BitTorrent considers itself to be a major player in the emerging video download market, right alongside Apple. Though its software is known more for Napster-style illegal-file swapping, the company has scored major deals with movie studios like Paramount and Warner Bros. and plans to launch a legal movie download store on its Web site in February.

The new Netgear product, developed with BitTorrent, will find any media that is sitting on your PC (high-def movies, music, photos, etc) and send it over to your TV, over a speedy wireless standard that the techies call 802.11G.

Debuting this week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the Digital Entertainer HD is a sleek set-top media receiver that connects to a home-theater system to stream digital media from computers, network storage and USB media players. The receiver automatically discovers, organizes and plays high-definition movies, TV shows, music files and personal photos — as well as Internet-based video, news feeds, weather reports and radio programs. The receiver’s high-definition multimedia interface (HDMI) port displays video resolution up to 1080p on big-screen TVs and optical digital audio output (TOSLINK) transmits full digital surround sound to a digital audio receiver.

Source: New York Times