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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!
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
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
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
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
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 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
Content providers and cable co.s won't hand another market to Apple (or Google). That lesson was learned with music.
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.
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
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.
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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.
Also that samsungs will NOT last 12 years like your last TV. you will be lucky to get 4 out of them. And this is a problem with MOST brands right now. Longevity is crap on these TV's. Even legendary Panasonic longevity has taken a huge hit with the company not fixing defective sets.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I think most people looked at their huge collection of DVD's and their huge collection of VHS and realized that no matter what format they purchased, it was effectively wasting money. Especially since you watch once and never watch again.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
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
I don't know about that, I've got a 32" Samsung LCD I bought back in 2006 that's still going strong. Cost me $1600 new, compared to the $1000 the 55" cost that ended up taking it's place, so it wasn't cheap, but it's not nearly as bad as the Sanyos and Visios and shit I see people replacing every other year.
Still, I get what you're saying. My grandmother's ancient console TV in the basement worked from the day they bought it in the 60's until they sold it in the early 2000's. I doubt a single appliance or device I've bought within the last 10 years will last even half that.
...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.
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)
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.