GigaOM » televisions

Connected Consumer Q2: Digital music meets the cloud; e-book growth explodes

Michael Wolf — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 13:30:12 +0000

The second quarter of 2011 was a fast-paced one for the connected consumer segment, with every sector of the digital media landscape — music, e-books, online video and gaming — experiencing significant events and changes. Media consumption, purchase and management continued its shift towards the cloud, while the battle for the living room raged on. Game console manufacturers Microsoft (Xbox 360) and Sony (PS3) added new content to their platforms, and Nintendo finally got into the HD race with the Wii U. In this report, we examine each of the areas listed above and provide a near-term outlook for where the market is headed over the next 18 to 24 months. Additional companies mentioned in this report include Amazon, Apple, Google, SoundCloud and Hulu. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

I Returned My ‘Smart TV’ Because the Apps Were Dumb

Chris Albrecht — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 20:00:09 +0000

Here’s something I didn’t imagine when I hooked up my brand-new Vizio XVT553SV TV last week: It crashed. Again. And again. And again. The culprit? Turns out the “smart” Internet apps made my television really dumb.

While there was no blue screen of death, this particular kind of televised crash was equally frustrating. Here’s what happened, why I returned it and the potential problem with these Internet-enabled TVs.

Setting the Scene

The Vizio TV uses the Yahoo Widget platform to provide web access to video services like Amazon VOD, Vudu, Netflix and more general apps like Twitter, Facebook and more. The TV was hardwired to a beefy 50 Mbps connection, so bandwidth wasn’t an issue.

The beauty of the smart television set is the ability to use one remote to control the TV and cable, as well as renting movies over-the-top. No more switching inputs; no more using three different remotes.

That beauty turned ugly real quick.

First, navigating through the apps was slow. Then scrolling through the individual apps — like searching through Amazon’s catalog or my Netflix queue — was even slower. It was much slower sifting through those catalogs on the Roku.

Crash Into Me

The first crash(es) happened on the very first night. The aforementioned lag when searching through Amazon’s catalog froze the TV and then made the screen go dark. I had to power-cycle the TV to get the picture back. This happened again the very same night.

To its credit, Vizio’s customer support is top-notch. I tweeted about the issues and the company sent me a note, hooking me up with its online chat. The suggestion at the time was to uninstall and re-install the app. Okay, perhaps that was just a bum install of Amazon at the factory or whatever. I did as they said. This didn’t get rid of the lag, but Amazon didn’t crash again.

The third crash happened a few days later when my wife was trying to rent a movie through Vudu.

The TV was one week old at this point.

Once again, I contacted Vizio customer support, this time by phone. Once again they were very nice, and this time they instructed me to basically wipe the TV and restore all the factory settings. While it was a hassle to go through and re-register the TV, and to re-set up all of the settings, perhaps this was the silver bullet. I was also told at the time that this was the only fix to keep apps from crashing.

So let’s hit pause for a moment. If the apps, which had crashed on me three times across two different services already, continued to break, I had to do a factory reset each time?

Patience was wearing thin.

Camel’s Back Broken

Cautious, I gave the TV one last chance. I’d fired up Netflix and started watching The Larry Sanders Show when the TV froze the video but kept the audio going and proceeded to crash. For those keeping score, that’s four crashes across three apps in one week.

So, back in the box to be returned it goes.

Perhaps I just got a bum set and no one else has these issues (if you have, leave a comment below), but this is a problem with turning a TV into something more like a computer. If my Roku crashes, I can still watch TV. But when the TV crashes, I have to resort to something like (shudder) reading.

I’m on the hunt for another TV now (again, any suggestions, leave below), and while I still like the idea of the smart TV, buying another one before the technology is more mature might just be dumb.

Related Content from GigaOM Pro: (subscription required)

Web-based Strategies for Engaging TV Viewers

Liz Shannon Miller — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 02:01:31 +0000

These days, the amount of content available for the average TV junkie is astronomical, and it’s the rare series that doesn’t bundle its episodes with an online presence. And though most television executives at this stage are relatively blunt about the fact that the web elements of a TV show are strictly supplemental, as users get more sophisticated, and as new opportunities for monetization are explored online, that equation may change.

The Future of TV Can Bet on “Apps Everywhere”

Ryan Lawler — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 01:40:08 +0000

TV apps will soon be “everywhere,” according to attendees of a recent GigaOM Bunker event examining the future of the TV market. But how that market will develop, and which TV platforms will win out, is yet to be decided.

Bunker Sessions: Is App TV Coming Next?

Jenn Marston — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 00:46:40 +0000

On November 9, we gathered more than 50 entrepreneurs, executives and investors at our San Francisco offices to engage in a town hall-style forum. The topic of discussion was to consider what could happen if we had the “app store” revolution on our TV sets. Would we see the “App economy” hit the world of TV?

Internet-connected, processor-powered digital televisions are shipping today, and the move to TV app-marketplaces and platforms – like Android – are not far behind. It has been said that one of the killer apps for the iPad is the Netflix application. Will app-enabled TVs and marketplaces follow the smartphone app-store market in upending traditional channels for content delivery and radically shift consumer media consumption? If so, what will the impact be on content owners, multi-channel operators, and the consumer?

In this bunker, we brought together elements of the ecosystem — vendors, buyers, investors and project leaders — to discuss what the next opportunities could be, and what still needs to be done. While a few speakers led the debate, overall emphasis was on participation and comments by all those invited. An archive of the event can be streamed here. Subscribe today to see other archive video, read related reports and check out post-game analysis from NewTeeVee’s Ryan Lawler.

ESPN Leads the Way Over the Top, But Will Others Follow?

Ryan Lawler — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 20:00:45 +0000

When Microsoft announced that ESPN would make live and on-demand video available through its Xbox Live service, the news had strong implications for mass adoption of cable services being delivered over-the-top.

How Much Web Do You Want on Your TV?

Chris Albrecht — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 17:10:58 +0000

One of the big trends to emerge so far this year is the connected television set. Just about every big TV manufacturer is coming out with a set that plugs into the web to deliver news, social networks and even over-the-top video to the big screen. But while we’re getting drips and drabs of online capabilities by way of widgets and such, we don’t have full web browsing access on our TVs yet, and that’s on purpose.

The lack of full Internet functionality stems from a combination of factors, according to an excellent write-up in today’s New York Times on the state of the browsable television, among them price, the fear of your TV “crashing,” and whether or not people even want browse the web on their TVs. From the article:

“Sony’s stance is that consumers don’t want an Internet-like experience with their TVs, and we’re really not focused on bringing anything other than Internet video or widgets to our sets right now,” said Greg Belloni, a spokesman for Sony. Widgets is an industry term for narrow channels of Internet programming like YouTube.

However, not all share Sony’s view. A company called Personal Web Systems is shipping a $150 adapter this quarter that will make TV sets fully Internet-enabled.

Given that my laptop is never far from my reach, I don’t see myself using the TV set to browse the web anytime soon. Plus, when I’m on the couch, I just want to relax. But there is a whole generation that expects just about anything with a screen to be connected to the web — why should the TV be any different?

How much of the Internet do you want on your television? Is the full web on the TV the way of the future?

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.