FyreTV is jumping into virtually the same space vacated by ITVN. Starting this fall, its free MPEG H.264-based set-top boxes will deliver "DVD-quality" porn from the Internet to TV sets around the country--no PC required. The content isn't free, of course. Subscribers will get 100 minutes for $9.99 a month. Though that's clearly less than a standard 2-hour movie, company founder Estefano Isaias Jr. told me that studies have show that most users will only watch 4 minutes at a time anyway. Ick.

With Ethernet, composite, component and optical audio ports, the FyreTV box is roughly the same size as ITVN's old one, but FyreTV's adds HDMI out (though with only DVD quality, this seems somewhat unnecessary). To its credit, this box adds WiFi support, but only for 802.11G

Fully aware of ITVN's fate, FyreTV's Isaias insisted that his company "has a business model," even though the monthly fees are virtually the same and ITVN's box was free as well (with a one-year subscription). Though the latter company tried to shed its porn baggage, by changing the service name and wrangling deals with content partners such as Starz/Encore and Major League Baseball, most offerings were underwhelming, and many of the promised deals and content never materialized.

There was also a fair amount of customization on the ITVN service, but FryeTV takes it to new and alarming heights. The company has managed to tag and index individual movie scenes (DVD scenes and chapters) from 25,000 movies for all kinds of pornography genres. This means you can search for virtually any kind of sexual act or possibility and jump to scenes within thousands of movies to find...ahem...exactly what you're looking for.

During the recent Digital Life Press preview in Manhattan, FyreTV execs were only too eager to demonstrate exactly how these features work. They had the HDTV turned away from the crowd and even added extra shielding to the sides so no one could see what you were seeing. Even so, the experience of viewing even 10 seconds of porn at a busy press event is unsettling, to say the least. I tried to focus on the palm fronds in one scene (instead of the sex act right next to them) and noticed something I'd call somewhat below DVD quality. FyreTV's Isaias told me that had more to do with the quality of the original video than his service's 1.5-MBps throughput.

Can FyreTV survive where others have failed? Hard to say. The world of set-top boxes has changed dramatically since ITVN launched three years ago. Boxes from Apple and Roku let you see what you want, when you want it from your TV, including R- and unrated content (though not porn).