The new crop of internet television solutions (Apple TV, Google TV, Boxee Box, et al) are more capable than ever.  However, despite the technological readiness of all this new hardware (or perhaps because of  it), cable/broadcast networks are more reluctant than ever to allow their content onto these devices.

There’s every indication, in fact, that the process of developing viable and sustainable business models built around getting premium internet video content directly to to the television is going to take the various stakeholders (including cable/satellite operators and advertisers) much longer than the more optimistic of us had hoped.

It’s a little frustrating.

What’s an out-of-patience viewer to do?

Fortunately, while networks continue to shy away from the television, they seem more comfortable than ever allowing access to their content from the safe confines of your computer’s web browser:

• For many, hulu has become virtually a browser-based ‘DVR in the cloud’ for catching up on recently missed programming from 3 out of the 4 major US broadcast networks (only Disney/ABC, with its close ties to Apple/iTunes, continues to shun hulu).
• Program-specific websites such as those of The Daily Show and Fox News Sunday (my two favorite news-related entertainment programs) often now routinely make extended interviews and other additional content available online.

There’s a reason why content owners are increasingly friendly to the web browser yet continue to view the internet-connected television with such fear and loathing: the computer offers a sufficiently lousy user experience (single-viewer, non-aggregated content, desktop-based) so as to not threaten incumbent television revenue streams.

Waiting indefinitely for ‘the internet television device of the future’ or buying an interim device such as Apple TV that lacks content already available a few feet away on my web browser are both unattractive options.  But what if I could get my desktop computer’s audio and video output over to the HDMI input on my television wirelessly?  Technically, it’s a non-trivial technical challenge: the typical home TCP/IP wifi network can barely handle a buffered and highly compressed video stream’s packets.  HDMI, on the other hand, is a much more bandwidth-intensive protocol – designed to run on a wire with zero compromise on quality, HDMI couldn’t care less about accommodating or recovering from the vagaries and dynamic fluctuations of wireless network performance.

But hey, I only needed to cover the 30 feet from one side of my living room to the other - what I needed was a short, fat pipe.

So I started looking into it – and here’s what I found…

Solution 1:  WiMedia WiMedia (not to be confused with WiMax) was based on a technology initially branded as Ultra Wide Band (UWB).  Although it claimed speeds of 480 Mbps (over three times that of 802.11n) and offered the quality of service required to support HDMI, WiMedia turned out to be a pretty major fail (according to google’s search results, wimedia.org was last updated back on January 4, 2010).

There’s still at least one first-generation WiMedia product still out there, though  – the USB-AV2010 from Cables Unlimited.  At only $99, I decided to give this cute little thing a try – and I’m happy to report that it works more or less as advertised.  True, it requires a line-of-site connection and can only stream at 720p resolution.  True, motion can appear jumpy at times and I still have to get up and walk over to the computer to control playback via clunky web browsers or iTunes – but considering the device’s low price and the luxury of not having to wait a few years for premium internet video content to finally show up on my television, I would say I’m a satisfied customer.

Solution 2: Wireless HD Supported by a slew of major hardware manufacturers (including Sony, Panasonic, LG, Toshiba, Samsung, and Toshiba), this HDMI-to-HDMI solution is one of the leading current contenders in the nascent “short fat pipe” market.  Wireless HD offers a dramatic performance improvement over ye olde WiMedia: the v2.0 spec announced at CES this year promises theoretical speeds from 10 to 20 Gbps – faster than most wired ethernet home networks, and more than enough bandwidth for even 4k screen resolutions.  However, Wireless HD requires an HDMI-equipped computer, a Wireless HD transmitter, and either a Wireless HD-enabled television or a Wireless HD-enabled set-top receiver.

Solution 3: Intel WiDi (Intel Wireless Display) Also debuting at the 2010 CES this past January was Intel’s Wireless Display technology, a feature supported by a select group of 2011 Intel CPUs and wireless (802.11n) network interface chips.  Buy a computer running these new Intel chips, buy the new $99 Netgear Push2TV receiver (that connects to the TV via HDMI), and you’re good to go.  Intel’s Wireless Display claims to have accomplished the neat trick of implementing a high-speed RF connection capable of offering the same 720p resolution that WiMedia does while running over Intel’s re-purposed wireless network interface chip.  Sound too good to be true?  Judging by WIDi’s lukewarm Amazon user reviews, it just might be.  Additionally, baked-in DRM (digital management rights) prevents the use of DVDs or Blue Ray disks (an interesting case of DRM being used to protect hardware manufacturers rather than content owners).   Still, if you happen to already own one of the several new laptops that support it, at the cost of a $99 Netgear box, it might be worth a try.

Solution 4: HP Wireless TV Connect Next up is Hewlett Packard, which launched their Wireless TV Connect platform just a few months ago.  Like Wireless HD, this is an HDMI-to-HDMI solution – however, Wireless TV Connect consists of two boxes: a receiver and a transmitter.  So while you don’t need a computer with a new Intel chipset, you do need a machine with an HDMI output (you didn’t expect to get away without having to buy a new computer, did you?).  On the plus side, since Wireless TV Connect uses a dedicated transmitter rather than an 802.11n network interface, it has bandwidth to spare – enough to support 1080p video, 8 audio channels, and several Dolby audio formats (including 5.1 surround).  On the minus side, the two-box solution feels a bit clunky – it almost screams ‘interim solution’.  Add to that the $199 price and the need for an HDMI-equipped computer, and you’ve got to really want internet television now to consider going with this solution.

Solution 5: WiMedia 2.0 Just when I thought Wimedia (Solution 1) was dead and gone, I came across these  two WiMedia-based products:

• Veebeam is a startup that has just launched a product based on WiMedia technology running at a higher frequency (to distance themselves from the failed WiMedia initiative,  they’re calling their core technology “Wireless USB” rather than sticking with the somewhat tarnished “Ultra Wideband” brand).  Like my Cables Unlimited device, Veebeam is priced to move at $99, there’s a USB  dongle transmitter with driver software to install, and there’s a receiver hub with an HDMI port for the TV.  Unlike my Cables Unlimited device, though, it runs on Mac as well as Windows, and there’s a 1080p version available for $139.
• And then there’s this: towards the end of my research I was amused to across an announcement for a “new” product by IOGEAR.   From the product photo and the specs, though, it appears to be the very same device I bought from Cables Unlimited for $99 – except including software support for Apple OSX and a $180 price tag (you can’t blame ‘em for trying…)

Whew.  As you can see, it’s a crowded field out there.  In the end, having looked over all the various ‘short fat pipe’ solutions out there, I think I did pretty well with my $99 investment.  Compared to, say, a $99 Apple TV, I’ve traded the convenience of being able to control the video from the couch for all the content that’s available on my web browser today but won’t be available on Apple (or Google) TV for quite some time to come, it appears.

A pretty good trade-off, I think.