VIZIO, America’s TV and Consumer Electronics Company, announced today the unveiling of its "Connected HDTV" Platform, which enhances the HDTV viewing experience by bringing personalized entertainment, information and social networking content into the viewer’s living room. With unprecedented choice and control of web-based and local content from a wide range of popular content providers and services, including on-demand movies and music, news, weather, sports, gaming and social networking services, this platform will be integrated as a key feature into VIZIO televisions shipping to retailers nationwide this Fall 2009 in time for the busy holiday season.

So I guess even if my next television is a Vizio (which I have been very happy with for the last two years), I’ll still get all the same benefits of having Internet connectivity.  It’s good to see all of the major television manufacturers moving towards the same trend.  Is it just a matter of time, though, before we see things like a television with a built in gaming platform as well?

One thing that’s not clear from all the press releases is the details around what browser (if any) will be built into the televisions, and how well they’ll support RIA (rich Internet applications).  I’m sure details will be forthcoming for developers, though.

According to the official press release:

Sony’s new XBR9 and Z-series models feature an Ethernet connection, allowing the sets to directly access Sony BRAVIA Internet Video content using an existing broadband connection. The service offers one of the largest selections of free and premium movies, TV shows, sports, music and more from an array of partners like Amazon Video on Demand, YouTube(R), Yahoo!(R), Slacker, and others.

If Sony’s TVs weren’t so expensive, this might be interesting for me.  I’m going to stick with my “low end” Vizio LCD TV for now.  It may not have any direct connections to the Internet, but the picture quality is good, and I can always surf the web with my Nintendo Wii or watch streaming Netflix movies with my Xbox 360.  But it’s good to see that manufacturers are starting to build these kinds of capabilities directly into newer TVs.  Something for me to look forward to in maybe 4-5 years, I suppose.

Is this a sign that DRM is on its way out?

Apple announced today that all music purchased from iTunes will now be DRM-free (digital rights management free), meaning that a track purchased from iTunes can be played on any music device regardless of manufacturer or owner.  In the same announcement, Apple also indicated three tiers of pricing: $0.69, $0.99 and $1.29 USD per track, as opposed to a flat $0.99 per track previously.  Most albums will still cost $9.99 USD.

Apple’s move away from DRM really doesn’t seem to be so much about offering benefits to subscribers.  Customers happily bought from iTunes even without being able to purchase DRM-free tracks, and most people know that you could always burn your purchased albums to CD-ROM and then re-rip them (perhaps at a loss of audio fidelity) back into DRM-free MP3s, amongst many other methods of removing DRM from Apple’s iTunes music.  It would appear, however, that this move is more about getting away from DRM as a mechanism to protect content due to its unpopularity with consumers.

DRM as a technological concept has caused much heartache for consumers.  Much of the early complaints about Microsoft Windows Vista had to do with the excessively restrictive DRM requirements around high definition content, and the hardware connections required to view it – through video cards and monitors that supported HDCP.  Gamers have been miffed with unrealistic DRM requirements as well, with EA fighting a publicity backlash over their decision to only allow a limited number of installations of their much-anticipated game Spore, which ultimately led to them making a DRM-free version available as well.  Spore still sports a 1.5 star rating from Amazon.com, with most complaints being about the DRM restrictions.  And many sites that sold DRM-enabled content, such as Yahoo Music, have recently gone under, leaving many customers with unplayable music tracks.

DRM seems like a shortcut to solving the real problems around monetization of digital content – in whatever format it might be, including videos, music, and software content.  Publishers seem to think that the only way to keep people "honest" is to overload content with restrictions and limitations, even ones that clearly impinge on fair use.  But the market seems to have spoken loudly about DRM: it doesn’t work (in its current forms), and there must be a balance of fair use.  Hopefully the news from Apple today represents a signal to content publishers that DRM is broken, in more ways than one.

More than 146 million U.S. Internet users watched an average of 87 videos per viewer in November. Google Sites attracted 98 million online video viewers, or approximately two out of every three Internet users who watched video during the month. Fox Interactive ranked second with 58.1 million viewers, followed by Yahoo! Sites (40 million) and Microsoft Sites (35 million).

Meanwhile, LG and Netflix announced plans for LG to sell the first HDTV sets with Netflix streaming built in.  It’ll come at a premium, though: the Netflix-capable sets will cost $200 to $300 above market value for similar HDTVs.  I’ll stick to watching Netflix video streaming over my Xbox 360 for now, thank you very much.

Also adding to the mix, Intel announced a new set-top device that will allow consumers to view Adobe Flash content (including YouTube, Google Video, Hulu and others), as well as other content live from the Internet.  But if you own a Nintendo Wii, you’re probably already doing that today using Opera and maybe visiting VideoSift.

Radio, telephone, newspapers, and television.  Is there anything the Internet can’t do?

[comScore details c/o PRNewswire]