Going by the mantra “silent, cool and small,” Steve Jobs has reintroduced the AppleTV.

No longer merely a company “hobby,” the device looks to be a strong contender in the race to win broad consumer acceptance of streaming video flowing through widescreen TVs.

The price is $99, down from $299 on the much larger original product. The new AppleTV should be available in four weeks.

Speaking at an Apple press conference, Jobs introduced the second-generation AppleTV with a list of the things consumers sought in an entertainment center black box:

“The No. 1, 2 and 3 thing they want: They want Hollywood movies and TV shows whenever they want them. They don’t want amateur hour. They want everything in HD.

And, Jobs said, they want living room boxes to be “”silent, cool and small.”

The movies and TV shows come as HD rentals only, via iTunes. The debut prices are $4.99 for a film and 99 cents for a recent TV episode.

“They get cheaper as time goes on,” Jobs said.

As expected, Apple’s network TV partners are ABC and Fox. “Not all of the studios wanted to take this step with us,” Jobs said. “Maybe they’ll see the light.” ABC was a gimmie as Jobs holds the cards on the board of Walt Disney Co., which owns the alphabet network.

Netflix users get their Watch Instantly, well, instantly. “This is by far the best implementation of Netflix so far,” the Apple chief said.

Demonstrating the AppleTV’s horizontal navigation (with dropdowns), Jobs showed how to import music, pictures and video from a nearby computer — and the iPad.

But, he said in an apparent dig at Google TV, consumers “don’t want a computer on their TV. They have computers. They go to their widescreen TVs for entertainment. This is a hard one for people to understand in the computer industry. Consumers understand. They get it.”

YouTube, MobileMe, Flicker and Internet radio stations are in the mix as well.

The AppleTV reveal came as the “one more thing …” segment of Apple’s product news conference in San Francisco. The news had been widely expected.

The other products were an upgraded iPod Touch, an iPod Shuffle that returns buttons to the device, a smaller Nano with a touch screen (and no buttons) and a social network-driven update to iTunes.

Google TV debuts in the fall, with Android apps. It will run on cable boxes and Sony HDTVs, along with other entertainment hardware TBA.

The networks previously rejected Apple’s plan to rent the TV programs on iTunes at that price point, but Fox reportedly is now in advanced talks with the computer innovator.

Viewers would be able to rent episodes from News Corp.’s Fox for two days, sources told Bloomberg. They’d be available within 24 hours of first-run broadcasts.

ABC also appears ready to cut a deal, Bloomberg said.

Apple’s Steven Jobs is the major player on the board of Walt Disney Co., which owns the alphabet network. (Jobs, left, is shown with the old AppleTV box.)

There remain sticking points in the iTunes negotiations, the New York Times reports. (Both Bloomberg and the Times quoted anonymous sources close to the talks.)

TV episodes currently sell for $2 to $3 on iTunes. The networks feared that cheap and easily available rentals of their primetime shows would dilute their value for retransmission, and for DVD/Blu-ray. So what changed?

Apple is widely expected to unveil its iTV product on Sept. 7. Speculation has it that the new box would replace the wobbly AppleTV product at a lower price. Reports over the summer said that the simple $99 version iwould be an “iPhone without a screen” — complete with apps and streaming video, some of it in 1080p HD. (The operating system and user interfaces would be similar to those on the iPhone and iPad.)

In early June, Jobs was downbeat on chances for a game-changing set-top box:

“The television industry fundamentally has a subsidized business model that gives everyone a set-top box for free or for $10 a month. That pretty much squashes any opportunity for innovation because nobody’s willing to buy (an expensive) set-top box,” he said.

“I’m sure smarter people than us will figure this out,” Jobs said, referring to the marriage of the Web and television.

Google TV debuts early this fall.

The bugs seem mostly ironed out, and you do get a glimpse of home video’s future via its user-friendly menus and features. We’re seeing more high definition movies via the stream, which look pretty good on a big-screen.

The biggest problem, which Netflix has been scrambling to address, is its limited catalog. The hits are in short supply and everything feels, well, used.

Looks like a partial fix is on its way. Netflix just confirmed an online streaming deal with the three Hollywood studios that own the little-known pay TV channel Epix.

That brings Netflix subscribers Epix movies from Paramount, MGM and Lionsgate to Netflix, beginning Sept. 1.

You won’t be able to “watch instantly” — there’s a 90-day window after the films’ debut on premium TV and on-demand subscription services — but the move clearly means a quantum leap in Netflix’s online offerings. (Watch Instantly is three steps down the distribution channel.)

It’s not clear how many recent boxoffice hits will be flowing through the channel. Epix movies of the moment include “Iron Man,” the latest “Star Trek,” “The Cove,” “G.I. Joe” and “Crank” — almost all more than a year old.

Catalog titles include the “Godfather” trilogy, “Blood Simple,” “Star Trek” movies, “Dances With Wolves” and “Last Tango in Paris.” That the cream of the archives, however: Anyone for “976-Horror 2″?

Epix immediately becomes profitable with the deal, studio executives pointed out. Good thing, since its current distribution is approximately squat.

Netflix’s stock picked up even more speed with the news, posting a 7 percent gain on announcement day.

The deal runs for five years and is worth as much as $1 billion, the Los Angeles Times and Reuters said.

Netflix outputs its streaming content to computers, game consoles such as the Xbox 360 and to various consumer electronics devices such as Blu-ray players.

“Adding Epix to our growing library of streaming content, as the exclusive Internet-only distributor of this great content, marks the continued emergence of (Watch Instantly),” said Ted Sarandos, chief content officer for Netflix.

The DVD rental giant recently pacted with Warners for rights to show “Nip/Tuck,” “Veronica Mars” and various catalog TV shows.

Its month-old deal for guy-oriented Relativity Media films (”Robin Hood,” “Get Him to the Greek”) allows for streaming during the “pay TV window.” Netflix said this would mark “the first time that studio quality theatrical feature films will be streamed via subscription by Netflix instead of being broadcast by the traditional pay providers.”

The price of these treasures = $9.99 a month. Fair enough, but you’ll still be looking at ads.

No launch date was announced for Hulu Plus, and the service appears to be in a working beta that rolls out in stages.

Early adopters can get in on the Hulu Plus preview, if and when they’re selected. Another possiblity: Follow Hulu on Twitter and Facebook, and hope you’re picked at random. (Apply and you’ll be asked about your age and related electronics.)

Here’s what’s known about features:

“Current Season Ticket” – The full season of primetime shows from ABC, NBC and Fox. The Hulu Plus promo page lists 33 shows, including “Dancing With the Stars,” “Desperate Housewives,” “Glee,” “The Office,” “Saturday Night Live,” “Happy Town” and “Lost.”

Previous seasons — “Every episode of every season from many of TV’s greatest shows,” including “The X-Files,” “Heroes,” “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” “Ally McBeal” and some of the series listed above.

Going mobile — Connections to the service are made via broadband, 3G and wifi.

iThings — iPhones (3GS up), the iPad and iPod Touch (third generation). All via the Apple App Store.

TV devices — Some TVs and Blu-ray players from Samsung, Sony and Vizio.

Game consoles — PlayStation3 and Xbox 360, with PS3 up first and the Xbox sometime in 2011.

HD — “High def” in 720p resolution for HD-native content. That means all top current TV shows.

In a perfect world, all this would be an upgrade to the existing free Hulu, but the media giants who own the shop made it clear in the past year that revenues had to start flowing from viewers’ pockets. Hulu tried to monetize itself solely with advertising revenues, but that didn’t prove rich enough for its owners.

“Hulu Plus is not a replacement for Hulu.com,” Jason Kilar writes on the online video service’s blog. “Hulu Plus is a new, revolutionary ad-supported subscription product that is incremental and complementary to the existing Hulu service.”

He then repeats the corporate mantra that this business model will “work for all three of our customers, and those are our end users, our advertisers, and our content suppliers.”

The new revenue source could attract other networks such as CBS and HBO. Fierce Online Video has an interesting analysis about how Hulu Plus will affect Netflix and cable’s TV Everywhere initiative. Comcast, the force behind the cable online video service, is about to acquire NBC, making things even more interesting. In any case, one winner of this battle royal will be consumers.

“On first blush, Hulu Plus throws an industrial-sized wrench into the plans of the TV Everywhere engine, while at the same time pushing the fortunes of over-the-top delivery and online video to new highs,” Fierce Online Video wrote.

Update: Silicon Alley Insider makes the argument that Hulu Plus is no replacement for cable TV service — assuming someone thought it was.

NewsCorp.’s Chase Carey floated the Hulu paid content concept last fall.

For consumers, Hulu offers this video pitch:

Overall, 85 percent of the U.S. Internet audience viewed online videos, comScore said in its report for the latest month, May.

The DIY site YouTube, of course, is never challenged in total views (where it’s reported as “Google Sites”), despite the fact that its rivals all feature professionally produced content such as TV shows and films.

YouTube outscored closest competitor Hulu 14.6 billion views to 1.2 billion.

Hulu’s total is actually less than the number of views YouTube added since the April report. Hulu had 3.5 percent of overall online videos viewed.

In unique visitors, the top three were Yahoo/Google (144 million), Yahoo (46 million) and Vevo (45.5 million).

Vevo continues to surge, jumping a position on the uniques chart and adding about 10 million views since April.

While YouTube landed at 101 videos played per viewer, Hulu had 27. No mystery: Hulu’s content extends to hourlong dramas, while YouTube videos are short by design.

Here are the top online video destinations by number of views (rounded numbers):

1. Google sites (YouTube): 14.billion/43.1 percent share
2. Hulu: 1.17 billion/3.5
3. Microsoft sites: 642 million videos viewed/1.9 percent share
4. Vevo: 430 million/1.3
5. Viacom Digital 347 million/1.0
6. Yahoo sites: 336 million/1.0
7. CBS Interactive: 333 million/1.0
8. Turner Interactive: 332 million/1.0
9. Fox Interactive: 328.5 million/1.0

Apple just revamped its Mac mini line, adding HDMI ports for high definition output. That means Hulu, Netflix Watch Instantly, YouTube, the iTunes store and the rest of the gang appearing nightly on your big-screen TV, without hassles or compromises.

Meanwhile, the old school Apple TV device is doing a disappearing act on the company’s retail site, amid rumors that a $99 version of the set-top box is in the wings — supposedly “an iPhone without a screen.” (Tech Crunch points out that the old Apple TV box is listed as an iPod accessory now …. WTF.)

Steve Jobs addressed the marriage of computers and TVs the other day, giving no hint of the mini plan. He was downbeat on chances for a successful set-top box. “I’m sure smarter people than us will figure this out,” he said. Stay tuned for Apple’s real home-entertainment strategy, a mystery so far.

The new Mac mini should play nicely with the current home entertainment center. The aluminum “unibody” shell (like the checks in at a sleek 1.4 inch height. No dingo balls, just an optical drive in front, for DVDs, CDs. Sorry, it doesn’t play Blu-rays.

In back, in addition to the HDMI plug-in, there’s a mini display port and a SD slot for pictures and home videos. Audio output comes via a minijack, nothing more serious, although audio also flows via the HDMI set-up. The power brick is gone, too, replaced by your standard household plug. (Also Firewire and USB ports, of course.)

The HDMI supports up to 1920×1200 resolution, way more than modern man requires. Apple says there’s “a handy control that lets you easily adjust the output … to fill even the biggest HDTV screen.” The graphic capabilities also benefit from an upgrade targeted at gamers.

The new Mac minis come with 2.4 or 2.66 Intel Core 2 Duo chips, depending on what you spend. Up to 8GB of system memory, with additional cards easily inserted via a round detachable panel on the bottom of the box.

Update: Macworld has a crisp write-up on the pros and cons of using the Mac mini as a media server.

Talk to TiVo, Vudu, ReplayTV and others about their costly disappointments in interactive TV, he suggests.

Oh, and be sure to “ask Google in a few months,” he added, serving up the snark. (Google TV debuts in the fall.)

Jobs talked about Internet video and television as part of a wide-ranging 90-minute session at Walter Mossberg’s D: All Things Digital conference in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif. (technically, the Wall Street Journal).

A member of the audience asked if Jobs had plans to “blow out television” by making the medium interactive.

No, he said. “It’s not a problem of technology, It’s not a problem with vision.” It’s a matter of market fundamentals:

“The television industry fundamentally has a subsidized business model that gives everyone a set-top box for free or for $10 a month. That pretty much squashes any opportunity for innovation because nobody’s willing to buy (an expensive) set-top box,” Jobs said.

“A lot of people have tried. (But) you just end up with a tableful of remotes and UIs.”

What would it take? “If you can go back to square one and tear up the set-top box and redesign it from scratch with a consistent UI across all these different functions — and give it to the consumer in a way that they’re willing to pay for it. And right now there’s no way to do that.”

Jobs noted that there was no one national cable company, making technical standards a big problem. With international markets, the standards for television hardware is “very balkanized.”

He said Apple made its choice to stay clear of the interactive TV battles a long time ago:

“We decided what problem do we want the most — a better TV or a better phone. And the phone won out — there was no chance to do a better TV because there was no way to get it to the market. … The TV is going to lose until there’s a viable go-to-market strategy, otherwise you’re just making another TiVo.

“I’m sure smarter people than us will figure this out,” he concluded.

Jobs’ company has the underwhelming Apple TV, which he usually refers to as a hobby.

Reports last week said a simple $99 version is coming that would be an “iPhone without a screen” — complete with apps and streaming video, some of it in 1080p HD. Presumably, for example, that means Netflix’s Watch Instantly app would be aboard.

Jobs apparently was not asked about the new Apple TV during the conference session.

Mark Cuban, another All Things Digital speaker, had similarly downbeat things to say about the online video business.

That means iPhone/iPad apps on your TV screen of choice. With the iPhone 4’s new operating system routing video streams from the cloud, some in 1080p HD.

It gets better: The price for the new Apple TV will be $99, according to Engadget.

If true, this means the death of Apple TV as we know it … and don’t love it. The unveiling of Google’s TV effort at roughly the same time as this Apple news leak appears to be a coincidence, however.

The old Apple TV (pictured) — old meaning it was never updated — never caught on and was subsequently excused as “a hobby” by Steve Jobs.

Google TV debuts in the fall, with Android apps. It will run on cable boxes and Sony HDTVs, along with other entertainment hardware TBA.

The Apple TV box would be right in line with the Jobs aesthetic — power in and video out, Engadget says. The Apple Time Machine feature allows for external hard drive storage, if you like. There’s a mere 16GB of flash memory on the TV box, meaning it’s all about the cloud.

Apps, among many other functions, provide a world of addictive games, as TechCrunch points out. Assuming they look snazzy in living room resolutions, we’re looking at an industry shake-up on the casual games front. (One possible victim of the dueling TV systems: Microsoft’s Xbox Live.)

The Apple TV streaming also will allow for easy access to your iTunes treasures — not all that difficult to achieve now via AirPort, but a bother nonetheless.

The price difference might be the first front: Google TV’s devices (inside Sony HDTVs, for example) would run on the expensive Intel Atom chips. Apple TV would rely on the company’s new A4 chips, already showing their economy on the iPad.

Meanwhile, the Fire Horse Trail blog has a somewhat creepy post about the privacy implications of the Google TV ad model.

Know how targeted ads follow you around on the Web? Coming soon to a TV near you, eventually.

Soon the TV ads will be greeting you by name, meaning the world of “Minority Report” is not so far away.

The big-media video site just confirmed that it’s sticking with Flash — and passing on HTML5 — meaning iPad owners won’t be getting their must-see TV from Hulu anytime soon.

“We continue to monitor developments on HTML5, but as of now it doesn’t yet meet all of our customers’ needs,” according to Hulu’s blog.

HTML5 falls short in ad reporting, security, quality of video, buffering correction and “dozens of other things,” Hulu says.

Adobe’s Flash requires plug-ins to work on browsers. HTML5 advances the basic code that’s behind the curtain of all web sites, allowing for lots of goodies, including direct online video.

With HTML5, viewing becomes just another part of the web-page browsing experience — no plug-ins needed. That means open source, as Apple loves to point out. That also means Adobe won’t be raking in the cash for its proprietary Flash.

Hulu, meanwhile, has busted out with a new player scheme that’s looking kind of buggy based on user feedback. The home page and the TV and movie pages have been face-lifted with a new focus on personalization.

The changes to the Hulu video player include:

• Adaptive bitrate streaming — allows for dynamic shifting of video bitrates and resolution in order to smooth out the viewing experience. You do have the option of a fixed resolution, say 480p, but don’t come crying to Hulu if the image is all stuttery.
• Ad volume normalization.
• Closed captioning display options — Adds yellow text, if you like.
• Timeline thumbnails — A preview image pops up, as with some DVDs. Sorry, you’ll still have to watch the ads.
• A bigger player — The native resolution is now 729×404, an increase of about 25%.
• “Chromeless” player — No controls visible as a default. Timeline opens on mouse-over.
• Plus some minor design and ergonomic changes that’ll bug everyone in the short term.

The old ad thumbs-up-thumbs-down scheme is now “Ad Tailor.” The intrusion factor is upped by multiple-question surveys that’ll pop up “occasionally.” You have the option of watching an ad instead, so pick your poison. “The more efficiently we can match ads up with users, the more everyone benefits,” Hulu promises.

Google and Apple are the high-profile fans of HTML5, which remains in the standards process but looms over the web like the mothership in “V” — viewable on Hulu, in Flash.

That means YouTube and some piddly other G sites, according to the way web video metrics provider ComScore figures it.

Hulu came in a way-the-hell-back-there second, with 1.1 billion videos watched, good for a 3.4% share.

Overall, more than 180 million people in the U.S. watched online video in March, averaging a whopping 96 vids per peeper. The number of Internet watchers was up slightly from February.

Following YouTube and Hulu in number of videos viewed in March were Microsoft, Yahoo and CBS Interactive.

Hulu, meanwhile, hit another record in average hours of content watched. The average Hulu viewer streamed almost 27 videos, adding up to 2.6 hours of eyeball time. The hourly rate was up .2 from February.

YouTube underwent a redesign of its web site in recent months, with the video player getting a face-lift last week. April’s numbers will reflect the redesign effect on viewership, if any.