn't so optimally arranged and i found myself sitting on the coffee table a lot with web tv.

Despite the rumblings that the net will compete with television for viewers, web tv makes one thing very clear. The world wide web is still really really silent and static. Web TV supports some audio, but lacks support for the most standard video and audio formats online. I couldn't listen to All Things Considered for example because, as web-tv told me, the show is stored as a kind of information webtv can't use. How's that for a cryptic user- unfriendly message?

But WebTV does have some pretty neat features that I should note. First, if you are like most people and have only one phone line, WebTV will automatically disconnect from the net and route your incoming calls through to your phone. Of course, you have to have call waiting to use this feature, but WebTV is smart enough to wait patiently until you've finished your call, then automatically redials you into the web. (2:30)

The infrared keyboard is cool beyind words. Simple technology, but it left me wondering why I don't use one on my pc at work.

Finally, there is a place on the WebTV box to plug in those smart cards you hear so much about, but no information on when or what you might use it for.

The entire unit performed flawlessly, connected everytime and despite my personal desire to have more control over the innards, I suspect for most people the lack of ways to futz with modem settings and dip switches will be a really big plus. If WebTV does one thing right it is the simplicity of the entire experience.

Oddly, my biggest criticism is not of WebTV itself, but of the world wide web as a whole. WebTV had the effect of underscoring just how far the internet must go to become a medium of the masses. On a TV screen, the web seems extraordinarily lifeless. For those of us involved in the internet business, viewing the web on WebTV should prove a very humbling experience. 3:30