Over the past couple decades, VCRs, video game consoles, and cable TV have added some life to your good old TV set. Now, new technology and services are beginning to deliver on the promise of an even more enhanced viewing experience. In fact, it's not just "viewing" anymore—the convergence of video, the Internet, and telecommunications makes your TV the multitasking star of the family. Okay, maybe you remember the 1970s, when a generation began attaching game consoles to television sets to play Pong. Although the Pong generation grew bored of that game quickly—despite what they may have sworn to their parents while urging them to buy the new game—a habit was established for good. The TV set could do more than just deliver broadcast programming! And thus was born an industry effort to develop interactive TV. Today, the Motorola Streamaster 5000, an advanced set-top box, brings all the elements of interactive TV together. The Streamaster 5000 set-top box enables you to access a range of services—from video-on-demand to gaming to karaoke to Web browsing and e-mail—all through DSL (digital subscriber line) service over phone lines. Now, perhaps you're feeling a little lost. What's all the fuss about television-based Internet service, interactive TV, and personal video recorders? And what's the difference? Well, here are some definitions that may help: - Internet TV delivers Web and e-mail services over your TV set. But that doesn't necessarily mean convergence: The Internet connection operates using standard phone lines, completely separate from the lines that bring in your favorite TV shows. - Personalized TV, now available thanks to personal video recorders (PVRs), permits video recording and playback of what you want, when you want it, without the difficult programming. PVRs also allow you to "pause" or "replay" live TV. The PVR is a quantum leap beyond your VCR, but it doesn't have anything to do with the Internet. - Interactive TV brings programming and the Internet together, providing a means for couch potatoes to interact with what's on TV. Interactive TV represents the true convergence of services—Internet, TV, and phone service—and it is emerging thanks to IP (Internet protocol) technology and the proliferation of high-bandwidth networks. Interactive TV is what Motorola's Streamaster 5000 set-top box offers. And yes, all the services are offered through one set-top box. "A lot of the services that people would be getting are already available on other platforms," says Motorola's Ted Finch, Marketing Director of Multimedia Systems Division. "The difference is that it's all converged in a one-signal system that sits right there at the main portal in their home and in their television set." The Streamaster 5000 set-top box brings together all the technical capabilities that are now scattered throughout your house: gaming, found in the players in the kids' rooms; Internet access and e-mail abilities, now available through your home office PC; and movie viewing, found in the VCR or DVD player in your living room. And karaoke, now found...well, uh...hmmm. You're watching a football game or a cooking show. Seeking stats or the specifics of a recipe? Don't get up to go turn on the PC and check out the show's related website. You can do it on your TV, then and there. Too tired to go to the video store? Video-on-demand allows you to choose a movie when you want to see it, then rewind, pause, or fast-forward it at your convenience. Says Finch, "A lot of these services (customers are) already familiar with, but they're now available on one central system to the entire family."