HDTV Almanac

Sorry, folks, but I cannot resist this one. I really struggle to refrain from the breathless “Wow! Look at how low this price is!” type of story because it gets old and it’s inevitable that someone can come up with a deal that tops whatever you’ve found. But I have to give in to this one.

Why? It’s a set from a top tier brand. It’s a deal from a major retailer. It’s nothing fancy but it should get the job done, and it has four HDMI inputs.

It’s the 42″ Sharp LC42SV49U and it is on sale at Best Buy for $329.99. That’s well under the benchmark $10 per diagonal inch, and a rather attractive deal.

How is it priced so low? Sharp is having trouble selling all the televisions it makes. The new (and rather expensive) Gen10 LCD fab is designed to make larger size panels, but word is that they have cut production back to just 50% of capacity. That has to hurt. So I expect that Sharp is looking to make cash any way it can, just to feed the capital costs of that monster factory. And Sharp is not alone. The television market has gone soft just when the companies have ramped up their production. So I expect to have my breath taken away soon and often by even better deals.

Oh, and before you lunge for the keyboard to write to me (at alfred@hdtvprofessor.com), I do realize that this same set was available from Best Buy on Black Friday for just $200. What makes this deal so remarkable is that you don’t need to spend the night in a sleeping back to get one.

UPDATE: 2/3/12 12:05 PM — the folks at Sharp saw this post and sent me the following statement. I’m impressed that they responded so quickly to this piece, and that they presented their case without criticism or comment, but just stated their positive view of the situation. I take their statement about their sales forecasts at face value.

Futuresource Consulting has just released a free analysis report that highlights their observations about consumer electronics products and trends at CES 2012. One of the points that they made in their announcement press release caught my attention:

Ever-thinner TV displays boosted interest in speakers, soundbars and home theatre systems.

I confess that I’ve been a bit puzzled over the fascination with thin when it comes to HDTVs. I understand that it’s cool, and that it generally results in a set that weighs less, but those don’t strike me as compelling features. When you think about it, the thickness of the display is one of the few features that you can’t discern when you’re actually using the product. From straight on, a 4 mm-thick OLED display looks the same depth as a “bulky” rear-projection display.

Now the Futuresource report points out another drawback for thin TVs. I grant that the sound system quality for most flat panels rivals that of the dashboard speaker in my 64 Mustang, but making the drivers ever thinner can’t help matters any. I remember Pioneer engineers showing me all sorts of clever designs they had to get better sound out of a flat panel HDTV, but is it really worth the effort? In many cases, a $25 desktop computer speaker set with a subwoofer will outperform the sound quality of the flat panel. If I thought it would save them some money, I’d recommend that manufacturers just drop the charade and sell their thinnest TVs without speakers at all. (Howver, I suspect that they’re not spending enough on the sound components to make much difference.)

So while you’re dreaming of a razor thin HDTV for your living room, remember to budget a little for a separate sound system; there are some bargains in compact home theater surround sound packages. You don’t listen to the movie soundtrack through an AM radio at the local cinema, and you should not have to do the same at home, either.

The FCC tracks the complaints it receives about various services under is oversight, including television, radio, and telephone. In the third quarter of 2011, complaints about cable and satellite services increased more than 15% over the prior quarter, though it is worth noting that the number of complaints about “billing and rates” issues were essentially flat with only a 1.5% increase. The billing and rate complaints still accounted for the largest portion of all complaints, with more than one third of the total.

Perhaps the canary in this coalmine are the numbers for “Satellite Television Extension & Localism Act” complaints. This category bloomed by nearly 44% over the prior quarter. Behind the esoteric title lies a festering problem in the television industry: retransmission rights. Subscription television services have to license the content from local broadcast stations, and cannot negotiate with a station outside the local market for the same content. Broadcasters — and their networks — are looking to replace revenues lost in other areas, and see cable and satellite subscribers as a worthy source. So they withhold their content until they get the fees that they want. The result can be a blackout for the subscribers until the negotiations are settled. In some cases, the blackouts can last weeks or even months. Senator John Kerry weighed in when it appeared that DirecTV subscribers in Boston might not get the SuperBowl, and other retransmission disputes are drawing high-profile attention as well. Expect this to be a controversial issue throughout 2012.

And just to keep this in perspective, all of the cable and satellite complaints combined did not equal half the complaints received about broadcast television. So we can rest assured that there are still people watching the over-the-air channels.

What are you doing next Sunday evening? (I plead “no contest” to charges of East Coast bias.) Perhaps you plan on joining several tens of millions of your U.S. neighbors in watching the Patriots take on the Giants in the SuperBowl. (Perhaps we’re entitled to a little East Coast bias.) Patriot fans in Boston were relieved when the local NBC broadcaster and DirecTV reached agreement on a new retransmission deal; the dispute had threatened to blackout the game coverage for the satellite subscribers.

But even if you can’t get to a TV on Sunday, you can still watch the game if you have access to broadband. The NFL is streaming the SuperBowl this year for free. You’ll be able to watch the game on the NFL.com website, and you’ll even be able to watch it on your smartphone if you’re a Verizon customer.

If just watching the game is not enough, you also can go through your own pregame warmup online. The site has hours of clips from last Sunday’s Media Day; you can watch some of the league’s most famous players come up with new ways to say “we’ve worked hard as a team to get here” and “we have a lot of respect for the other team”. Even if you’re not a fan of football, you may be fascinated by some of the bling these guys wear to a press interview. All week, the NFL will stream live events to provide more background and insight into the upcoming championship. It’s a great resource for football fans; next August is a long way off!

There’s an interesting discussion going on in one of the LinkedIn Groups that I belong to, and I find that I’ve been thinking a lot about it for the past few days. The topic of the conversation is that the industry has not settled on what to call this new and rapidly developing technology landscape that delivers video entertainment to us at home and on the go. Some of the terms in use are Smart TV, Connected TV, TV Everywhere, Interactive TV, and Social TV. Can’t we just settle on one term and move forward?

Well, the hard fact is that unless you own about 80% of the market share, you don’t get to name the catgory. The consumers might come up with one on their own, but the Balkanization of the terminology is likely to continue for a long time. Look at the devices that we connect to the Internet to get video content onto our TVs; I prefer to call them “network media players” but you’ll see them called “set-top boxes”, “digital media receivers”, or a bunch of other terms. About the only recent case that I can think of where the industry quickly standardized on a term was the ill-advised “LED TV” which created far more confusion for consumers than clarity.

I write about lots of different technology stuff that I find interesting; if you think you might find it interesting too, please consider following me on Twitter: @AlfredPoor.

But just because it’s difficult to get unanimous support for a term doesn’t mean that I won’t try anyway. I’m guided by a great quote from Esther Dyson, who once said of artificial intelligence, “that’s what we call it until we can do it” (or something like that; I can’t find the source.) The point is that we need names for new technologies until they get assimilated or they wither up and drop off the technology tree, but after that, the new term is extraneous. How many of us mention that we watch “color TV” these days? It was a big deal when I was in elementary school, but it’s just TV now. Or how many people still make the distinction that they watched “cable TV” or “satellite TV” last night? Heck, I doubt many people even make a distinction about high definition anymore.

So what do we call this brave new world that lets us view moving images on demand, spanning both time and space so that they can reach us in our living rooms or on our computers, tablets, or even telephones? I don’t know what we call it now, but I’m pretty sure that we’ll end up calling it “television”.

In a letter to shareholders about 4th Quarter 2011 results, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings reported good news and bad news. As I read the letter, it looks to me that while the company may have made some very public missteps along the way, there is no question in my mind that the corporate change of direction was a good choice and that it is already paying dividends.

The big news for many people is that the online streaming subscribers now outnumber the DVD-in-the-mail subscribers almost two t0 one. Netflix ended the year with nearly 22 million streaming subscribers and a little more than 11 million DVD subscribers. The DVD users still produce the bulk of the profits, however, $194 million for the quarter compared with just $52 million for the streaming. Still, the company had hoped that streaming would account for as much as 8% of the company profits by the end of last year; it turns out that they exceeded that goal with almost 11% of profits coming from streaming.

Netflix has turned the corner and is not looking back. They see that the days are numbered for DVD rentals; “As expected, DVD members declined this quarter to 11.2 million due to the continued impact of the price changes, as hybrid members continued to predominantly choose a streaming-only plan over a higher priced hybrid plan.” The consumers are voting with their dollars, and moving from disc to broadband delivery. One interesting point is that they see the existing television subscription services as their main competition going forward. “Just as broadcast networks have substantially transformed themselves into cable channels over the last twenty years, both broadcast and cable networks will effectively also become Internet networks like Netflix. As a pure-play we have many advantages, however, just as cable did over broadcast.” Netflix clearly has a strong head start over the others in streaming video, and their commitment to expanding their catalog of content is evidence of their will to compete. They lost the Starz content, but they have already contracted with studios to license many of the same titles directly. And they’re even launching their own original production of content, including a resurrection of the popular series “Arrested Development.”

The company’s future success is anything but guaranteed, but it clearly remains a force to be reckoned with in the market. The transition from in-the-mail to Internet has not been without its bumps, for certain, but Netflix looks strong and will play a role in shaping the future of television.

Okay, I think that this finally is my last CES 2012 post, at least for now. Today, I want to tell you about a product that won an an International CES Innovations 2012 Design and Engineering Award: TelyHD.

This is essentially a dedicated network media player that only has one application: Skype. It runs on Android, and connects to any display with an HDMI port. It accesses the Internet through your home network and high-speed broadband connection. (The higher your broadband speed, the better image you’ll get.) It has a number of features that set it apart from your run of the mill webcam, aside from the fact that you don’t need to hook it up to a computer.

It will alert you of an incoming call when you’re watching TV, so that you can switch to its input. It has a four-microphone array that should provide “beam steering” and better noise cancellation than a regular webcam, which is important in a living room setting. It also has a handy physical shutter that you can pull down over the lens so that you are sure that nobody can take a peek at you when you don’t want.

I haven’t tested the product, so I can’t speak to its performance, but it makes a lot of sense. Several of the major manufacturers have built Skype support into some of their Smart TVs, but I feel that they’ve missed a trick by not marketing this feature heavily to seniors. The TelyHD looks to be simple enough to operate (and fairly easy set up initially) that you don’t need to be very technical to make it work. I believe that one of the biggest undermarketed attractions for Skype is that it is a great way for grandparents to visit with grandchildren (and their parents). I don’t know if you’ve tried to hold a telephone conversation with a two- or three-year old lately, but it’s not a very productive medium for communication at that stage. With a video call, however, you get to see them playing even if their focus is not on your conversation. On a big screen TV, it can almost be like they’re in the room with you.

I think that the TelyHD is on the right track, making this a component feature rather than built-in. (The sets that have Skype “built-in” still require that you purchase extra-cost options to make it work.) That way you can move it to another set without having to buy it again. And I suspect that if they were to make a concerted effort to market the product to seniors, they could see a lot of them.

Let’s review the trends. Televisions are becoming more “connected” to all sorts of content. Subscription television services such as cable and satellite are being battered by “over-the-top” streaming video on the Internet. Everything is going wireless now that we’ve had a taste of untethered computing and communications thanks to our smartphones and tablets. And these smart screens are becoming the second and third windows onto our video entertainment environment.

And here comes an unlikely source of technological “glue” to pull all of this together: DLNA. That acronym that nobody can remember what it means (Digital Living Network Alliance) or exactly what it does may turn out to be a significant factor in home entertainment going forward. Up until now, DLNA technology has been a solution in search of a problem. Yes, it lets you access the photos and music that you have stored on one computer, and view them or listen to it on a different computer or device on your home network, using either a wired or wireless connection. It also lets you send a photo from your smartphone to your printer, but I don’t know anyone who actually does that.

But at CES 2012, the DLNA Premium Video platform was announced with the support of some heavy hitters in the industry: Comcast and Intel. The breakthrough here is that instead of making your content available to other devices on your network, this new technology lets any DLNA device on the network access outside content. Comcast demo’d a set-top box that can stream the cable company’s content to any supported screen in the house.

That’s huge. If DLNA can deliver on this promise, it means that the content provider (cable or satellite) does not have to learn how to support a variety of devices. If a device supports DLNA, then you will be able to access the content on it (or so we hope). It does not help the subscription services deliver their programming to subscribers away from their home (the goal of the TV Everywhere initiatives), but it does solve the need for consumers to be able to move throughout their home and take their entertainment with them. This could turn out to be a major factor in home entertainment in the future.

After last year’s disappearing act at CES 2011, Google TV came back strong at CES 2012. Google announced partnerships with major players including Sony, LG, VIZIO, and newcomer to the Smart TV market, Lenovo. (Logitech was conspicuously absent from the list.) Consumer demand for “over-the-top” streaming video over the Internet is growing by leaps and bounds, and Google is certainly in a position to manage and deliver the oceans of information required to track and access all the online video content that is available. Having the largest search engine and YouTube certainly helps their position.

It also helps to have some top tier brands in your corner. One of the most interesting announcements came from Sony. The company announced two new products with Google TV. The NSZ-GP9 Blu-ray player provides unprecedented connectivity. More surprising for me, however, was the NSZ-GS7 which is a network media player powered by Google TV. Now you can get a Sony that makes your existing dumb TV a Smart TV. (Or if you already have a Smart TV, it can make it smarter.) I take it as a strong sign that Sony feels that there is a market for a retrofit device such as this.

Now here’s the good, the bad, and the ugly: it’s still all about the remote. The press and analysts piled on when the original Google TV products came out, harping on the clunky QWERTY keyboards that were built into the remote. This generation is better, in that the remote has a touchpad to make mouse-like cursor control easier. The bad is that when you flip the remote over, there is the backlit QWERTY keyboard staring back at you. And the ugly is that no matter how you slice it, any remote that is large enough to hold a full keyboard is going to awkwardly large. I am reconciled to the fact that accessing streaming video on the Internet inevitably requires some text entry at some point, but I’m not convinced that having the keyboard with you at all times is necessarily the right answer.

I don’t know what the right answer is; it probably involves some combination of speech recognition, gesture or motion control, a keyboard, and a lot of intelligence the device to make good judgments about what I’m trying to find. But I’m encouraged that Google TV has lived to see another revision, and I expect that consumer interest in the platform will grow when these Sony products ship this summer.

No, I wasn’t at CES this year, but I followed the event closely and since a lot of companies thought I was going to attend, I got the usual flood of press releases and invitations. As a result, I’ve got sort of a 30,000 foot perspective on the show this year. While there was a lot of coverage about 3DTV and OLED technology and motion remote control in the television market, I’d say that the most significant advances were in the area of Smart TVs. More devices are getting more content from more sources, all so that you can watch more of what you want on your large screen television.

But buried deep within all the coverage of the sparkly, shiny things at CES this year was a story that I did not see get much attention. Here’s a quick video from Technicolor about their new M-GO technology that is due out later this year.

Why is this so important? Currently, video entertainment content is Balkanized. You have to go here to see the programming grid to find out what’s available on your subscription TV service, then go there to search through the available Hulu offerings. You then have to open a separate website or application to find out what you can watch on Netflix. I am convinced that the company that can provide a unified interface that makes it easier to find what you want to watch — and make good recommendations for choices when you don’t know what you want to watch — will become an enormous and powerful success in the home entertainment industry. It will have the power to make or break any content source as the traditional network broadcast distribution model continues to crumble.

I won’t go into all the details here, but Technicolor is uniquely positioned to be that company. And this new M-GO system could be a game-changing force in the industry. The significance is that some major players are already buying into the concept. Intel will include M-GO in its Ultrabook devices. Samsung will pre-load M-GO on Smart TVs and Blu-ray players, and it will be available on Galaxy tablets. VIZIO will preload M-GO on the connected televisions, tablets, Blu-ray players and network media players that use VIZIO Internet Apps.

Whether you are watching on your television, your tablet, or your smartphone, you will be able to use M-GO to find what you want to watch. I haven’t seen the product yet so I don’t know how well it will deliver on this promise, but I will be watching closely for its release later this year. This could change everything.