OTHER TECH

Then it was on to searching for dogs, wire-hair, dachshunds, the Numa dude who did that hilarious lip-sync to a Balkan pop song a few years ago, fights, stop-action animations, and so forth. If you don't want to type in search terms, you can go with the 25 preset categories. Suddenly, it's 11 pm and you've barely scratched the surface. But I do have one main gripe: The EVA doesn't retain its aspect-ratio setting from one video to the next for 4:3 programs, which on a widescreen TV should have side panels buttressing the 4:3 frame. Each new stream requires you to cycle through the EVA's aspect ratios to keep the YouTube videos (which are overwhelmingly 4:3) from being stretched. I can live with YouTube's not-ready-for-HDTV resolution in exchange for the amazing variety of content; I can't watch billiard tricks when balls look like eggs. Netgear says it hopes to fix the problem in a future upgrade.

The EVA8000's ability to play Internet radio in my home theater allows me to hear some local AM stations that my receiver's lousy AM tuner can't get. In addition, I'm able to listen to Harry Shearer's Le Show and Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz streaming in from a radio station in Albany that's well out of my New York City broadcast area. I can add my own stations to the EVA8000's Internet radio menu or sort through hundreds of preset ones by genre or bit rate (I usually restrict music listening to stations streaming at 160 kilobits per second or more).

Browsing strangers' family photo albums isn't exactly something I'm going to give up The Sopranos for, but the Flickr service is yet another way to kill time with the EVA8000. I'm sure it's a lot more compelling when you have a personal connection to the images. But other EVA8000 amenities include RSS feeds, news, and the ability to communicate to someone on a networked computer by spelling out messages on the remote or picking from a menu of canned phrases. (I clicked "Dinner!" off the menu and "broadcast" it over the network to my wife playing Solitaire in the computer room.) You can also use the browser software on your computer to control the EVA8000 from another room.