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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
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
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
... than being charged for 200+ channels I will never watch.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
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.
Don't forget about color dept. 1677216 just isn't enough.
Absolutel no reason we shouldn't be at full on 16-bits per channel right now.
My 19", 4:3 monitor from 2002 had higher resolution than my HDTV does today.
Oh, and better picture quality and response times, too.
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.
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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Your friend could buy a $10 universal remote and spend the 5 minutes it takes to set it up instead of needing 5 remotes...
And then have the programming go away as soon as the batteries die. I swear universal remotes are great, but why the hell haven't they added 75 cents worth of flash memory to the things to hold the codes permanently? The only ones that seem to do that are the more expensive ones like the Logitech Harmony varieties (which though they are coming down in price, are still a lot more than $10).
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
16 Bits per channel? Even Huge budget blockbusters are only mastered at 12 bits per channel. The only time I've ever worked in 16 bit is for math during compositing. It's always output to 10 or 12 bit. So like, that would be serious overkill.
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.