GigaOM » HDTVs

Who and what to watch in the new era of the living room

Thu, 31 May 2012 06:55:44 +0000

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The incredible shrinking TV replacement cycle

Ryan Lawler — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 00:34:18 +0000

Consumers only replace their TVs every seven or eight years: That’s been industry gospel and is frequently cited as a reason for slow smart TV adoption, as well as one reason many people say Apple shouldn’t enter the TV business. But the rapid adoption of HDTVs suggests that old wisdom might be becoming outdated, as prices fall and consumer electronics manufacturers add new features and content to their HDTV sets.

As part of the its Fourth Quarter 2011 Report, Leichtman Research Group noted that over the past five years, more than half of U.S. households have adopted HDTV sets. LRG found that by the end of 2011, 69 percent of households in the U.S. had at least one HDTV set, which is up dramatically from 17 percent five years ago. What’s more, about 20 percent of all households bought HDTVs last year, with another 19 percent expected to purchase HDTVs over the next 12 months.

But that only tells part of the story, as a growing number of consumers have two or more HDTV sets in the home. According to LRG, about half of all HDTV households have more than one set in the home. And about a third of all households have multiple HDTVs. That’s up from about a sixth of all households two years ago, and 4 percent in 2006.

What that speaks to is much more frequent purchasing among consumers than TV manufacturers typically see. It also is part of a phenomenon by which consumers don’t necessarily get rid of older sets, but move them around the house when they get a new HDTV. So what they’re really replacing is the TV set that gets watched the most — typically the one in a family’s living room.

So what’s driving the increased adoption?

Pretty clearly the number one factor is a drastic decrease in price among HDTVs. LRG’s research shows that the mean spending on an HDTV set was about $940 in 2011. That’s down 23 percent in less than two years, and half of what consumers paid five years ago. Even at the low end, prices are no longer out of reach for most consumers: a 32-inch flat-panel LCD HDTV can typically be had for as little as $250 on Amazon.com.

Not surprisingly, HDTV ownership is concentrated among those who can afford to splurge on consumer electronics. LRG reports that 85 percent of households with an annual incomes of more than $75,000 have an HDTV. That compares with 67 percent of households that make between $30,000 and $75,000. But HDTV adoption isn’t just limited to the rich and middle class: Falling prices mean that nearly 50 percent of households with incomes of under $30,000 also have HDTVs.

HDTVs might not have reached the two-year replacement cycle that most consumers have for their mobile phones, but consumers are definitely making HDTV purchase decisions more often. Those decisions are happening more along the lines of the three- to five-year cycles that consumers have for computing devices.

“Low prices make it tempting for people to replace their TV sets more often. We estimate that today’s household replaces it’s TV set every four to five years. If TVs continue to get bigger, better and significantly cheaper, we estimate that people will replace them more often,” Retrevo spokesperson Jennifer Jacobson wrote in an email.

And as time goes on, there might be another reason for consumers to begin replacing their TV sets — or at least, the TV sets in their living rooms: They might soon become obsolete. As more and more “smart” TVs enter the market, the applications and app development frameworks available on the first generation of Internet-ready televisions will find themselves eclipsed by more powerful and attractive options. In the same way that consumers upgrade their mobile and computing devices for those with more features and processing power, they could soon find themselves replacing those early connected TVs to take advantage of new applications and capabilities.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user Sugar Pond.

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Dijit and Beacon: One remote to rule them all

Ryan Lawler — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 13:57:19 +0000

Universal remotes have been around for years, but they’ve mostly been limited by the devices they’re connected to. But with the release of Griffin Technology’s Beacon IR controller, video viewers will be able to navigate live TV, video on demand and multiple streaming video services all from a single application. And San Francisco-based startup Dijit will provide the universal mobile remote control application that enables users to control multiple video devices connected to their HDTVs at once.

We wrote about Dijit a few weeks ago, noting its ability to control Roku media streaming boxes. But the app, along with Wednesday’s release of Beacon to the public, opens up a whole new realm of devices that can be navigated. The Dijit app connects to the Beacon hub via Bluetooth and then provides universal access to content through the software. Users can add their TVs, DVRs, Blu-ray players, and multiple streaming devices such as Roku and Apple TV devices — basically anything that has an IR controller.

The Dijit app provides the same sort of up-down-left-right navigation capabilities that are available on typical TV remotes, but improves on the search and discovery functionality available through typical electronic programming guides. In addition to accessing the traditional grid program guide available to cable subscribers, it enables users to search, navigate and manage movies in their Netflix queue. The app also has social sharing capabilities built in, enabling users to rate, comment on and share what they’re watching through social networks like Facebook and Twitter.

The release of the Dijit app and Beacon controller follows the trend of “appification” for video remote control. A number of cable, satellite and IPTV providers, for instance, are all seeking to improve search and navigation of their content, and many are turning to mobile applications for the iPhone, iPad and Android mobile devices to do so. But those applications typically only work with the live and on-demand video feeds that they control. Dijit provides an extra layer of sophistication by accessing multiple devices.

Dijit and Griffin aren’t the only ones that are seeking to unify the experience between devices — the recently released Peel controller also provides an iPhone into a remote control for multiple devices as well. But the Griffin Beacon has the benefit of hitting major retailers, including the Apple Store, both online and in retail locations. This is a hot space, and we’ll be keeping tabs on new entrants as they come out.

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2020 via time machine: chips, devices, & tech

Joe Weinman — Sat, 11 Jun 2011 15:00:19 +0000

Edit Note : This is the first of a two-part post. Part 1 will outline core devices and technologies, and Part 2 tomorrow will look at networks and systems.

I had the privilege of keynoting the inaugural IEEE Technology Time Machine Symposium last week in Hong Kong, where I listened to the world’s leading academics, engineers, executives, and government officials project what the world will look like in 2020. Their predictions were based on revolutionary technologies for processing, sensors, and displays becoming integrated into global systems that can do everything from enhance the human experience to improve environmental sustainability.

Predicting the future is a challenge, since its course depends on rapidly changing technologies integrated into large-scale systems whose acceptance will depend on human behavior, global demographics, and macroeconomic and political dynamics. Nevertheless, the IEEE Technology Time Machine Symposium helped provide a glimpse into the possible. As Rico Malvar, chief scientist of Microsoft Research pointed out, today’s innovative new products such as Microsoft’s Kinect require interdisciplinary collaboration. In the case of the Kinect, that collaboration spanned computer vision, machine learning, human computer interaction, speech recognition, and more.

The components

Intel's new 3-D transistors at 22nm.

I began my keynote by reviewing a number of disruptive technologies that are surprisingly far along. These include Intel’s “Ivy Bridge” Tri-Gate 3-D transistors, which are built vertically like a skyscraper instead of horizontally like a mall, and are being readied for production in 2012; quantum computers, which are no longer just a theoretical concept, but are being shipped commercially; and the long-theorized fourth circuit element, the memristor, now prototyped by HP, may find use in replicating the function of the human brain (sub. req’d). Plus chips aren’t just for processing or memory: Wouter Leibbrandt of the Advanced Systems Lab at NXP Semiconductors, stated that NXP’s new sensor chip has the power of the original Pentium chip but fits on the head of a pin: beginning to make the possibility of “smart dust” sensors a reality. All of the technology means smarter processing power will be faster, smaller and cheaper.

The devices

Displays are getting thinner, lighter, higher-resolution and more power-efficient, using various approaches such as OLED and e-Ink. Experts such as Prof. Hoi-Sing Kwok of Hong Kong’s University of Science & Technology (HKUST) were confident that transparent, flexible, color touchscreen displays are, well, on a roll and just around the bend with existing prototypes continuing to improve.

If you like HD, just wait. While today’s 1080p displays have a resolution of 2 Megapixels (1K x 2K), 35 Megapixel displays have been already been fabricated, 100-Megapixel tiled displays are commercially available, and 287-Megapixel tiled video walls have been constructed.How much is enough? Kwok has calculated that a medium-sized room fully enabled with video walls at the resolution of the human eye would need 3 Gigapixels, 1500 times today’s HD. Such a room might be useful for viewing HKUST’s record-breaking photograph, which is over 150 Gigapixels.

One surprising challenge in building large displays is that distributing TVs at an economically attractive scale requires using today’s transportation infrastructure, limiting the size of the glass to one car lane wide and short enough to fit under an overpass. However, wall-sized flexible displays could be rolled up, shipped, and carried through the front door.

While today’s 3-D approaches have an uncertain future, Kwok believes the most promising 3-D display technology is electro-holographic (picture Princess Leia’s “Help me, Obi-wan.”) A challenge for large, high-resolution displays and electro-holographic displays is not just the display itself, but the processing power required to drive it. Moore’s Law and the technologies I reviewed above should help. Large images may not require large devices; Kwok expects every cell phone to have a pico-projector—a laser projector that can project onto a surface larger than the device—incorporated, the same way that every cell phone now has a camera.

It’s not news that touch screens are becoming popular, but the next enhancement will be “hover” touchscreens, enabling gestural interfaces without touch, where each pixel is also a sensor. Such technology was shown off last year and would require adoption by device makers as well as developers.

At the other end of the spectrum are very small displays. The next generation mobile devices may not be handheld, but perch on your nose, or float on your retina. Masahiro Fujita, president of Sony Systems Technologies Laboratories, outlined a concept for eyeglasses with transparent lenses that double as augmented reality displays, wirelessly linked to your social network and real-time information, providing you live information as you visually scan. It could offer details such as, “That’s the restaurant where Bobby had that great salad, and, it’s got a table free in 10 minutes!”, or, as Jian Ma, chief scientist of the Wuxi Sensing Institute wryly observed, could alert a traveler that “your luggage is no longer with you.”

The next step is the wireless contact lens display, which is already under development. Ultimately, though, devices won’t be something we wear, but something we implant. Brain-computer interfaces that let us control devices using our mind (PDF), or directly stimulate the cortex for artificial vision have been built.

Sound is also important. Fujita of Sony demonstrated a 7.1 channel sound system with “high” front speakers and a “high” mix, enabling sound sources to traverse not only left to right, but also top to bottom. If that’s not enough, NHK has been experimenting with 22.2 channel sound that delivers more surround sound with 24 speakers. Next-generation gaming and entertainment will leverage all of these approaches: Fujita played a cinema-quality video of racing cars, challenging the audience to determine which components were real and which were computer-generated (answer: everything was CGI), pointing out that the vehicle dynamics (bouncing, traction) could be generated interactively in real time.

So what does all this mean for the networks and the backend systems? Please read Part 2 on Sunday for the details.

Joe Weinman leads Communications, Media, and Entertainment Industry Solutions for Hewlett-Packard. The views expressed herein are his own.

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Forget TV Everywhere, How About Netflix Everywhere?

Ryan Lawler — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 17:00:28 +0000

It seems Netflix has already reached a tipping point in the consumer electronics market, as it signed up five more CE manufacturers to enable its streaming services on their devices. Panasonic, Sanyo, Sharp, Toshiba and Funai (the CE maker behind the Philips, Magnavox, Sylvania and Emerson brands in the US) have all agreed to add the Netflix “Watch Instantly” streaming service to some of their Internet-connected HDTVs and Blu-ray players.

Netflix streaming has become nearly ubiquitous on consumer electronics devices in the past few years; the service was already available on a number of devices, including the Roku Player; Microsoft Xbox 360 and Sony PlayStation 3 gaming consoles; Blu-ray players from Insignia, LG, Samsung and Sony; Internet-connected TVs from Insignia, LG, Samsung, Sony and VIZIO, and TiVo DVRs. Altogether, Netflix expects to have its streaming service on more than 100 different CE devices this year.

The company has been heavily pushing its streaming service, as opposed to its DVD-by-mail offering. Last month, for example, the company made the tab for its “Watch Instantly” streaming service the first thing users see when they log on to Netflix.com, as opposed to the DVD section users previously saw. Being on more CE devices means even more potential customers streaming video as opposed to waiting for DVDs to show up by mail. According to a recent study, 62 percent of Netflix subscribers had tried out the “Watch Instantly” service, and more than half — 54 percent — stream Netflix titles at least once a month.

That’s good news from a financial point of view, as streaming video comes with a much lower delivery cost than shipping discs. According to Netflix CEO Reed Hastings at NewTeeVee Live, the company spends about $600 million a year on postage for its mail-order business, but the cost of streaming a video title is much cheaper than delivering a DVD by mail — about 5 cents a gig for bandwidth — or about a nickel per movie.

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Skype Wants to Make Your TV More Social

Ryan Lawler — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 16:51:14 +0000

Skype will soon be available on your TV set, thanks to TVs from LG and Panasonic with an integrated Skype client that will be coming out later this year. While users will still have to purchase a separate video camera designed to work with the service (priced at around $100-$200), doing so will open up a whole new way for users to connect with friends and family from the comfort of their living room.

The plan to move video conferencing to the big screen makes sense, as anyone who’s ever used Skype for teleconferencing knows. While the ability to make free video calls is nice and convenient, speaking into a laptop or desktop web cam isn’t the greatest user experience, a fact that has been borne out in Skype’s own experience research.

As David Dinka, head of Skype’s experience research division, said in a video that accompanies the announcement, “For many people, if they want to make a video call, they want to speak to their friends and family from somewhere comfortable, and preferably on the big screen. Now, as we know, the TV is the center of many people’s homes, so Skype on the TV is the natural next step for us and our users.”

The move isn’t totally unexpected. Skype CEO Josh Silverman told Om last November that he saw “a future where Skype would be embedded in connected game consoles, televisions and video phones.” But the pace with which Skype, and services like it, are making their way onto broadband-connected TVs is pretty impressive.

It also points to the fact that TVs are no longer one-way content distribution devices, but two-way communication portals. We’ve long been saying that video wants to be social, but very few applications have harnessed a full feature set that will enable viewers to interact with each other while also viewing video content. This point was underlined in a NY Times article yesterday about cross-country friends that used Skype to talk about TV episodes while watching them.

Unfortunately, from that standpoint the upcoming Skype TV integration will have some limitations. Apparently the TVs don’t have enough processing power for users to video chat while also watching TV, according to the NY Times. So while Skype could make TV set a little more social, it won’t do anything to improve the actual experience of viewing television programming.

While not enabling “true social TV” (yet), the move by Skype could have severe consequences for the telecom industry, which has already seen voice revenues decline over the last several years. By cutting out the middle man and giving users a richer experience with which to interact with their friends and family, some could do away with landline voice services altogether.

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Holiday Weekend HDTV Sales Driven By Deals

Ryan Lawler — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 22:50:33 +0000

As predicted, HDTV sales led demand among consumer electronics from Black Friday through Cyber Monday, with retailers both online and off seeing huge interest from consumers (like me) looking to replace their old teevees over the holiday weekend.

Vizio reported record sales over the week of Black Friday, for instance, with more than 280,000 units sold — representing a 40 percent increase over the previous year. Vizio was hardly alone, however; as the Retrevo CE Demand Index shows, sales of TV sets during the weekend holiday dwarfed demand from last year’s holiday season.

Retrevo TV Demand Index

So what were consumers buying over the weekend? Based on preliminary data from Retrevo, for the most part they were purchasing small, cheap, store-brand LCD TVs (like me!).

Andrew Eisner, Retrevo’s director of community and content, says holiday purchases were marked by value shopping, with consumers choosing low-cost, store-brand HDTVs — like Best Buy’s Dynex or Insignia brands — ahead of similar products from more expensive name-brand CE manufacturers like Sony, Samsung, or LG.

Not just that, but the value-hunting extended to consumers purchasing smaller HDTVs. While the sales for HDTVs larger than 37″ grew by about 170 percent over the past seven days, according to Retrevo vice president of marketing Manish Rathi, sales of smaller HDTVs grew by about 300 percent over the same period. Other data suggests a divide between sales in small HDTVs versus those that could fill an entire wall. Despite reporting sales of more than 280,000 HDTVs over the weekend, for instance, Vizio “only” sold about 20,000 that were 50″ or bigger.

Based on the demand for smaller HDTVs, it shouldn’t be surprising that LCD TVs led the way over the weekend. According to Retrevo, 80 percent of shoppers looked at LCD TVs, compared to 17 percent that looked at plasma sets, and just 1.5 percent that scoped out rear-projection TVs.

Many of those shopping for a new TV would be replacing older sets that weren’t HD-compatible. According to Eisner, 48 percent of shoppers surveyed said that the HDTV sets they were looking to buy over the weekend would be their first. That shouldn’t be too surprising — according to a study from Leichtman Research Group (LRG) earlier this week, about 46 percent of U.S. households have at least one HDTV set, which means the other half of the country might be looking for cheap deals to catch up.

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Study: Almost Half of U.S. Households Have HDTVs

Chris Albrecht — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 18:17:29 +0000

Forty-six percent of U.S. households have at least one HDTV set, according to a new study from the Leichtman Research Group (LRG), roughly double the percentage of homes that had HDTVs two years ago. LRG says the adoption was spurred by falling HDTV prices and the dearth of non-HDTV sets available. (Shutting off analog TV transmissions didn’t hurt, either.)

LRG believes that roughly 64 percent of all HD households are getting HD programming from an MSO, which is up from 58 percent last year. Suprisingly, 14 percent of individuals with an HDTV think they’re watching HD programming — but aren’t. Not to sound elitist — but COME ON! People should know the difference between HD and non-HD on their TV sets by now.

LRG’s numbers will surely need an update after this holiday season, as HDTVs topped Retrevo’s Gadgetology survey, with 30 percent of Black Friday TV shoppers wanting high-definition sets. Our own Ryan Lawler braved the early morning crowds to upgrade his TV situation and eventually even got the physical store to match its online price (which was $40 lower!).

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Ahead of Black Friday, HDTVs Lead the Way: Survey

Ryan Lawler — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 16:00:19 +0000

High-definition TV sets are expected to top the wish lists of consumers looking to cash in on Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals. According to Retrevo’s Gadgetology survey, 30 percent of consumers shopping over the weekend want a new HDTV set, compared to 22 percent that are looking to purchase a new computer and just 14 percent that want a new Blu-ray player.

The competition for HDTV buyers is expected to be intense, with Wal-mart, Best Buy, Target and other brick-and-mortar retailers slashing prices and offering “door-buster” deals to get consumers in their stores over the weekend. Online retailers like Amazon.com are being equally as aggressive, with some holiday weekend deals already available.

So what are consumers looking for in their new HDTVs? According to Andrew Eisner, Retrevo’s director of community and content, most new HDTV buyers are being spurred by the digital TV transition to replace their old CRT sets. As a result, there’s been a noticeable shift in consumer buying behavior and retailer pricing for medium-sized TVs vs. large TVs. Whereas last year, consumer interest in HDTVs smaller than 37 inches was about even with those that were bigger, Eisner says that this year consumers are looking at small or medium-sized sets at about a 3:2 ratio.

That’s partly due to attractive pricing on the retailer side. Many retailers are using the holiday weekend to clear out inventory of older, smaller 720p HDTVs. Target, for instance, is offering a 32-inch Westinghouse HDTV at 720p for $246. It’s an entry-level price for an entry-level set, but it’s sure to stir interest from consumers looking for a good deal.

It’s also partly due to budget constraints in a down economy. “We believe that 30 percent of consumers will buy TVs this season, and a big percentage of those are buying on Black Friday and will spend about $1,000. So we conclude that a lot of people will be buying medium-sized TVs for that price,” Eisner said.

While HDTV demand is expected to be robust this holiday season, Retrevo doesn’t see much interest among consumers for Blu-ray players or gaming consoles. Only 14 percent expect to buy a new Blu-ray player over the weekend, and about 10 percent are shopping for a new game console.

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Vid-Biz: Satellite, Spot Runner, Vivendi

Chris Albrecht — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 17:18:02 +0000

DirecTV and EchoStar Get New CEOs; Michael Dugan to come out of retirement to run EchoStar, while Michael White is leaving Pepsi to head up DirecTV. (The Hollywood Reporter)

Spot Runner Intros a Web Platform; company says the Malibu Media Platform helps to algorithmically match ad buyers and sellers. (MediaWeek)

Report: Vivendi Wants More Cash from GE; company wants a bigger portion in cash for its 20 percent stake in NBC in regards to the Comcast deal. (Bloomberg)

Lawyers Launch Class-Action Redbox Site; RedboxLateFees.com let’s people figure out if they are eligible to join the lawsuit. (Video Business)

GlideTV Intros On-Screen Keyboard App for Macs; the GlideTV OSK links the living room to popular application and web sites when used with the GlideTV Navigator. (GlideTV)

CoolIris Now on TV.com; TV portal now using the 3-D visual interface in its “Shows” section. (TechCrunch)

Which HD TV is Right for You? HDGuru provides a walk-through when picking a new set. (HDGuru)

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