Netgear have announced a new Internet TV settop box that will play video streams from Youtube etc. But also has an inbuilt torrent app allowing users across the world to download any TV show or movie they want.

The new hardware lets owners view internet streaming from video sites such as YouTube straight onto their Television screen. Much more exciting though is the device’s built-in BitTorrent client. Watching movies and TV episodes on BitTorrent is popular because you can view from anywhere in the world.

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.

What is a torrent?
A torrent is a very small file with the suffix .torrent. This file contains the information required to download a file which the torrent was made for. A torrent is one of the most popular ways of downloading big files such as movies TV shows and games (although its legality is in question)

In effect, using a torrent for a popular movie or show makes downloading faster because the more people that want to download it results in a higher download speed for all users.

* A torrent is a file
* Torrents allow you to download anything and everything on the internet
* Each movie or show has a unique torrent file used to download it
* You need to use a torrent client to download the file

A torrent is a slightly different method of p2p sharing and there are many torrent clients available.

The new Netgear device will be popular outside the US, as that is where most of the TV torrent downloads occur. The main reason being that fans have to wait for weeks or months before hit TV shows air in their own countries.

The device also has a USB socket to allow connection of external USB drives. Plug in, and watch all your videos on your big screen TV instantly. Netgear’s Internet TV Player will cost $200, and be available in early Summer 2009.

Of course many people can already watch downloaded movies and tv shows just by buying a lead and connecting a notebook straight to your TV. So this device will be for the uninitiated, especially at this price.

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