What Is the Future of the Television? (ben-evans.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Benedict Evans has an interesting post about where television hardware is headed. In the 1990s and early 2000s, the tech industry made a huge push to invade the living room, trying to make the internet mesh with traditional TV broadcasts. As we all know, their efforts failed. Now, we periodically see new waves of devices to attach to the TV, but none have been particularly ambitious. The most successful devices of the recent wave, like the Chromecast and Apple TV, are simply turning the TV into a dumb screen for streamed content. Meanwhile, consumption of all types of video content is growing on smaller screens — tablets, phones, etc. Even game consoles are starting to see their market eroded by boxes like the Steam Link, which acts as a pipe for a game being played elsewhere on a PC. It raises an intriguing question: where is the television headed? What uses and functions does one giant screen serve that can't be cleverly redistributed to smaller screens? Evans concludes, "The web's open, permissionless innovation beat the closed, top-down visions of interactive TV and the information superhighway."

Comments

Size and mobility as needed and appropriate

[QuietLagoon]

... What uses and functions does one giant screen serve that can't be cleverly redistributed to smaller screens?...

The size and mobility of the screen will continue to evolve towards use cases that are both needed and appropriate for the task involved, along with a continuing and increasing lockdown of the media streams so that a tithe can be extracted..

.
There, I saved you from having to waste time reading TFA as I did.

I dunno...

[cayenne8]

I mean, I like to watch stuff on my tablet or phone when I'm out and about and have a moment, or maybe dining alone from time to time.

But at home? That's a different story. I enjoy watching movies especially on a LARGE screen tv 60" or larger preferably. I rarely go to the movie theater anymore, due to pricing and all the damned idiots that won't shut up, noisy kids, etc.

I like to recreate the movie experience at home...and I have a sound system I've built over the years to run with a nice large picture.

No, I don't watch much traditional "network" type television...hell all that turned to stupid "reality shows" or contests of some kind (I remember when the FoodTV and cooking channel used to actually SHOW people cooking with recipes and techniques)...I tune that out.

Of late, good content has started to reappear, like Walking Dead, Breaking Bad, etc. However, with these, I tend to let them finish an annual run, and then binge watch them over a week or so.

But I'd not enjoy good sit down viewing like this with friends or family, or hell, even by myself on a 12", 7" or less size picture.

I want this on a nice LARGE high quality screen. Yes, I am bemoaning the loss of the plasma screen, I still think it has the best blacks, but still.

Of course my eyes are getting worse too..but I don't understand why so many folks seem to be, as this article posits, to be watching everything from a damned cell phone or tablet.

Re:I dunno...

[jedidiah]

Cell phones and tablets are cool when you are on the road. This is especially true if you have a less lame device and you can store stuff on the device and not be dependent on slow and unreliable networks.

At home, the bigger the better.

The first month that the original iPad was out I figured out how to stream video to it (around the house) and quickly got bored with that idea.

Give my my 120inch screen. The display device doesn't need intelligence. It's actually better if it has none since external boxes are cheap and are evolving quickly.

The smarts doesn't need to be built into the TV. It really hasn't been since the advent of cable. There's no compelling reason to change that now.

Re:I dunno...

[steveg]

Except it's getting really hard to find a "dumb TV." Most of the people that *I've* talked to don't want a smart TV, but fewer and fewer companies making TVs are willing to make TVs without including "smart" features.

Paradoxically, if you want a reasonable number of HDMI ports (so you can attach your own devices) you have to get a smart TV.

For the foreseeable future, right where it's at.

[ErikTheRed]

The problem is that the screen itself is a large, beautiful, and relatively expensive piece compared to everything that puts content on it. The price point makes it impractical to upgrade and replace on the same cycle as an XBox, Playstation, Roku, Apple TV, etc. Personally, I replace the screen every 7-10 years, and the connected devices every 3-5 years. Until the screens drop sufficiently in price to be replaceable in sync with the content devices, it makes exactly zero sense to cram more stuff into them. Especially when you consider the security issues.

There is no future in television

[TigerPlish]

Just give me enough dumb screen to give me a 47 degree field of view from my chair, and I'm happy. What I plug into that screen could be anything. It could even be a cable box, thus turning into a "television."

What Is the Future of the Television?

[U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M]

Ow My Balls!

Scheduled programming is doomed. Maybe ads too.

[hwstar]

The future of television is on-demand and not scheduled programming with the option to pay subscription fees to kill all advertising. This means no cable TV as we currently see it. All TV programming will be sent over IP networks. Over the air local TV stations will start offering TV streaming to smart TV's, and will retire their transmitters. The spectrum will be freed up for other uses.

My take on Advertising: Advertising is a scourge which causes weak minded people to go into debt wasting money purchasing things they don't need. Think of it as the 20th/21st century Jedi Mind Trick.

Re:Scheduled programming is doomed. Maybe ads too.

[Anonymous Coward]

I disagree. I was an early adopter of online streaming. Ditched cable long before Netflix. But over time I got tired of "looking for things to watch" - it's more time consuming and tedious that flipping channels. About a year ago I had a digital antenna installed. I have 30+ channels and the content is decent. I've found that I rarely stream anything anymore. What was once novel and cutting edge now seemed to be a huge pain in the ass. To be honest the TV is on more for background noise than anything else, I don't really watch much TV, but for me personally the Antenna has become the superior technology. Sometimes low tech is the best tech.

Re:Scheduled programming is doomed. Maybe ads too.

[sims 2]

I have a lot more of a problem finding the time to watch the things on my watch list and deciding which one to watch when I have the time than I do looking for things to watch.

Then again I seem to spend a lot of time surfing youtube's related/recommendations i've found a lot of good songs that way.

Projectors?

[MagickalMyst]

I don't know about everyone else but I haven't owned a TV in at least 10 years. I've never been a big TV person.

That said, I did buy a small projector that I use for watching movies and documentaries on Netflix.

It is low power, very portable and displays in HD (720p). It will literally fit into a large coat pocket.

Details here.

I'm not a big fan of Dell, but I highly recommend this device if you are in the market for a projector/TV.

Re:Projectors?

[ledow]

- Projectors cast shadows when you walk in front of them.
- They generally get duller or break more than a TV over time.
- They are just as - if not more - expensive as a TV over time.
- They get hot, and can be noisy, and sound often sucks compared to an equivalent TV (granted, some people have separate audio systems).
- As you said, you can get 720p. I had that on a monitor back in the 1990's. In fact, I'm pretty sure I beat that quite handsomely. HD is a downgrade for anyone that was used to the first wave of 22" LCD monitors. 720p barely cuts it on a large projected screen (and I'm one of those people who doesn't see the need for HD even!). TV's are going into 4k as we speak, and that means huge res at huge size where you CAN utilise all that resolution.
- You've got to go some to pull a 65" TV off the wall. Projectors can be pulled from even ceiling mounts and put under a coat (trust me, I've filled out the insurance forms for work).

I work in schools. We have DOZENS of projectors on site. Even in a massive industry like education, we're all moving to large-screen touch TV's for the above reasons. Even fancy short-throws mounted above the boards are no longer in vogue.

Projectors have a lot of problems that TV's don't have. The only advantage is (sort of) portability, but for any serious setup, you wouldn't be able to move it around anyway.

Re:Projectors?

[MagickalMyst]

Some very interesting points! I agree with most of them. However:

"- They are just as - if not more - expensive as a TV over time."

I paid about $600 for mine, brand new. And because it uses LED instead of a regular bulb it does not get hot like a traditional projector. Nor do I need to replace the bulb ($300) every 3000 hours or so. LED bulb (non-replaceable) on this projector is supposed to last approximately 20,000 hours. So about the same price as a basic TV.

"- They generally get duller or break more than a TV over time."

Mine still works perfectly after 4 years. No degraded picture or problems.

"- ... can be noisy, and sound often sucks compared to an equivalent TV (granted, some people have separate audio systems)."

The fan can be a little annoying, depending on where the device is situated. Sound goes to the stereo so audio isn't an issue.

"but for any serious setup, you wouldn't be able to move it around anyway."

The tripod stand is also quite portable. Seriously.

"I work in schools. We have DOZENS of projectors on site."

Projectors may not be the best solution in your case - schools. However, the article specifically mentioned "invading the living room". I normally use my projector in the living room.

"Projectors have a lot of problems that TV's don't have."

That's kind of a moot point. TV's have a lot of problems that projectors don't have.

The biggest reason that I went for a projector as opposed to a TV is a large, portable display. That, and there's nothing like helping friends and relatives move and lugging around some behemoth 50lb+ 52 inch TV, up and down stairs and trying not to scratch the walls or damage the TV. My projector is about as big and heavy as a home DSL router.

Projectors may not be for everyone but they are certainly worth looking into.

Re:Projectors?

[GreatDrok]

I've been doing projectors since the mid 1990's after I saw one in the Smithsonian showing the asteroid scene from Empire and was wowed by the scale of the image. The quality (NTSC) wasn't so great but there were ways even then to improve it with line doublers and scalers plus using LaserDisc instead of VHS.

The cost of projection has come down and the quality has gone up over time and I'm now on my fourth projector. They've all been DLP and I typically run them at 100" or bigger. My current one (Optoma HD50) is full HD and 3D. The image (once calibrated) gives a cinema a real run for the money. Add a great surround system and you're rarely going to need to see a film at the cinema for the full effect. Big direct view screens are too full of features, too small unless you pay serious money (I have a 55" 4K set which was OK) and the smart TV features get in the way often, not to mention all the silly image processing that makes the picture worse. If you can spare the space for the screen (mine is ceiling mounted drop down) or have a large white wall available then you can have home cinema on the sort of budget that will only buy you a mid size direct view screen.

Re:Projectors?

[Kohath]

An atheist, a vegan, and a guy who doesn't own a TV walk into a bar. I only know because they told everyone within 2 minutes.

A confused mess of thought...

[Junta]

Big screen size is being positioned as somehow opposed to the concept of 'openness' of web. It's one of a few jumbled concepts in here..

-No, big screens aren't going away, still as popular as ever. Other screens may also be popular as people watch things in a car, at lunch, etc, but big screens are still the go to in the home.
-Linear television content's days are numbered, which should be apparent to anyone paying attention since the days of the VCR's popularity. People want the content on their terms and time, and time shifting linear delivery is the workaround to use broadcast technologies. Advanced networks mean the need to broadcast is more and more limited. Business and legal wrangling of licensing terms will keep broadcast television around longer than it should be, but it will happen. Programming
-Game consoles are in no way threatened right now. They are massively popular streaming platforms, and Valve's streaming device isn't even on the radar for most folks. Sales of consoles are higher than ever.

Not that intriguing ...

[gstoddart]

It raises an intriguing question: where is the television headed? What uses and functions does one giant screen serve that can't be cleverly redistributed to smaller screens?

What the hell do you think people do with TVs?

That's right, we watch them ... TV, movies, maybe video games.

I don't want my big TV replaced with anything which is "cleverly redistributed to smaller screens".

I have never used my TV as anything but a dumb screen for content from other sources. Most other people probably won't either.

People keep telling me what my TV will be in the future, and like so many people telling us what "the future" will hold for us, they're not actually listening to what anybody wants.

So, the next time I'm sitting and watching a movie in my living room in my comfy sofa ... I sure as hell won't be asking the not-so-very-intriguing question of What uses and functions does one giant screen serve that can't be cleverly redistributed to smaller screens?.

A TV is a display device, for one or more other devices, all of which are infinitely more suited to retrieving and rendering content than my TV.

Oddly enough, the monitors on my computer are also just dumb displays.

Live streaming beats fixed schedule

[Kjella]

I think the TV as such is mostly going to go away, at least the form with a tuner. Here in Norway the mean broadband connection is 33 Mbit/s, the median 24 Mbit/s and 90%+ have 4+ Mbit/s. In say ten more years of fiber rollout "everybody" will have enough bandwidth to watch whatever they want, whenever they want it. That doesn't mean I think TV as such will go away, but the big screen in the living room will just be one of many where you can watch it. As for "smart" TVs, well they don't cost more than a cell phone less screen, camera and radio/wireless so why not throw it in there even if 95% don't use it.

Re:Easy

[Moof123]

Most have poor text display, and a lot of lag. On the whole they are often poor monitors.

Big monitors on the other hand are awesome. I am a big fan of my 40" monitor, finally it is big enough that I don't end up using all the corners for stuff a lot of the time.

Re:Not exactly true

[NexFlamma]

Fuck it. I clearly have no idea what I'm doing anymore.

Screw paying for ANY television viewing

[kheldan]

I think there should be advances in OTA broadcast technology.
Several years ago I decided that I was tired of paying $50 a month to Comcast for a whole slew of channels I never ever watched, a handful I did, and all the shitty extra re-compression they were doing to jam all the crap channels I never watched into the same size pipe, and got an antenna on the roof and started watching local broadcast stations instead, and never looked back once. Best decision I ever made. I've got more stuff on my DVR than I have time to watch, typically, it cost me nothing other than a one-time expense for the antenna, and the picture quality is about as high as it can be. Updating of OTA broadcast, I think, will find more people turning to it and away from shitty cable and satellite, which is already a trend. Streaming over the Internet, I think, is just another 'pay TV' trap like cable and satellite, and as a matter of fact if you think for a moment, how is it really any different than cable or satellite directly connected to your TV? Worse in some ways, you're paying for the connectivity and paying for the content! Get Netflix or something like it for the things you can't get OTA (newer movies, specific content) but OTA makes so much sense.

How would sport matches become unscheduled?

[tepples]

The future of television is on-demand and not scheduled programming

Good luck getting the sport leagues to play matches when you want to watch them.

Even if you really don't care about the Super Bowl

[tepples]

Antenna TV really only works if you really really REALLY don't care about the crap you're watching.

There are plenty of people in Slashdot's home country who care about the national championships of the country's major professional sport leagues: the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals, and the World [sic] Series.

My ideal TV would be a big dump screen, that's it

[xiando]

I do not have a television but I do have a computer with a 3 monitor PC setup (24" 27" 24") and a good surround setup. I would by a "TV" if I could get a big basic screen with a decent resolution - but they simply don't sell those. 40" with supposed "HD" which is really 720p half-HD? This the dark ages? Am I to be impressed with a resolution lower than the average cellphone?

I also do NOT want a "smart" screen ("TV") with some ultra lame SOC which will be outdated in a month running some garbage OS with a lot of bugs and no chance of future updates. These "Android on a stick" type things are likely selling because you can simply replace them with newer models when you feel like it without buying a brand new screen.

I also do NOT want to pay for a garbage tin-can sounding "stereo" when I buy a SCREEN ("TV"). That joke of an amplifier combined with poor quality stereo speakers they include in TVs have no place anywhere near my living-room.

I personally don't even want that "TV decoder" part of a TV, it's not like any of the channels offered are worth wasting time on anyway. The supposed "news" the "mainstream media" offer is nothing but fascist propaganda mixed with entertainment and watching TV shows with commercial breaks it out of the question.

In short: I personally HOPE that the answer to "What is the future of Television" is nothing, I hope it dies and like the telegraph. If someone were to offer a big screen with an acceptable resolution with nothing but inputs and outputs on the back then I would probably buy that. As it stands right now I don't have a television and I do not want one and I would not accept one if I got one for free.

Collapse of cable

[Moof123]

It finally is feeling like there is a snowball starting to roll towards buying a few specific subscriptions to stuff you like instead of a smorgasbord of crap you have to sift through. I have not watched "live" TV in my house in probably 4 years.

ESPN, QVC, and their ilk will hopefully be left high and dry with not enough folks willing to pay for them to keep them alive. ESPN in particular is the poster child of what I hate about cable. I don't want it, but must still fork over ~$8 a month in dues so the masses can cheer on their adopted tribal warriors and feel better through the accomplishments or failures of folks they have likely never even met. My guess is that on the open market ESPN will find itself in a death spiral where the current costs of operation cannot actually be supported by the few folks willing to fork over for monthly access. More than the money, I hate that I was supporting what i view as a negative influence on the country.

So in the future I can see us with a lot fewer options, but with a lot of the absolute crap gone. I am heartened by Hulu finally offering an option to be (mostly) ad-free. Netflix was already ad-free.

But on the whole the prevalence of tablets for easy internet browsing has filled a lot of the idiot box utility. Why watch the news when I can read what I want and skip around the fluff on Apple or Google news? Why watch the financial shows when I can look at the plots myself and read only the advisors i trust, not the wackos and cranks that CNBC is rife with?

Another use case

[spaceman375]

I'm getting older. I don't need glasses yet, but after many hours of looking at a nearby screen my vision gets blurry. Looking at something far away keeps my eyes happier. So now I use a bluetooth mouse & keyboard, plug my box into my big screen, and browse/read/CLI/program from the couch. Television means distant seeing; just what I need.

HDMI switch

[tepples]

Paradoxically, if you want a reasonable number of HDMI ports (so you can attach your own devices) you have to get a smart TV.

Or a dumb TV and an external HDMI switch. You need an external switch anyway if you have a lot of legacy devices with composite, S-Video, or component outputs, such as retro video game consoles or a VHS player for those movies that haven't yet been rereleased on Blu-ray.

The Future of Television

[Lost Race]

Somebody wrote a book about the future of television, among other things. It's called "1984".

In corporatist 21st century, television watches you!

"I like to watch."

[swell]

"I like to watch." - Quote from Chauncy Gardener (Peter Sellers) in the movie 'Being There'.

Many people leave the TV on all day, some all night. Some have multiple TVs on in different rooms. These people tend to be home alone and their television is a 'companion'. They like the stream of voices, especially happy voices like from game shows. They usually don't actually watch a show, almost never from beginning to end. They get sound bites, they see an occasional pleasant scene as they vacuum the floor or wash dishes or talk on the phone.

Clearly these are not /. people, but they vastly outnumber us. They are the demographic that advertisers want to reach. TV ads slip in to the distracted mind unnoticed where they can have maximum impact on the subconscious.

The future of television for the masses of dull ignorant people is exactly what we have. What we have had since B&W Jackie Gleason shows. Lots of easily accessible mindless entertainment for mindless people. Thank goodness for some new producers who offer more stimulating fare.

Re:Easy

[lgw]

My home theater setup is a 60" plasma screen attached to my laptop. It's only used as a display panel, but it works fine for that (text isn't great, but movies are). I enjoy a real home theater setup over any tablet or whatever. I doubt that use is going away.

I think the big failure is that "Smart TVs" just aren't quite good enough to replace the "TV sticks", or at least not at a competitive price. But a big dumb display panel that looks great; that I want.

I know where I'd like to see it headed: standards

[Locke2005]

How did they manage to develop a 4K television standard that still kept the old 50Hz/60Hz dichotomy? Could we please just pick one universal framerate? Tying the screen refresh rate to the power line frequency is sort of silly at this point, isn't it? (Yes, I'm also upset the "4K television" and "4K movie" are two completely different resolutions)

Re:Transition

[jafiwam]

And in 20 years, both of you will realize a close in small screen is a completely dumb idea only a kid would want to have.

Eyesight beyond 40 is NOT conducive to any type of product like that. You'd have to assume lots of medical breakthroughs that are safe, effective, AND inexpensive to fix eyesight first.

Now get off my lawn.

Amazon & Netflix should be the future of TV

[jonwil]

Recent efforts like the Amazon Original Series "The Man in the High Castle" (based on the Philip K Dick book of the same name) show that the future of TV should be companies making programming based on what people want to watch (and are willing to pay for) rather than on what the companies convince advertisers to support.

But as long as dinosaur last-century media companies like Comcast, Time Warner, CBS corporation, Fox, Disney, Viacom and others continue to do everything they can to preserve their status as gatekeepers dictating what content people get to see, the future of TV will be people paying ever-increasing subscription fees for overpriced pay TV products that force them to pay for 500 channels they dont want just to get the 5 channels showing content they are actually interested in.

Disney is by far the worst offender here where they force anyone who wants ANY of the vast portfolio of Disney content (including rebroadcasts of their local ABC affiliate) has to pay money for ESPN even if they dont want it, dont like it and never watch sports at all. Should ESPN go away? No, plenty of people DO like what they air. But Disney should stop forcing ESPN (probably one of the more expensive channels when it comes to how much the TV companies pay to get it on their platform) on people who dont want it and will never watch it.

Re:Easy

[ncc74656]

I think the big failure is that "Smart TVs" just aren't quite good enough to replace the "TV sticks", or at least not at a competitive price.

Also, TVs tend to last a while. The four-year-old 55" Toshiba in my living room most likely has at least twice as many years ahead of it. Streaming services and their associated gadgets come and go much more quickly. Netflix or Amazon will probably be around for the long haul, but what about those other services you've never heard of that the average "smart TV" of today supports? Long before eight years is up, they're gone, and your TV's support for them is about as useful as an 8-track. It's better to farm this support out to gadgets that are easily replaced as they become obsolete.