“The subtext of this show is that the internet has won.”

So declared Intel executive vice president Sean Maloney when I met him for breakfast at the ungodly hour of 7am in Las Vegas today.

To which the obvious response is: Well, up to a point.

As at other recent Consumer Electronics Shows, bringing internet services and content into the consumer electronics realm has been a big talking point at this years’ event. Sharp and Samsung showed off TVs that can draw content straight off the internet, no PC required. Microsoft added some more partners for its Xbox Live video marketplace.

Yet given how big the expectations -and the hype - have been, this seems very little to brag about (and anyway, doesn’t viewing weather forecasts from USA Today on your Samsung TV somehow feel very 1992?)

Robbie Bach, Microsoft’s top consumer honcho, was putting a diplomatic face on things when I met him later. He pointed out that the big TV networks are all trying out ways of distributing shows online, even if they can’t agree yet on a business model, and the movie studios are releasing more titles, even if they generally still feel safer for now with the familiar video-on-demand model rather than download-to-own.

Privately, other senior tech industry executives I’ve spoken to in the last couple of days have been far more sceptical than him. According to one, all the heat surrounding the Blu-ray / HD-DVD format war shows that Hollywood is looking the wrong way: it should instead be rushing to build an online distribution business as fast as it can, before it is overtaken by the same fate that has befallen the record labels.

It seems fitting that the biggest buzz at this year’s show has surrounded Pansonic’s 150-inch TV and Sony’s ultra-thin OLED screen (the same model that went on sale in Japan late last year, though in only very limited numbers.) Perhaps you’re too cheap to pay $2,500 for an 11 inch TV, but these are still the dream screens that the consumer electronics industry believes you should be aspiring to. Only, don’t ask whether they come with a USB port on the back.

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