jeff_rigby
Banned
Sony TVs could integrate Kinect, report claims
Revolutionary TVs: It's More than Hardware
The Clicker's Moment: After 60 Years, TV Remotes Get Zapped With Makeovers
BY MARK WILSONMon Dec 5, 2011
RVU revision 1 for thin clients uses a picture of the DVR box Menu generated by the DVR box and displayed on the hardware limited (thin client, Ex: $99.00 Apple TV Box) Revision 2 requires more powerful hardware with webkit support for the UI.
RVU is NOW being implemented by Verizon, Comcast and Direct TV. Samsung working with Direct TV is the first announced with this feature in new TVs available March 2012. TVs shown at CES should feature this and more web (Home Networking) Home control products.
According to The Daily's sources, the Xbox firm wants to "aggressively" push the 360 motion sensor into as many living rooms as possible - even those without games consoles.
Microsoft is said to be in the early stages of licensing Kinect technology to television manufacturers such as Vizio and even Sony, it's claimed.
Revolutionary TVs: It's More than Hardware
Television Remote controls Samsung, Sony, LG, VizioEveryone is hard at work at developing a "revolutionary" TV. It will change the way you watch TV. It will be so great that you will have to run out and buy one. According to the Wall Street Journal, Howard Stringer, the head of Sony, has stated that there has been a "tremendous amount of R&D" put into a "different kind of TV set". When talking about Apple's potential future TV, Steve Jobs said in the Walter Issacson biography, "I’d like to create an integrated television set that is completely easy to use. It would be seamlessly synched with all of your devices and with iCloud. It will have the simplest user interface you could imagine. I finally cracked it."
Lenovo has also joined the party with the announcement of a smart TV known as IdeaTV. Like Sony and Apple, Lenovo is pursuing a four-screen strategy that lets you consume your media anywhere (TV, tablet, smartphone, computer). Already in the market with their SmartTVs, Samsung is preparing to launch a new version with Google TV as the underlying platform. Despite the initial announcement at the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Samsung was wise not to go to market this year given the failure with the earlier version of Google TV. Samsung has stated that their implementation will be differentiated from other Google TV devices. Samsung is also planning to release OLED-based displays at this January's CES. OLED has the promise of a superior picture in a thinner package with less power consumption.
So, will these new products change TV the way we know it? Hard to say, with manufacturers holding their cards close to the chest. The last big change that drove TV sales was the creation of affordable large flat high-definition (HD) screens. However, it was more than the TV manufacturers building HD capable sets. Content creators and providers also bought in and provided HD TV shows and movies (Content providers love the opportunity to reissue old movies in new formats). All of the innovations since then: 3D, TV apps and low power consumption have not helped to stem the shrinking margins in the TV market. The bottom line is that these new features have not provided any compelling value to the consumer.
Whatever the next big change is to TV, the whole ecosystem needs to come along for the ride. I have not doubt that Apple can implement the technology Steve Jobs described above. However, even if higher resolution sets were available tomorrow, it would take some time for the eco-system to catch-up (2160p anyone?). Even though the Internet provides a ubiquitous and instant way to deliver content, the current infrastructure in the United States struggles to deliver 1080P video to the living room.
It seems the real opportunity lies in giving people the ability to watch any content from any location at any time. Instead of "apps", I would prefer recommendation engines that help me discover new shows that I would like (like Netflix does today). The real problem here is with content providers. As long as we live in a world of content windows and bundles, only the technology side of this challenge will be solved. When the studios are willing to change how they license content, that will create the real TV revolution.
The Clicker's Moment: After 60 Years, TV Remotes Get Zapped With Makeovers
BY MARK WILSONMon Dec 5, 2011
RVU and Allvid allow a DLNA TV with DTCP-IP DRM to control and display video from a DVR box. It is now possible to throw away the Cablebox DVR remote and only use a TV remote. This and something like Google TV which no longer requires a HDMI in port if connected to a DVR set top box with RVU is going to revolutionize control schemes. RVU was proposed in 2008, the PS3 (androvsky cite) had support for DLNA and DTCP-IP envisioned by late 2009 with firmware 3.0.Every TV manufacturer agrees, the remote control will change more in the next three years than it has the previous six decades. But how will it actually change? Sony, Samsung, LG, and Vizio tell us.
Why Has Nothing Changed in Decades?
"Especially in the U.S., there are certain reasons why the remote control has actually not innovated for the last decade or so--it has to do a lot with infrastructure. Cable and satellite provider remote controls are the ones that most consumers utilize...If that's the case, for manufacturers like us, we think, how much more influence could we have if we innovated around the remote? That's sort of the looming question for us." --Mike Abary, Head of Sony Home Entertainment of America.
Television manufacturers told me over and over again that their innovation has been thwarted by our set-top boxes. While Sony may be free to imagine any type of crazy remote scheme to control Sony TVs, it's inevitably thrown by the wayside for the remotes that are packaged, and often preprogrammed, by companies like Comcast and DirecTV.
RVU revision 1 for thin clients uses a picture of the DVR box Menu generated by the DVR box and displayed on the hardware limited (thin client, Ex: $99.00 Apple TV Box) Revision 2 requires more powerful hardware with webkit support for the UI.
RVU is NOW being implemented by Verizon, Comcast and Direct TV. Samsung working with Direct TV is the first announced with this feature in new TVs available March 2012. TVs shown at CES should feature this and more web (Home Networking) Home control products.
I apologize as logically this post should have been first and then post the Kinect coming to the Sony TV, PS3 or PS4 rumor. I've gone over this in the PS3 Web browser coming for a long time thread several times. RVU is a major game changer whose impact we are only now understanding. Early on several commented on my obsession with webkit, 2012 should provide support for how much effort I put into the PS3 browser thread, it is also a game changer and Charles Ying's post confirms Sony providing support for first IPTV and a new browser in Firmware 3.0 (2009) as well as DTCP-IP envisioned (androvsky cite).[ VIZIO ]
General Outlook: New technologies will be physical button supplements, not replacements.
Motion: "If you have a gyro, you can take almost every button off a remote and it looks beautiful. But you give it to a consumer, and after a few weeks, they're sick of it."
Touch: "If you look at usability and watch people use this in the living room, there's this look up look down problem with touchscreens…you just watch their necks and it's hilarious."
Voice: "Voice I think is going to be pretty important for navigation, but it needs to be very accurate…imagine, it's 11 at night, you're exhausted, you have to wake up at 5 a.m., and your kid is crying in the middle of the night. It's got to be one of those things that is bulletproof or consumers will reject it."
[ SAMSUNG ]
General Outlook: Consumers will choose their preferred remote, every day.
Motion: No comment, we're too close to CES 2012 in January.
Touch: "If you're in love with your smartphone and you want to download an app to your internet enabled TV, you can control everything that way…if you want to pick up a remote and tell it to switch to channel 206, you can do this, too."
Voice: "Voice is one of those technologies that's being looked at…certainly it's something that us and any other manufacturer is looking at."
[ SONY ]
General Outlook: TVs need to keep up better with other technologies.
Motion: "There is now, especially with the younger generation, a growing, let's call it, expectation that anything that has a screen on it is going to be touch capable or gesture capable. Certainly, I think, the way we interact with a TV will need to change because a TV is the last screen that actually doesn't yet have gesture control capability."
Voice: "In the next 3-5 years, maybe the way people will interact with a TV will not be primarily through a remote--maybe it will be voice, for example. It depends on the demographic. I think the younger demographics...are going to expect and demand a different type of [wholly new] interface."
[ LG ]
General Outlook: The "Holy Grail" is to reduce the remotes on the coffee table.
Motion: "Motion [will come] in a big way." (In fact, LG has a gyroscope remote on the market)
Touch: "Everyone has really responded strongly to things like iPhones and tablets. Making remotes that function in that same familiar way is something you'll see more of….[though] my sense is touch won't be the de facto. It's supplemental. "
Voice: "Voice is an interesting one. The days of saying one thing and having it understand another are coming to an end…[but] I don't think you'll see anyone go all in. It will start in premium sets."