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Intel's Rumored TV Plans Would Compete With Apple, Google
Nerval's Lobster writes "Google tried to extend its influence to televisions, an effort that largely crashed and burned. Apple executives call Apple TV a 'hobby,' although it's been long-rumored that their company has a television set in the works. And Microsoft's made a muscular attempt to conquer the living room with the Xbox, which now does a lot more than just video games. If current rumors prove correct, you can soon add Intel to that list of IT giants with an eye on televisions. According to TechCrunch and SlashGear, the chip manufacturer is prepping to unveil a first-generation television system of some sort at next month's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. TechCrunch suggests that Intel will debut the system on a city-by-city basis, similar to what Google's doing with Google Fiber, in order to maintain 'more flexibility in negotiating licensing with reluctant content providers.' (The publication's information comes from the ever-popular unnamed sources.) In essence, Intel is proposing a set-top box paired with a subscription service, which would provide a mixture of traditional programming alongside streaming content."
Hopefully Intel learned a few lessons with their Ultrabook fiasco. Those things were DOA.
THis isn't the 1950's where the entire entertainment system, TV, HiFi and Phonograph are all integrated into the same box. Some one make a freekin TV monitor without all the tuners and computers in it! I know you can get monitors but could someone make one that cost less than a TV with all that crap in it. Then make the gadgets to attach to the "Monitor". Maybe we could even have 2K and 4K monitors at 50" for less thank $5K?
It all starts at 0
It seems of all the folks who want to do TVIP, only Google seems to be taking any action on the sorry ass state of US broadband. The telecomms sure arent. They are in the game of eating taxpayer subsides while lobbying for metered data and data caps. Cable TV has woefully failed at a la carte, instead is a force-fed smorgasbord of rotten tripe, most of which any individual doesn't want.
I just don't know what will be the tipping point for something to change, will it be when watching tv will become too expensive to do for typical family?
The article seems to imply that Intel will be supply chips for next gen set top boxes rather than make whole products. They currently supply some chips but look likes they are expanding their share. The next gen boxes are supposed to do more; the problem is the content owners still have firm control of content. Getting them to move away from the current model of bundles of channels to a reasonable ala carte system is a challenge. Notice I said "reasonable". The content owners would love to charge exhorbitant amounts for each channel if they could get away with it.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
do people even watch tv? i haven't had a tv in years.
Like you, I am too superior for video entertainment. I just meditate and think deep thoughts, unlike TV watchers who wallow in their own filth and poke sharp sticks in their ears.
The only future I see for TV is when they gain wireless DLNA or some such (Like Apple TV but standardized). Then there's this big screen in the room that anyone can stream stuff too from their phone/whatever. Portable devices then need to be able to encode video for streaming to the big screen so you can use it as a large monitor (with codec dependent latency of course). That's it. All TVs and computer monitors should get this capability in the future. Wired connections should remain available for higher quality and low latency, but TV as display server is the only thing that makes sense IMHO. They'll need to keep tuners for quite a while too.