TV / Video

Get ready for the next TV wars.  Like most wars, they're going to cost a lot.

Samsung announced today that it will sell its first big-screen OLED TVs in the US starting in the second half of this year.  The ES9500 is a 55" model based on the next generation OLED display technology that's thinner, lighter, more energy efficient and performs better than today's LED, LCD or plasma sets.

There's a lot to like in OLED, which will very likely become the dominant TV display technology (easily) within the next decade.  One of the things to like best is that when they eventually get into economies of scale on the manufacturing side, OLED should actually be pretty cheap to produce.  Meaning one day soon, a big screen cheap TV is going to be astonishing to own. Maybe even something you can roll up in your pocket.

Of course the word cheap as a prefix to the letters TV is one of the things driving the announcement.  The estimated US price for this bleeding tech is going to run around $9,500 by the time this thing hits the market.  For that money, you could buy 10 of Samsung's current most popular 51" TVs on Amazon.

Cheap TVs are now the bane of the TV industry, and Samsung, as the #1 maker, has challenges to meet if it wants to differentiate itself from the dozens of me-too brands that it finds itself competing with -- not to mention its serious competitors like LG, Sharp, Panasonic and Sony.

Further, the long term transition of turning today's glutted and soon to be outmoded LED-LCD manufacturing plants throughout the world over to OLED is going to cost a lot of won (and yen).  Someone's got to pay for it -- well heeled videophiles will likely do their part.

Samsung obviously understands that this is first-mover stuff and openly states that OLED "may take at least two to three years before becoming mainstream" TV technology. "May take" -- heh, good one, guys.

It won't take that long for everyone to want a set like this.  But how long will it take before the barbarians crash the gate again with cheaply sourced competition? Or even American companies trying to get back in the electronics game?

Should be an interesting Christmas season, and some people's 2013 Super Bowls are going to look awfully good.

In an announcement that surprised nobody except by its timing, LG Electronics will be selling TVs equipped with Google's platform starting as early as this month.

In a press briefing yesterday, the world's #2 TV maker promised production of "Google TVs" will start on May 17 and consumers will be able to buy the product from the week of May 21.

That's mighty fast work fellas, what's the hurry? Oh right, Apple's got a TV coming out this year.  Or next.  And who knows what will be different about it?  Whatever it is, it's always better to get there firstest with the mostest, no?  Even if the last battle was a near-epic fail.

LG and Google can be a formidable team.  Both companies are flush, aggressive and want desperately to be your best TV friends.  But LG is taking a chance here, because Google TV's last appearance was a debacle for everyone -- for user, for the manufacturers, even the retailers.

If you were uncharitable, you could  blame that on Logitech, which actually manufactured the boxes and did a lovely job of industrial design, but tried to sell Google TV boxes for $249, when competing boxes from Roku et al were selling for less than a third of that.

You could also blame it on the braniacs that decided to introduce such a complex product straight to the masses through Best Buy, relying on sales forces not trained on the product and who could barely explain what it actually did. Going through specialty and custom retailers first would have been a shrewder strategy, but that's a longer play and would have required patience, which is in a bear market.

Or...you could just blame it on Google, which has never been shy to keep software in perpetual beta, expecting that everything just naturally gets upgraded over time. Google TV 1.0 was a surprisingly flawed beta that reviewers and consumers rejected in droves.  Has anyone else noticed that outside of their superb search and ad sales, this company hasn't exactly been no-miss?

LG is hoping they didn't miss this time.  We'll find out soon.

They say everything in electronics gets better, faster and cheaper.  They also used to say that two out of three ain't bad.  What if it's just one out of three?

The digitization of all things media is causing fallout effects throughout the various media industries.  That's hardly news, of course.  What we didn't see coming was that the blowback might seriously change the actual user experience for all that media -- to its detriment.

In an age of HDTV and beyond, video quality often gets worse.  In an age of SACD and high res music files, music often sounds worse than ever.  In an age where every device is a camera, image purity is out, image vandalism is in.

It's a provocative topic that inspires passion.  Check out the feature story...what's your take?

It's hard to muster much sympathy for a big electronics maker that's notorious for bare-knuckled business practices, deliberate incompatibilities, and a corporate culture that makes parochial school look like Haight Ashbury.

But these days, you have to feel a little sorry for Sony.  They used to rule the roost as one of the world's most admired brands.  Now the company stands dazed and confused in a marketplace it used to dominate, battered by bigger, smarter and more nimble competitors.

For the moment, let's look past the company's financial troubles; these days they're not alone.  Instead let's look at a recent announcement of a flagship Sony product -- a new piece of gear meant to introduce  the next big thing in video according to Sony.

Sony's BDP-S790 is 4K Blu-ray player.  That means it's compatible with the coming "Quad HD" format, and will upscale your high-def Blu-ray discs to that resolution once you get a display that can actually play it back, assuming you ever do.

The announcement itself was not unusual -- Sony is often first out of the gate or close on innovations for A/V.  What was unusual was the price.  Sony's next-big-thing statement piece -- as good as it gets (and will get for the foreseeable future) for movie playback at home lists for $250.

To put this announcement in perspective, Sony's first DVD player, the DVP-7000, came out in 1997 for a list price of $1000.  That would be $1,429 in today's dollars.  Sony's first HDTV for the US market, the KW-34HD1, debuted in 2001 for a suggested selling price of (gasp) $8,999.  That would cost $11,656 if you bought it today.

In 2012, Sony's flagship new media "statement" product costs the same as a couple of dozen pizzas. If you're Sony, that can't be good.

Of course in a commoditized market where you can get a new Blu-ray player for the cost of a Blu-ray disc, even an asking price of $250 will seem ludicrous to the average, non-videophile movie fan.

No wonder Sony is desperately trying to reorganize, cut its losses in the money pit that the TV business has become, and move into arenas that have nothing to do with consumer electronics.

Will Sony ultimately become nothing more than a logo on your home entertainment gear -- made by someone else, from someone else's designs, components and technologies?

Might be worth asking Philips or RCA. Or Apple.

I've been thinking a lot about UltraViolet video lately.  If you don't know what that is yet you're not alone, but there are lots of interested parties that want to make sure you do know.  I've written an overview of UltraViolet here, but thought I'd share a personal experience that might make the concept clear.

I recently switched my Netflix subscription from disc delivery to streamed movies.  Naturally (and unhappily), this cut down my movie options substantially.  But while browsing through thousands of films I never heard of (and I'm sure I'm not alone), I came across a few oddities that looked interesting enough to add to my queue.

One was a film adaptation of Ethan Frome, one of Edith Wharton's bleaker (and frankly, lesser) works that inexplicably ended up a mainstay on high school reading lists, at least back in my day -- probably because it's short.  Having eventually become a Wharton fan despite this misguided introduction -- this is not a tale that a teenager can relate to -- and enjoying other recent adaptations like the masterpiece Age Of Innocence and the underappreciated The House Of Mirth, I clicked to find out more.

The film had an incredible cast.  Liam Neeson starred with Patricia Arquette and Joan Kennedy in what is basically a three-person story; I could at least expect some interesting performances.  I'm not sure if this film ever saw a theatrical release -- I never heard of one -- but my interest was piqued.

So I started the movie on my big screen TV through my Roku streaming media player.  I got about 15 minutes in before the phone rang and the movie got shelved for the night.  That's ok -- Netflix lets you pick up later where you left off.

The next night, as I fired it up and continued, my wife got a phone call.  She likes to sit on the living room couch (ie, the TV couch) for leisurely calls, so the TV came off again.  I picked up my iPhone and continued the film from there.

Some time into her conversation, I asked myself why I was watching a movie on my phone when I have a brand new iPad in the other room (so new I forgot I owned it), so I picked that up to continue.  I watched a bit more and then finally finished watching the film a day or so later.

The movie really wasn't worth the effort, but the method is instructive.  I watched this movie at four different times on three different devices, and in theory, paid something to watch it only once -- goodness knows how Netflix calculates studio royalties on a forgotten title like this one.

But what if the movie was something popular, and therefore only available on disc or pay per view?  Would I have to pay for it three times to watch it in four days on three devices?

That's the question that has been bugging Hollywood and confusing consumers ever since the "watch-it-anywhere" concept took hold.  UltraViolet video is presented as the answer to all this confusion.  You buy a disc -- preferably a Blu-ray disc -- once, log into an account, "register" your purchase and now you can watch it anywhere anytime.  For a Disney hit that your kids want to watch upstairs, downstairs, in the car, at their friend's house etc, this all makes sense.

But for the vast majority of titles that with little purchase or rental appeal?  How much is even one view worth, much less four views?

UltraViolet solves the problem of rights and payments.  But it's a one-size-fits-all solution so far that only scratches the surface of the bigger issue. Not every film is worth buying.  And not every rental can be watched in the usual 24 hour allowance period.

It will be interesting to see if UltraViolet is something that becomes relevant for some content items, but not for others.  And if it's not for others, what will be?

Take a look around you and you'd think the consumer electronics business must be as robust as it gets.  Seems like everyone's face is glued to a screen.  Everyone's ears are plugged up with headphones.  Everyone's fingers are texting as fast as they can.  Last we looked, the average household had 24 gadgets, not counting what you use in the car or at the office.

But the real story is very different.  The major electronics companies are having an incredibly hard time keeping up with major changes in how their products are made, sold and bought, and instead are cutting back big time.

Yesterday, Sony announced it lost would be trimming back 10,000 jobs (you read that right).  At the same time, Sharp announced a record $4.7 billion dollar loss for the fiscal year (you read that right too).  And today, Best Buy announced that their beleaguered CEO has resigned, which actually triggered a slight uptick in the company's stock value.

Why all the bloodletting?  The industry is changing.  Stalwart products like TVs glut the market so heavily that there's almost no profit to be made.  Former stalwarts like stereos and surround systems have been happily replaced by iPods and soundbars.  How many people want a new digital camera when their phone takes perfectly respectable pictures?

We'll be seeing a lot of changes in this industry, and following them closely here.  Let's hope the future is brighter than the present, and that there's truth to the old adage that to make an omelete, you've got to break some eggs.

While it's hardly news to the millions of viewers who no longer depend on their cable or satellite receiver to watch TV, the industry finally seems to be catching on.

A new research paper from the IHS Screen Digest Insight Report is suggesting that cable operators are undertaking a sea change away from services based around set-top box (STB) hardware and more toward pay services that can deliver content to multiple devices, like smartphones, tablets and game consoles.

Turns out that sales and monthly rentals of stationary boxes like your cable receiver are flat-lining with single digit growth, while the market for multi-screen devices is experiencing growth by more than a factor of 10.  That's a pretty big difference.

It all points to the old adage that "content is king," and that people care less about the equipment than they do about what they're watching.  But in addition to that old saw, we also have to add that if content is king, than distribution is queen.  The first thing consumers want is the content they want.  The second thing they want is the convenience of seeing it how they want to.

That means we'll need new user interfaces and search functions that can work across multiple hardware devices.  The content providers and their distribution partners have their work cut out for them.

You can read the gist of the report here....

Is the era of big electronics chains coming to an end?

Best Buy, practically the last major electronics specialty retailer left standing, recently reported poor earnings, store closings and corporate cutbacks. One could easily have written the same headline last quarter, the quarter before, or the quarter before that.  Is this the death spiral for Big Yellow?

Competing chains like Circuit City, Ultimate Electronics and Tweeter are already dust in the bone yard. Cut-rate e-tailers like Amazon are chewing at one ankle, while cut-rate brick and mortar chains like Wal Mart are chomping on the other.  Factor in the falling prices/profits on practically all electronics, and a saturated market for bellwethers like big screen TVs and the future looks pretty bleak for the guys in the blue shirts.

Is there a future in big-box electronics retailing?  Maybe not -- smaller boutique-type establishments like the Apple stores are going like gangbusters and showing the industry that bigger selection isn't necessarily such an advantage anymore.  Especially when the Internet has more of a selection than any physical retailer could ever have.

It's time for a new paradigm in consumer electronics retailing.  There are too many products, too few knowledgeable salespeople, too many questionable buying options and too little profit to sustain the current landscape.  It's time for something new.

What if there was another way that blended the best of the online and brick/mortar experience?  For your consideration, check out a sketch for a new kind of electronics store.

No less a tech geek than Isaac Newton said that for every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction.  The electronics industry is no exception to this law of physics, and the rise of e-commerce has been precisely mirrored by the fall of brick and mortar electronics stores.  Finally, a major retailer has asked manufacturers to help them fight back.  Is it too little, too late?

This week, Target sent out a letter to its suppliers asking for a joint solution to the problem of "showrooming."  You know what this is -- if you're like most people, you've done it yourself.  You go to the store to check out a product, find what you like, then go online to buy it cheaper. Free delivery, no tax, no lugging a big TV into your car or renting a van.  You save money and hassle, what's the problem?

If you're Target -- or Best Buy, or Sears, or any number of big retailers with expensive stores and warehousing, paid sales staff and customer service -- well, that is the problem.  It's essentially unfair -- how can a retailer carrying all this overhead possibly compete with another that doesn't?

Many consumers feel that's the way the cookie crumbles and the way things work in a consumer economy -- the customer is king, right? But there's more to be lost here than a few big chains.  If retailers can't compete, some will go away and there will be fewer places to buy.  That means more power to fewer retailers, and that's never been a winning formula for consumers.

Target's requested solution is for manufacturers to build new products that have been made expressly for Target, that can't bought anywhere else.  This is not a new solution -- derivative models for the likes of Wal Mart, Costco etc have been manufactured for years.  You didn't really believe that the $800 plasma at Best Buy and the "same" $600 plasma at Wal Mart were really identical, did you?

With retailer-specific derivative models, customers can't compare products before shopping, and can't cross-shop for a better price elsewhere.  It's a way of rigging the game that's been a lifeblood for the big mass merchandisers and discount clubs.

But once that genie's out of the bottle what's the next step?  Fewer models? Fewer retailers?  Less choice?  None of this is good for you the consumer, or for the health of the electronics industry.

How about you?  Do you "showroom" a product and buy elsewhere later?  How's that working out?

As Hollywood and its associates continue their transition from DVD and Blu-ray discs to streamed entertainment, the word transition is worth remembering.  This is still early stage technology and there are bugs.  Rest assured there will be more bugs to come.

The problem is moving all the heavy digital data that movies require around the Internet cleanly, and it manifests itself by all sorts of unwanted imperfections in the video you're watching.  With a problematic stream, you might see blurred motion, or a sudden drop in picture sharpness.  The dialogue might go out of sync with the picture.  In some cases, the action pauses or drops altogether.  This is not the experience you were expecting.

Where does the problem lie?  Hard to say, and that's the real problem.  In many cases, it's simply network traffic jam somewhere on the Internet -- again, movies take up a lot of digital bits.  That jam could be happening a mile away from your home or a continent away.  Or it could be extremely local traffic -- if you're on a cable modem, for example, your Internet and streaming performance is affected by who else is using bandwidth on your own street.  It might even by your own Internet Service Provider (ISP).  Not all  ISPs provide the same performance for streamed movies, as this chart from Netflix demonstrates.

Comparison of ISP Speeds for Netflix Streaming (graphic: Netflix)

Then again, the problem might just as easily be occurring inside your home.  You could have a glitch or a traffic jam in your own wi-fi network.  Some wireless wi-fi routers are faster and more capable than others.  And wi-fi is subject to interference from many household appliances, such as microwave ovens and cordless phones -- not to mention your next door neighbors' wi-fi networks!

Delivering a consistent streaming experience is still a very inexact science for providers like Netflix and Amazon.  On Thanksgiving evening, when much of America was home watching TV, I experienced interrupted and eventually unwatchable streams from both these services -- we ended up abandoning two different streamed movies and finally settled on a (reliable) disc.

The folks who are streaming boosters believe the problem will get better as the infrastructure of our data networks get better.  High speed services like Verizon's FIOS and ATT's U-Verse are certainly capable of the performance needed for effective streaming movies.

On the other hand, as time goes by, more people will be streaming movies, creating greater data demands everywhere and the likelihood of even more traffic jams.  You can experience this problem today when you try to use wi-fi on an airplane or train.  Sure, the signal is there and it's strong. Unfortunately, a lot of other folks are streaming at the same time you are, and the results can be very unsatisfying.

None of this changes the fact that streaming media is the future.  But at present, that road is still a bit bumpy.