Sony Internet TV Blu-ray Disc Player (NSZ-GT1)

Looking to add Google TV to your living room this holiday season? You have three options: Logitech's Revue ($299.99, 4 stars) set-top box, Sony's Internet TV HDTVs (starting at $799) or, the least hyped, but perhaps the most practical, of the trio, Sony's $399.99 (direct) Internet TV Blu-ray Disc Player (NSZ-GT1). The differences between the Revue and Sony's Blu-ray player can be simplified to this: The Logitech box costs $100 less and has built-in Harmony remote control technology, but no disc drive. For our money, the $100 more for a Blu-ray drive and basically an identical user interface is the best deal of the group, and it's our latest Editors' Choice Blu-ray player.

[Editors' Note: The NSZ-GT1 has recently gotten an upgrade to Google TV 3.1, a new version of the operating system that uses the 3.1 version of Android and completely changes the interface. The new version has a more visually appealing menu design and supports apps through the Android Market. These changes are good, but they do not warrant changing the player's rating. For more information about the new version of Google TV, please read our hands on coverage, which uses this device.]

Design
Measuring 2.3 by 13 by 9.8 inches (HWD), the 5.3-pound Sony Internet TV Blu-ray Disc Player's glossy plastic design makes it look more like a gaming console than a home-theater component. The top panel is black and the rest of the device is white, with the disc drive and Power, Eject, and Connect (for re-syncing the remote) buttons, along with an extra USB port, on the front panel. Connectivity for the player is similar to that of Logitech's Revue: both devices have an HDMI input and output, Ethernet connector, Optical (SPDIF) audio output, and power-adapter connection. The Sony player has one IR blaster connection and the Revue has two; the Sony player has three USB ports and the Revue has two. In other words, there's little difference in terms of connectivity. Both systems, sadly, lack analog audio or video outputs. The box ships with a double-sensor IR blaster, and the remote.

It's hard to say who wins the Google TV remote control war. The Revue's remote features excellent Logitech Harmony functionality, but is the size of a canoe. The Sony remote, while ideally sized, would benefit from a more streamlined design and better reception. Without a doubt, the Logitech remote is faster than Sony's, which depends far more on angle and finding a direct line to a sensor than the Revue remote does. Both remotes have QWERTY keyboards (the Revue's remote is, essentially, a full-size keyboard), but Sony's remote almost resembles a PlayStation game controller. The great thing about having a plethora of buttons and options on a remote?Sony's has far too many to name here?is that you can do just about anything.

Sometimes, however, it's possible to have too many. Why are there two click-wheel-esque areas on the remote, for instance? The left-hand set of buttons has Up/Down, Left/Right navigation controls surrounding an Enter button in the circle's center?a familiar array. The right side of the remote is laid out similarly, except that surrounding buttons are Home, Window Minimize (for simultaneous TV watching and access to the main screen), Settings, and Previous Screen. The center button, though click-able, is also a mini-trackpad for your finger. It works splendidly, utilizing just the right amount of sensitivity to guide a cursor around your television screen. The problem: it's also a button, and often does things one might assume an Enter button does. Except when it doesn't. Sometimes you can use either the Enter button or the trackpad button, sometimes you need to use one, specifically. Which button is the right one is rarely obvious, however, and the learning curve can be annoying. Why couldn't there just be one master trackpad and separate, dedicated Home and Settings buttons? Despite this gripe, typing is easy on the remote, and you eventually get the hang of everything else.

Setting Up
The processes of setting up the Sony Internet TV Blu-ray Disc Player and the Logitech Revue are quite similar. The first time you boot up and establish an Internet connection, you'll likely need to reboot after the firmware is updated, which can take upwards of 15 minutes. Once that's finished, the process is quick and painless. You'll need a Google account if you don't already have one (they are free) and obviously, you need an Internet connection?either wired via Ethernet or wireless. This box supports up to 802.11n Wi-Fi signals.

Getting the box and remote to control your AV receiver and DVR is also a simple process, that you're walked through with on-screen instructions. If you own certain DISH Network DVR boxes, you can integrate your live and recorded television content into searches you perform when looking for media?more on that in a bit.

Interface and Features
Google TV, if you aren't already familiar, is a new user interface that aims to organize all of your media into one easy-to-search system. The interface is well-designed and has fluid graphics. A main menu sits on the left side of your screen with the following choices: Bookmarks, Applications, Spotlight, Most Visited, Queue, What's On, Sony Recommends, and (if you have DISH), DISH Cinema. The primary differences between the Logitech Revue's interface and the Sony Internet TV interface involve which apps are preloaded. For instance, Sony's interface comes with Sony pay-on-demand content via an app called Qriocity. The Revue does not have Sony's app preloaded, but comes with Logitech's Media Player?a clunky-but-functional media streaming app that plays files wirelessly from your computer's hard drive. The Media Player on the Sony Blu-ray player accesses content from connected USB drives and also streams media from computers on your Wi-Fi network. It was slightly easier to use than Logitech's media player app, but the two work quite similarly. Other than these minor differences, which will be negated once the Android Marketplace for Google TV goes live in 2011 and all apps become available for download on both devices, the Google TV user interface remains pretty uniform. It looks great, and navigating it is a fairly intuitive process.

For your own files, the Sony Internet TV Blu-ray Disc Player supports playback of MPEG4 and H.264 for video, AAC and MP3 for audio files, and JPEG, GIF, and PNG for photos. This is pretty meager file support, but with so much on-demand content at your fingertips, it feels like less of a limitation.

Google's Chrome browser offers a slightly different Web experience than you may be familiar with. The browser keeps track of the sites you visit most and presents them to you as "live" icons?click on them and you are immediately taken to the site?that act as quicker, more visual bookmarks. This is a great experience on a personal computer, but if you plan on sharing access to the Google TV interface with household members, just remember: They will always be able to see what you were perusing on the Internet. So, remember to log out of your Web e-mail account, at the very least. Aside from the privacy issues, the basic annoyance is that a browser like Chrome uses frequency of visits to determine the order of its icons, so the order on a Google TV device will be determined not only by your preferences, but by others who use the device as well. This is the same on both the Revue and Sony's Blu-ray player. Multiple user logins would solve this problem, but alas, there's no option for it. On the bright side, the browser offers full Flash support.

Sony's Blu-ray player also comes preloaded with an assortment of familiar apps, like Amazon Video On Demand, Netflix, YouTube, and Napster. Again, down the road, you'll be able to add to these, but for now, what you see on the player is what you get. And remember: while some of these apps, like the New York Times videos, are free, much of the on-demand content requires an account and is available either by subscription (Netflix) or pay-per-view (Amazon).

If you're a DISH Network subscriber, both the Revue and Sony's Blu-ray player have the same built-in compatibility. All DVRs, for the most part, can be controlled by both boxes?they're armed with pretty capable remotes. DISH Network, however, is the only partnered television provider, and thus, when you search for content using the excellent Google search tool (the magnifying glass on your remote), your results will include your DVR recordings when appropriate. For instance, searching "NFL" will turn up the NFL Web site, NFL TV content you can access, and any recordings of NFL content. DVRs for other providers can be controlled remotely, but won't show up in your search results. Not all DISH DVRs are supported, either. Only the DISH 622, 722n, and 722k have fully integrated functionality with Sony Internet TV products and the Logitech Revue. The latest DISH DVR, the ViP922 ($200 and up, 4.5 stars), is not supported.

Blu-ray Performance
Oh yeah, this thing plays Blu-ray discs too. The player features a Quick Start mode that seems to put it into a sleep state when idle. In this mode, the player springs to life from the "sleep" state to the main menu, retaining everything in memory, in approximately two seconds. The sleep state may save some power, but not as much as just powering the box down does. With Quick Start disabled, the player boots up in an average of 34 seconds from fully off.

In our disc-loading tests, BD-Live-equipped discs took an average of 33 seconds to load from disc insertion to the first appearance of content, and older, non-BD-Live discs took an average of 16 seconds to load. The player's Blu-ray disc speed isn't blazing fast like the Sony BDP-S570 ($199, 4 stars) or the Samsung BD-C6500 ($249, 4 stars) players' approximate 10-second disc loading times, but not horribly long, either. These times are average?more than acceptable for a convergence device that does so many things.

The HD HQV Benchmark Blu-ray Disc didn't uncover any big surprises with the player; it passed all of our tests, with a minor caveat. Video processing is functional, but the noise reduction algorithm didn't quite get the job done, showing some grain and slight detail reduction in the test picture. Generally speaking, however, this Blu-ray player performs quite well and its minor noise issue is unlikely to irk anyone but the pickiest videophile.

The Sony Internet TV Blu-ray Player isn't flawless?the remote's design could be improved and file support is limited. But let's talk money. You'd be lucky to find a quality Blu-ray player for $100. The Revue and the Sony player are nearly identical?their primary difference is the Revue's Harmony remote advantage. But for only $100 more, you get the same user interface and basic functionality, plus a drive for Blu-ray discs, DVDs and CDs. With the Sony Google TV HDTVs starting at $800, the company's $400 Blu-ray player strikes me as the soundest investment if you want Google TV. It may not be the fastest loading player with the highest video quality, but Sony's Internet TV Blu-ray Player earns our Editors' Choice by integrating Google TV at a reasonable price.

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