Slashdot Mirror
Television Next In Line For Industry-Wide Shakeup?
New submitter pjlehtim writes "In a recent interview. Samsung's AV product manager, Chris Moseley, said, 'TVs are ultimately about picture quality. ... and there is no way that anyone, new or old, can come along this year or next year and beat us on picture quality.' Sounds familiar? There must be a change in the perceived role of television in the entertainment ecosystem before the general public starts to care about the smart TVs manufacturers are trying to push. That change is likely to come from outside the traditional home entertainment industry. It's not about technology; it is about user experience, again."
..yeah, no thanks. All I want or need is something that displays a 1080p signal well, and isn't going to break down and need to be replaced in a couple years. You can keep your so-called "smart", your "3D", and all your other silly bells and whistles. I'll stick to something that is quality, and if I need some "smarts" beyond what TiVo can do for me, I'll add an HTPC.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Samsung makes some of the highest quality displays around. And if anyone were to come out with something better, there's a pretty good chance it'd be ... Samsung.
There ain't much on TV I care about except sports, weather and the occasional movie. The rest is crap.
Smart TV? for what? It's just more stuff that can break. I don't want some smart TV or cable box wigging out on me while the damn game is on.
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
Here's today's slashdot quote.
>There is hardly a thing in the world that some man can not make a little worse and sell a little cheaper.
"It's not about technology; it is about user experience, again."
We know he was working on it, and this sounds like a cue for Steve Jobs' final "one more thing..."
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
I despise the word "ecosystem". It has begun to remind me of a prison, wonder why?
But I do have a computer. You know what I'd like and pay for, a set amount to download, say 20 hours' of TV. Maybe I want to watch a Channel 4 show from the UK, a hockey game from Canada or a science program from Australia. I don't care about the licensing -- I'll pay but for goodness sake sort it.
Until then I'll ... umm... use ... (a) ... net.
It's about time we get 4k televisions in production. Screw 3d, screw smart tv, just increase the resolution already. My monitor has higher resolution than my hdtv.
Picture quality? Maybe if you're into seeing the pancake makeup and ridiculous quantity of hair gel necessary to make your Sitcom/Soap stars look the way they do. Not going to really help animation at all, a little blur helps hide the sharp contrast of lines. Great for sports, so you can rest assured you're right when you call the ref an idiot for getting the call wrong, while you smugly watch the replays in High Def.
More likely going to find the user experience is more a la carte, as people leave the traditional broadcast, cable, and satellite networks for what they pick and choose over the internet (assuming ISPs don't kill the fledgling market with opressive fees for bandwidth, as IF my piddly 6 Mb/s connection should be considered taxing of their infrastructure. where's 100Mb/s?!?) I'd rather see my shows when it suits me, without even bothering with recording them on a DVR.
The TV itself could have the bits built in, but at the present rate of change I'd prefer an external box which I can upgrade as needed while the big investment, the display, is only bought every 5 or 10 years (or longer apart -- my only TV is really getting on in years, but still works.)
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
it is about user experience, again
It's not about picture quality. It's not about 'user experience', which is so vague as to be meaningless.
It is about cost. Cost is why Blu-ray fails. Cost is why 3D TV fails. Cost is why cable subscriptions are dropping. Cost is why Netflix, and all other forms of IPTV are thriving, except when providers try to increase cost, in which case they get kicked in the teeth.
DVD to 720-ish quality is sufficient. The rest is cost.
Considering that Samsung currently owns 95% of the OLED display market, it's not surprising that he'd say that. Picture quality (and thinness) is going to be the primary driver for OLED replacing LCD in the TV and monitor markets.
Of course the real question how the price vs. adoption curve plays out. There's a shot at seeing sub-$5k sets when their 8G OLED lines are up to full production this year. LG's faux-OLED (i.e. WOLED stack) is waiting in the wings too. It'll be interesting to see how it all plays out.
...It's also about the [short] lifespan of OLED screens, currently at about 5 years if used for a straight 8 hours per day...much less than that of LCDs, which is close to twice that.
It is also about support for the device itself, when things go wrong as they will sometimes do. On this point, I salute Samsung for 'owning' any problems I have forwarded to them in the last 3 years.
TVs are ultimately about picture quality
Try this. Turn down your TV sound and try to work out what a programme is about. Now try the same with the sound audible and the picture blank (or just looking away). It's almost impossible to follow any programme without listening to the audio channel, but remove the video and little is lost (the exception is probably sports programmes, but for everything else it works).
Although the video component takes up the overwhelming amount of bandwidth - and cost both for production and TV set manufacture, it's the least important aspect of a programme.
The only thing that stops TV from being "radio with pictures" is the marketing of programmes, since this is ultimately where all the money is.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
Samsung is talking about Apple and that they can't beat them in picture quality. In the past this has been said about Apple as well.....
”There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance.” – Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, April 30, 2007
”We’ve learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make a decent phone. PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They’re not going to just walk in.” – Former Palm CEO Ed Colligan, November 16, 2006
It's quite memorable when people expect the status quo to remain relatively static and instead see it change suddenly. We all go back and point to the people who expected things to say the same and talk about how short sighted they were. However, just because that happens occasionally doesn't mean that an industry leader's expectation of no shakeup implies in any way that a shakeup is more likely. The shakeups just stick out in our minds when we reminisce.
If Apple says "we're going to release a smart taco, the iTaco" and Mexican food experts say it's stupid, I'm sure we'll have Slashdotters pointing out old quotes about the iPod and acting like success is inevitable.
"I zero-index my hamsters" - Willtor (147206)
table uses the term 'user experience' ....
thats the point you burn with a fiery desire to get on top of the table, pull out your johnson and piss around on the faces of all participants. ..............
you sit in front of a tv, you click the remote, you watch the channel. that's what tv is. there is no more 'experience' in it. neither does a person coming home from work and dinner want an 'experience' to come out of their tv. they just want to click and watch.
same goes for oses. 'user experience'. what ? i just want to click on my program, and use it. i dont want any 'experience' happening in between.
hell, even internet. i have been on internet since it got out of the hen (1993-94), i have been on the first wave on everything ranging from multiplayer games to irc to webmaster culture to mmos, i have been an overclocker, and let me tell you :
when im on internet, i use at most 10 websites, play the same game, use the same software to do development, use the same instant messengers....... you get the picture.
im not looking for any 'experience'.
if someone like me, who has been riding the wave of adoption in digital age is like that, figure the rest of the population.
but for some reason, companies cant let go of that 'experience' illusion they are embroiled in.
i wonder, whether there is ANY person, who gets up from in front of a computer or television or any other ramped-up gadget and says, 'wow, this was a great xyz gadget using EXPERIENCE' - in any meaning of the term.
Read radical news here
Samsung and the likes can hawk their Smart-3D crap all they want.
When Apple release the SuperJumbo iPad -- err, iTV in the next year, with multi ARM processors, 1TB HDD Storage and the ability to remote control it with your existing iOS devices and run Apps in PIP-mode while watching movies, your run of the mill Flat panel displays will seem like the commodity display units they are.
Seriously though -- how can the likes of Samsung, Sharp or Sony Compete? Apple can deliver it's own streaming Movie and TV content via iTMS, they offer apps via the App Store, they allow any registered developer to make their own Apps and Games, they have iTunes installed on millions of machines, they have AirTunes that allow multi-room audio streaming, they have AirPort Express which helps facilitate AirTunes, they have Front Row which can turn any Apple Laptop or Desktop into a FullScreen media player. Essentially, you can have an iTV which allows you to Watch TV, stream movies, run apps, purchase new media, surf the web, broadcast music and media to other devices in other rooms all from one unit -- who cares about 3D when you have something that can essentially be a Media Hub and the family computer all in one?
The only market player I could see taking them on would be Google, but they don't have the media distribution channels -- they'd likely have to partner with Amazon since they already have the distribution deals and the infrastructure all set up. But, it would be a viable contender if they did come up with an Android based competitor to iTV that streamed and downloaded music and movies from Amazon and featured the App marketplace for both Google and Amazon.
No matter what though, TV is about to go through a pretty dramatic evolutionary period that will likely see the dumb-terminal relegated to a by-gone era.
Next stop: get rid of the fixed display completely and move it onto touch screen enabled surfaces like walls and windows.
However, everything Apple did so far to skyrocket as it did was for portable devices.
So what are we talking here? A TV running iOS with integrated DVR and using some sort of next gen cable card? What will be the big hook? It needs more than integration with other Apple devices, although we can probably expect teleconferencing with face time (hello boardrooms of America) and streaming to iPad/iphones.
Being subscription services, cable companies will jump at the chance of exclusivity contracts and give in to Apple's demands and needs like compatibility with a better cablecard type system.
Watch for Verizon Fios winning this one. /end speculation
I like many people get "high" speed internet from Comcast. If Comcast updated their Internet with modern tech, we could stream television on computers. Then people would drop their cable subscriptions. So why does Comcast want to increase the broadband speeds when it will hurt their profits?
It is sad you need to hope for Google to do their 1gb/s because the current ISP behemoths don't want to move.
God spoke to me
Television - What was that then grandad.
Programs when you don't want them with crap firmwares, broken by design, that miss the start and end of the program and force the adverts on you.
When you step back into a household that plays the watching tv and timeshift games its quite a culture shock for an Area Man Constantly Mentioning He Doesn't Own A Television.
Smart TVs are nice for things like streaming for a secondary TV, in a bedroom or basement, where you dont want a bunch of boxes and cables, but for my living room... i have a cable box, i have a game console, i have a networked dvd player. The TV is ONLY a display. This is one place where with some technologies moving as fast as they are, convergence is a bad thing. If some new streaming service comes out, i can reasonably assume theyll have a PS3 app. Depending on how proprietary things are they may not have an app for a smart TV even a few years old. Heck, i dont even need the main TV in the home theater to have speakers, i just want a big dumb good quality monitor with a digital video input. Let my receiver handle all the AV stuff and one or two boxes handle TV and recorded media.
Convergence has its place, its nice having a camera in my phone in my pocket all the time, but i dont want a cheap, prone to mechanical failure, blu-ray player or cheap PC that no one will make software for in 9 months stuck on the side of my nice high end tv.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
... than being charged for 200+ channels I will never watch.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
The problem with "smart TVs" is that the smart part of it is changing vastly more quickly than the TV part. The display is relatively mature tech that most customers regard as an expensive piece of furniture that they want to keep for years. Gadgets such as game consoles and set top boxes are getting overhauled as often as smartphones. Every aspect of their technology can change as the performance, capacity, connectivity, user interface and basic purpose of the device can radically change every few months. You don't want to throw out your perfectly working display because one chip became outdated or even because the UI changed from a bluetooth remote to a motion sensing camera. The part most people like least about TV is paying for a cable subscription full of unwanted channels and shows, but that's already being dealt with as much as possible by iTunes, Netflix and Amazon Video Marketplace.
So in a sense, Samsung is right. The display is all people really want from a TV. Everything else should be in external devices, even if their functions and purposes are changing radically and rapidly. Unfortunately for Samsung, displays are a low-margin commodity market and not where the action now is.
Old, established companies will claim that old, established standards are best - until they devise a new product.
New companies and old ones with new products will claim that new standards are best.
The consumers -- the ones actually USING the product -- don't get to say what it is they need or want. Rather, they are told what they should need and want.
The intelligent consumers (all three of them) should ignore what the companies are saying and should define metrics in terms of value. One option would use zero as no product and 1 as being the absolute baseline requirement for that parameter. All metrics should be non-linear and should either tend to a limit, following the law of diminishing returns, or it should reach a peak and then fall off to zero. (You can't always say for certain what the limit should be, but you can guess. The best vision and best hearing are still finite quantities, for example, and no matter how good 3D pictures become, no person will need a 5D display for a very long time.)
A second option would be to do something similar but instead of defining the baseline requirement, define the maximum instead (let's say 100). The current baseline requirement can then be marked on the curve, together with where the product ranks.
Functionally, these two are the same. The difference is that one is scaled according to how usable the product is in relation to actual need, the second according to how usable the product is in relation to theoretical limits.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
If Apple can come out with a TV that has a built-in HD, a decent OS, and Siri, that could very well be the sweet spot for a lot of people
An iMac meets those requirements except Siri, and once the novelty of the iPhone 4S runs out, I fully expect Apple to make a Mac version of Siri.
Now, what WILL be annoying is if their TV is iOS based.
The Apple TV 2 runs a customized iOS. Expect Apple's rumored offering, should it come out, to be not unlike an Apple monitor with a built-in Apple TV 2.
The only thing I want from the TV industry is for them to license their content to internet sites.
Streaming music over "Internet Radio" is very successful because there are licensing agreements in place that allow royalties to be paid back to the content providers.
There is no Internet TV because the dinosaur-brained TV execs don't want to relinquish control of their product (even though it has already been broadcast nationwide).
Hulu and Netflix have pitiful TV content because they simply can't license the content. The TV studios are totally missing out on a huge advertising revenue source, because of their backwards thinking.
Message to TV execs: WAKE UP and smell the internet. You could be making money RIGHT NOW if you licensed your content to websites to stream to millions upon millions of handheld devices. (Don't sweat the format, other people will fix that for you.) ...
Or if you don't we'll just keep torrenting TV shows and you'll get nothing
You're right! We should all go back to black and white 18" TVs with rabbit ears, betamax tapes, and corded remotes. There's no way that experience can ever be eclipsed. While I'm at it, I hope you're enjoying your dial up internet access into Compuserve's walled garden, on your 10 lb "toaster" sized portable PC with 90 minutes of battery life and the latest Windows 3.1 software. Guess what? You may not be looking for an "experience" but that's what you're getting, whether you realize it or not. You want to click your program and use it? Experience. You use an IM client? Experience. You click a remote? Experience.
If you're willing to give up live news, live sports, major-studio feature films, and major-studio television series, you can get TVs supporting YouTube today.
I wish people would stop trying to pass off opinion pieces as facts, or in this case as newsworthy.
By far the largest problem standing between us and mass smart TV adoption is the user interface.
No. By far the biggest problem is that there's no reason for a "smart" TV (whatever that is) when all you can do with it is watch the same junk that's on a dumb TV.
I am interested in a seamless way to use the TV to display what would be on my Laptop otherwise
Pretty much any new TV can do that. Many PCs have HDMI or DVI-D video outputs that plug right into an HDTV's HDMI input. Those that don't can use a VGA cable, as most HDTVs have a VGA input (except, I'm told, in Europe where TVs tend to have a SCART input instead of a VGA input). And until you replace your TV, you can go to SewellDirect.com and buy a PC to TV adapter that converts a VGA signal to an S-Video or composite signal.
Join the HTPC crowd. Indie filmmakers and indie video game developers will thank you.
If TV is about picture quality, why does my wife watch Modern Family on the 15-inch screen on her laptop in our office and not on the 40-inch HD TV we have downstairs in the living room? Oh, right, because it's super easy for her to legally watch episodes whenever she wants via ABC's Web site in a browser, whereas doing so on our TV varies between "a pain in the ass" and "impossible."
The company that solves this problem will make millions, and it won't be a company that's convinced that all people want is ever-sharper video.
I understand the problem -- my wife can't operate our current tv, relies on our geek daughter to cue up what she wants to watch or choose the right input and navigate to the channel she's interested in. The TV ecosystem has gotten ridiculously complex. Some simplification or automation or integration is long overdue.
On the other hand, I'm pretty sure the answer is not to build all that stuff into a tv. TVs are a long term appliance, not something you buy every two years when an incremental improvement comes out. Remember TVs with VHS VCRs built in? The TV continues to work long after the VCR becomes dead weight. (Somewhat true also for TV/DVD combos, although I notice they're starting to use common laptop DVD drives now.)
I know, if, say, Amazon Instant Video goes away or Netflix changes or some new hot service becomes available, the manufacturer could add new features with a firmware upgrade, right?
Yeah, that worked really well for the cellular market. Why would manufacturers upgrade existing sets when they could use the new feature as leverage to replace the set?
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Have a plain old 32" CRT TV with digital converter box, blu-ray capable player (mostly used for DVD).....resolution isn't anything to me, don't give enough of a crap. If I really want to see something with spectacular sound and resolution I'll play it on my workstation. and fuck 3D
You're spot on. At a friends place 5 remotes to operate a modern TV system. The screen, the dvd, the pvr, the dolby and there was something else but I have no idea what the hell it was.
WTF?
All so I can watch complete crap interrupted every 5 minutes for god damned adverts? Why would I bother to do that? I personally no longer have a TV.
Deleted
TVs are about picture quality but, more importantly, about content. The first TVs were B&W and the picture quality was dismal compared to modern standards. Yet people paid huge prices for them because TVs allowed them to watch stuff they had only imagined.
"TVs are ultimately about picture quality. ... and there is no way that anyone, new or old, can come along this year or next year and beat us on picture quality"
First thought: Bullshit. Then I saw it's not S-PVA vs IPS Pro anymore; Samsung's doing PLS now.
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/monitors/display/samsung-sa850_2.html
Need more detail on PLS...
http://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/12/02/14/2144217/television-next-in-line-for-industry-wide-shakeup#
My mom can't operate a modern TV. [..] The revolution will be the people who make some kind of master overlay and master remote
The television will not be revolutionised, brother.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
Turn on your TV these days and you'll wait for the Blu Ray player to start, acquire an ip address, phone home, bring up a studio logo, bring up an ad for how great Blu Ray content from is, watch a static screen that tells you you'll rot in hell if you copy the damn thing, bring up a home screen that does some animation and presents a menu and then, and only then, will the movie deign to begin.
It's almost as if they're intentionally making the start experience so tedious so as to drive their customers to piracy.
We have a Tivo, Wii and LG Blu-Ray all plugged into a Yamaha AV amp, which is connected to a Metz TV.
As a result i need:
Two remotes to watch TV (tivo for channel and amp volume, and the TV remote to turn it on/change the AV channel)
two or three remotes to watch a DVD -
Blu-ray + Amp remote + TV remote
trying to explain this to my mother-in-law is painful to say the least.
It's 2012 and all these devices still can't talk to each other, unless they're all from the same manufacturer. They all have their own, incompatible remote control technologies.
Please, TV and home entertainment equipment manufacturers, thrash out a common control communications standard and go with it - eg XML/SOAP over bluetooth or zigBee, or even HDMI, so I can control ALL my AV gear from one remote interface. I don't really care if it's a logitech-style remote or an android app; just give us something that works across manufacturers so i can have one remote to control them all.
The computing power is readily available and cheap, the frameworks all exist to do it - just choose a standard and implement it.
1080p 100Hz TV is good enough, I don't need or want craptastic 3D or a smart TV interface i'll never use. Just focus on the user experience. Make it easy for normal humans to use AV gear.
IGAFF about TV?
TV is the greatest time-waster invented in human history
I still have a 27" Sony trinitron. Still not moving to flat- waiting for the thing to break. Not missing the detail; the only time I care about detail is when I see great landscape scenery in the background, and that happens once a month. The rest of the time, I know who the muppet is I am seeing on the goggle box and that is enough.
Do so many of you really still own TVs? Do you not have computers? How are you posting? Hulu: free, and with all the wretched commercials you've loved for years. Netflix: bloody cheap, with no commercials at all. Youtube? Youtube anyone?
Access to good content, all the time, ala-cart, WITHOUT having to pay an arm-and-a-leg for it!
Picture quality is a great thing to have, but content is king. Without access to that, the TV is pointless (ever watch saturday mid-morning TV, when nothing but infomericals is on?).
We should have full access to all channels (broadcast, news, premium, "cable only") via all mediums. Right now, the big cable companies (and a few satellite companies) have everything locked up, when the Internet could easily stream most of the live, broadcast content. I don't want ONE company owning my cable, Internet and TV pipe, so they can collect $150-$200 per month from me. I want a choice!
Apple, Google, whomever: SHAKE THINGS UP
...Blu-ray disc player. Has access to a ton of internet content, which is fine, but trying to pull up a you-tube video is painful. Just a crappy interface.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
It has to be *in* the TVs because this way you'll buy a new one every year when something shinier comes out. Same as with cell phones.
Every year they'll add some small new feature, then carefully design an ad campaign that will make you feel like a loser because you don't have the latest-greatest. You'll be glad to open your wallet just to feel popular again.
experience, you have none
(note: this won't happen, but I like to dream)
Licensed TV input and ATV2-type boxes that plug in with a single cable and make the TV a dumb-box. It's similar to the boomboxes/head units of today, but the ATV remote controls volume and power for both TV and ATV box, plus the menu/play/pause/directionals (for times when SiriTV isn't working).
Your cable, satellite, and OTA become mostly obsolete because Apple will contract with those companies to stream their content over IP, or more likely negotiate directly with content providers for a la carte (monthly or hourly) directly from the networks. Streaming through your iCloud subscription to "channels" on the ATV, plus rental and purchased content from iTunes. That way you can just "watch whats on" as a pre-determined stream, or pick and choose, even queuing up stuff from your other iDevices so the stream never ends. You might even get iTunes credits by watching and interacting appropriately with infomercial programs.
Access to content might even be through apps, though they could look like "channels" - I'm just hoping for apps so I can stream my existing colllection without a JB, though that's probably a pipe dream.
This would be a $50 option on your TV - you pay for the blessed iConnect protocol and take-over circuitry, Apple gets full control of the day-to-day operations and effectively locks you out of the other TV inputs unless you grab the old remote, and they rake in the cable fees plus their iTMS business.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Over 100 comments and still nobody points out Chris Moseley's arrogant statement that nobody can beat samsung on picture quality? Last I checked Samsung still didn't have anything that can compete with my Panasonic IPS-based TV on overall quality, and for cinimatic quality (movies with dark scenes) there's still nothing that comes close to a Mitsubishi DLP.
I value Samsung as a quality manufacturer (they are unbeaten for example in optical drives, and top-tier in hard drives), but I'm surprised they've been able to maintain the facade that they have the best in TVs.
I already have "an experience" when I click a remote.
Tivo was the prime mover in this area.
I don't care about some clueless johnny come lately and his fanboys that choose to be ignorant about everything. They have no clue and no taste and nothing to add to the discussion.
They don't even contribute any really interesting "pie in the sky" suggestions that sound good but might run afoul of the multiple monopoly players on one side and a completely non-standardized industry on the other.
If you want a castrated set of features disguised as "ease of use", you can already do that with a 30 year old TV.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
talk to the cable/satellite providers who overly compress the broadcasts then.
Touch feed back on a remote is good even more so in the dark or if you don't want to look down to see what you are pressing.
cable card at times sucks and the cable co's takes a lot of the blame just look at dsl reports for that.
Now some cable co like RCN have TIVO boxes but you are forced to rent them at high prices.
canadian systems let's you buy the box or rent some even have rent to own and when you buy the box no outlet or mirroring fees.
The big problem for TV manufacturers is convincing people who already have a flat screen TVs that they need a new TV. People bought (and are buying) flat screen TVs to replace their CRTs because a flat screen TV has clear advantages (even to the lay person) over a CRT in the same way DVD is better than VHS.
But for the people who already have a HDTV, the trick is getting them to buy a new one. Lots of that has focused on making the display itself better (faster refresh rates, better LCD panels, LED back-lighting etc) but its gotten to the point where further advancements in display technology currently cost too much to put into mass market TVs (such as OLED TVs).
So with there being little room to advance in actual display technology (at least in terms of advances that normal consumers will care enough about to buy a new TV), the way TV companies are trying to get people to buy is 3D (which is a hard sell to most consumers given the lack of 3D content out there for their 3DTVs) and smart TVs. Smart TVs make sense for the manufacturers because convincing people that already have a flat screen TV to buy a new one because the new one gets YouTube is a lot easier than convincing people that already have a flat screen TV to buy one because the new one has better picture quality, blacker blacks, faster refresh rate etc.
Personally I would much rather see the research invested in making TVs less power hungry than in making them support all this "smart content" stuff (content that the big media companies would rather you got through network TV or cable/satellite anyway)
download cap's will kill apple tv over ITMS + who will want to over pay for a TV? when apple should be working on a box that will work with any tv aka the apple tv.
..yeah, no thanks. All I want or need is something that receives and sends a voice signal well, and isn't going to break down and need to be replaced in a couple years. You can keep your so-called "smart", your "apps", and all your other silly bells and whistles. I'll stick to something that is quality, and if I need some "smarts" beyond what my Nokia 6100 can do for me, I'll add a laptop.
world standards, satellite, non cable card systems, SDV and other stuff.
For cable card systems with SDV apple will need to have a working USB port.
But even with cable card NO VOD and to order events ppv you have to call in.
satellite tv is a other area that it is very hard to use your own box. Most pay systems force you to use there box.
Lot's of non US cable systems don't use cable cards.
For OTA tv / FTA satellite (build in to some TV+) there are lot's of world standards.
what about live sports? The cable co's own part of RSN's. But the teams also own part of them as well.
The situation as it stands right now; most TV sets are effectively expensive monitors. They take and display a signal from one or more of...
* an antenna
* a cableco box
* a PC
* a Bluray or DVD player
* a game console
* whatever
The TV maker sells a piece of hardware, and that's it for the next 10 years.
What the TV makers dream of; They already ask you to fill out a form (paper or via internet) to "register your warranty". So they have your TV's serial number and your name+address+etc. Now imagine if the TV set had an internet connection. The TV maker could get real-time info about what you're watching and when, because the serial number is linked to a person, and also an IP address. This information is valuable to marketers. TV makers want to "monetize" that info.
I'm not repeating myself
I'm an X window user; I'm an ex-Windows user
Who really wants to surrender more brain resources to operating an intricate trinket that further clutters our heads.
I'm not an anti-TV evangelist, I watch TV, and even like some of it. A few years ago, we switched from rabbit ears to Shaw Satellite with a pvr. TV watching almost ceased. The set-top box was so annoying everybody just gave up. When I cancelled the service, nobody noticed for 3 months.
I just want to watch TV. I don't want a "user experience".
It's not usability, it's all about DRM. The content providers are desperate to keep people from copying or modifying content. It everything is in one box, then you have no where to connect a recording device. Your cable box will be implemented in software instead of a separate piece of hardware that has to be maintained. Providers can change their encryption any time they want by pushing out a new patch, and keeping the "hackers" at bay. You want to record and watch later? There's an extra charge for that, and only on their terms.
The only thing worse than a Democrat is a Republican.
Probably not popular here but the XBOX, IMO, will be the winner in the Smart TV category. If not, probably a Win8 device on ARM. Yes, I know they aren't TVs but nobody in the market is capable of a smart TV right now. Hell, Sony is even pivoting their entire business moving to bits instead of bolts. Just like doing business with NASA, the lowest bidder wins; see Lucky Goldstar. Meaning, there's no fricking way that a TV drops in price and increases in computing power. That's simply laughable. The reality is TV manufacturers are concerned about becoming compliments to the software the real IP innovators are creating.
The content players generally have deals with MSFT already. That's the biggest hurdle. The XBOX can tune FIOS today. You can rent content lke Netflix. You can stream your music and VOBs from units like DROBO. Today, XBOX owners barely view commercials. While a browser is not a reality (yet :-) ), the amount of Apps and Bing search make it a first class experience for discovery. My phone and Win8 apps work well, thank you very much. Oh, and I only have to pay once.
Further, in my house, the kids actually prefer the XBOX over TV. They won't tolerate commercials. Kinect works as a very good control.
The 720 will set the pace.
The first time I saw an ipod i thought. Where's the record button. Stallman is right. Right to read that is.
TVs are dead though, they just haven't realized it yet. Who actually really needs a TV these days? Hell, we have TVs that are actually PCs now or you can always output your IPTV to a regular TV if you want, although quality and res is often better on a decent monitor.
We occasionally turn the TV on for news and stuff, but its not anything we can't get through the internet or IPTV anyway.... we get the same channels and more.
And what is actually on TV that is so interesting to watch? 99% of it is crap, and the other 1% you already saw.
The level of quality that you experience watching Youtube? Let me repeat that: TV is getting it's ass handed to itself by 360p grainy cat footage.
If you still don't understand that content is king and second to that usability and possibly an existing ecosystem then you have no business running Samsung AV.
Quality only helps that much. At some point you hit diminishing returns and need to offer something else.
but don't watch broadcast television. It's shit. Well, Sturgeon's Law applies.
The big TV in the living room has the main house PC, the PS3 and my 360 wired in - through HDMI 1 and 2 and the 360 through VGA. My son's TV has his 360 through component, and the spare CRT TV in the spare room has the legacy consoles wired in through RGB. The main PC runs TVersity. My son's Xbox can pick up streaming video through TVersity over the wi-fi, and I can control which folders he gets to see. My wife's laptop picks up TVersity through XBMC. A wireless keyboard and mouse sit next to the big couch so we can control the main PC. It has 4 Tb of storage, and has most of my DVD collection on there somewhere. I have a handful of Blu-Rays, because it has to be something special for me to want to spend the extra on a Blu-Ray - Blade Runner, Planet Earth etc.
None of this was expensive, or complicated to set up, although it took me a little while to figure out how to tell XBMC to pick up the TVersity stream. Both main TVs are large-ish LCDs, but dumb as posts - they're 1080p monitors with built-in speakers. All the software was freely available, and totally menu-driven. Easy to use, and once set up, it just carries on working. Admittedly, assembling it all from scratch in one go might have been a bit daunting, but it grew, organically, as new hardware was bought.
I don't want a Smart TV. I don't really want a smart anything, although intuitive interfaces are nice. I want individual items that each do their job, neatly and without fuss, so that when a bit of the setup needs replaced, it can be, without destroying the overall utility of the system.
Ack. Posting AC as already moderated - feck - forgot about that...
To put it simply; get the ipad/iphone integrated with the tv unit and you've got your remote control. create your own remote control panel with buttons for favorites, choose stuff etc. Sure, Siri might work on there as well but having the remote control capability on the ipad/iphone will make the transition easier. have genius suggestions suggest stuff you might want to see based on your purchased content and recommend stuff to buy on the ipad/iphone based on what you're watching on tv. Allow tv programs to have viewers vote through apps on ipad/iphone in realtime and correlate results through apple servers. Get realtime feedback through ratings on the ipad/iphone. have online communities that connect through the ecosystem to allow live chatting about a running program, etc. Everyone keeps focusing on how to control the tv when that's such a limited view of what the portal really is; there is a possibility that it can turn what was a one way portal into a two way forum. You've already got tv shows that are on the brink of this (skyping in live to ask questions, showing a banner of tweets/posts running in the background; all it needs is the extra push and the availability of a carriage medium that allows these things to come into the living room for people to participate.
I gives me a way to easily stream things off my computer (with Nero MediaHome) on to my TV, watch Youtube videos and get a weather forecast.
As for DRM.... I have no idea what any of you are talking about.
Last I heard DRM was going to be implemented using it's own chip (ie. hardware) not software running via Smart-TV.
The only problem (that I could find) involving Smart-TV is that some sites are blocking content access (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_TV#Controversy).
Also, my TV has Smart-TV, but so does my blue-ray player. Something to consider if your trying to avoid it.
I've had to reboot the f*cking thing because it occasionally locks up. No thank you, smart t.v. Please remain a dumb box in which I plug in other poorly designed crap.
Sweet informative mod.
I personally think toasters are next in line.
I mean, come on, toasters have such poor user experience. You put the toast in and wait, how boring!
No bells, no whistles, no sexy narrator voice to tell me what's happening to my toast.
How could ever live without these things?
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
There's one reason why TVs should be "smarter", and that's the UI of the TV itself. I can't really figure out why all my devices--my microwave, TV, DVD player, coffee machine, whatever--need to be operated by pressing tiny buttons in some arcane manner, like I'm casting a spell or something. There is a Better Way.
It would be great if, in addition to having the remote+TV UI option that's standard with my TV, I could also use my iPad, computer, and/or web browser to configure my TV. Run Android or whatever on the TV and publish an API to the TV's internals, and you've made your TV a lot more usable.
I guess if people want to use this capability to create apps, great. For my part though, I'm happy just plugging in an Apple TV or whatever. This capability isn't going to go away (I hope!) with a smart TV, so you'll still be able to buy an external box for something down the road if you want it.
Judging from content restrictions and device manufacturers' generally terrible attempts at innovation in this area, I don't hold particularly high hopes that the reality of the future is going to match my rosy utopian vision of it.
www.clarke.ca
TV's current embodiment as an in the-box closed system fully patent-protected oligopoly is too expensive, restrictive and boring.
SteveJobs et. al. and AAPL abstract above the-box to circumvent expensive IP royalty streams (i.e. TVGuide) with software enabling remote access hardware portable devices that control multiple streams, multiple sources in which Users choose how, where and what they want to consume when and after they have options...
Cable providers will simply bundle and resell subscriptions to these services (along with the live channel feeds) at a "discount" (compared to buying them individually, not compared to actual value for what you use), and link your Comcast/Charter/Cox account to your HBO GO/etc. accounts seamlessly.
It's already happening. Just one of dozens of recent, disturbing datapoints to crop up in the last few weeks, but free content on thewb (and elsewhere) is diminishing. For example, the first 10 episodes of Fringe Season one went away this weekend...probably doesn't matter to most, but since I was out of the country when the series started, and just happened to discover it a couple of weeks ago, and since they're not available on Netflix, I'm either going to have to skip episodes 3-10, or pay for them at an inflated rate / episode on the iStore or Amazon (or even worse inflated rate on Vudu), or buy the blue-ray set for season one (which ironically is cheaper than the streaming rental on a per episode basis).
Less and less content available via a general web interface ... first steps toward the crappy iStore model of shit, where you download the WB or Fox app, or worse, have to download the Fringe app to watch the show. I curse Apples contribution to this ... the endgame is a walled garden worse in every respect from the one that existed with CompuServer, GEnie, AOL, and other dialup services before the Internet became common.
Welcome to your lobotimized world. Not government or big brother, but big content Apple, all driven by megalomaniacal monopolists that make Bill Gates look positively benign in comparison.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Personally, I think it'll never happen, because it'd take industry cooperation, but HDMI allows for a 100mbit ethernet connection. It shouldn't be took hard to use computer technologies like 'wake on lan' such that when you power on ONE component, they all power on, if you have a seperate sound system(or even multiple ones) that you can turn the volume up/down even if you end up putting the amplifier box in a different room, etc...
Basically, have ALL the multimedia devices you hook up talk to each other over such links, using some sort of protocol. It'd require some setup if, for example, you want to use your TV's speakers as the center and want the volume to stay equalized, but it should be doable.
I don't read AC A human right
I think his point is that if you want to do better than 720, you're going to have to do some work for it. Cost Increases: 1. Have to buy a 1080 capable TV vs 720. Not significant, but there. 2. Buy a decent BR player - $100 vs $20 for a DVD player. Even worse - you still have a working DVD player. 3. Buy 1080P content - vs watching 'upscaled' broadcast stuff or compressed to heck internet streams 4. Want the sound that goes with it? Can't rely on the TV's speakers anymore, need to get a sound system($$) Labor increases(can substitute hiring somebody, but that's $$$) 1. Have to install it semi-correctly 2. Have to view it close enough 3. Typically you have to mess with discs, or perhaps a file system.
I don't read AC A human right
Well, no - I won't likely purchase another TV ever. I will, however, purchase a projector and hook it up to a computer, or possibly a Smart TV box - e.g. a Google TV box (like the Logistics Revue), Boxee, Roku, or something similar; possibly both. Why? I get exactly what I want out it, and TV isn't really what we want. A home theatre is - and a project is better for that than a TV; an a SmartTV box would allow NetFlix, Hulu, etc to be pushed out the projector a little better than a standard Linux-based computer. The computer may have a DVD and/or BlueRay-DVD drive, and possibly a TV tuner as well (for OTA TV) should we want it - or possibly to hook up the VCR, Wii, etc.
But a TV? Not likely.
Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away. - Elvis Presley (source: imdb.com)
Tried this with Lost, and it made much less sense than usual.
When I play a game, I certainly expect a great user experience since that's the only reason to do it at all. When I use other technology such as my PVR system, I expect it to be convenient enough that I don't have a bad experience. That's the kind of user experience a TV designer should aim for: one that the user doesn't think much about beyond being satisfied. This is no longer as simple as allowing the user to select channels and adjust the volume since video is coming from increasingly diverse sources under the control of various entities. I'm still looking for a good way to combine access to recordings on my MythTV system with Internet sources like Netflix in one user interface.