HDTV Almanac

This is a recurring theme for me, which will be familiar to Almanac readers; if everyone is skipping the commercials, who will pay for TV? The subscription fees you pay for cable or satellite do pay something back to the content producers, but without advertising, the major networks can’t get enough money to pay for the enormous production costs for their prime time programming. (That’s why they’re all in a race to the bottom with reality and news shows that cost far less to make.) And delivering content over the Internet is only making the problem more difficult.

Back in the early days of television, the sponsor’s name was often right in the title of the show. And since it was broadcast live, the ads were performed right on the same set as the program itself. Thus the dancing pack of cigarettes was born. But that could never play with today’s modern, sophisticated audiences, right?

Well, Vizio is betting otherwise. They’re putting their name on “Vizio’s Profiles”, a new show that will debut this Friday, October 2, at 11 PM on Fox Sports Net. The weekly half-hour show will report on stars of the National Football League. And why is a television company getting into the program production business? According to the company press release:

“The proliferation of DVRs is forcing every company to reevaluate how it spends its media dollars,” said Jason Maciel, director of marketing at VIZIO. “VIZIO’S PROFILES represents a shift for us to move beyond traditional media buys to the development and ownership of branded content.”

This is an interesting move. Product placement has become rampant in prime time television and movies, but will anyone else follow Vizio’s lead and produce their own content for broadcast? It’s all part of the rapidly shifting landscape that makes up the video entertainment industry these days. Watch closely!

Most of the Truth Patrol tips are sent in by readers, but this is one that I found myself, thanks to a lead from TWICE eNews Daily. They published a link to a YouTube video that was apparently created by Best Buy to train its staff about the Samsung “LED TVs“. As I and many others have pointed out (including the New York Times), the name is misleading because it implies that it’s a display technology different from LCD TVs. So it’s informative to see what Best Buy tells its employees to emphasize about these new sets.

Here are the main points covered in the video: ultra thin, picture quality, eco-friendly, InfoLink Internet connection, and a soundbard. In the entire four minute video, the onscreen trainer says the word “LCD” exactly twice. And in both cases, the context is ambiguous at best.

The first occurance comes near the end of the picture quality segment, as the trainer says “That’s going to give you the LED LCD at 120 Hz 3D effect.” Huh? First, it’s a lot of jargon to cram in one phrase, and no, this is not a 3D television. Yes, you can get a 3D impression from some images, but it’s not a stereoscopic 3D display. But let’s see what leads up to this statement. It comes after discussing the “Clear Panel Display” feature: “There’s no barrier between the LEDs and the front of the panel screen. That light will shine through a lot better.” No barrier between the LED and the front of the screen? So it must be the LEDs that are making the image, right? No, there is in fact a barrier; the LCD layer between the LED lights and the front of the screen are responsible for blocking the light so that you get an image. No blocking of the light, no picture.

And for the record, the clear panel design simply means that they didn’t put on an anti-reflective coating or film as a top layer. This layer would diffuse the light from the screen slightly and reduce sharpness a bit, but would also reduce the sharp reflections you see on the screen in the video.

The other mention of “LCD” comes in the eco-friendly section, where the trainer states that “you’re going to use about 40% less energy than your traditional LCD TV.” Okay, they get partial credit for not being outright misleading by saying “with your LCD TV”, but adding the modifier “traditional” does not make it clear that the LED TV and the traditional TV are both LCDs. In fact, I expect that many people would infer from this statement that the LED TV was not an LCD.

The bottom line is at no time does the trainer say that LED TVs are a new and improved form of LCD TV, or that they replace the traditional fluorescent backlight with LEDs. Most of the performance claims are credible (though a few stumbles like the 3D statement may raise a few eyebrows), but it is clear that the creators of this video did not want to emphasize that these are in fact LCD TVs. And apparently this is how Samsung and Best Buy want the floor staff to understand these TVs.

Is this video misleading? I’ll leave it to you to decide for yourself after you watch the video. These Samsung TVs have some real performance benefits to offer, but I wish these could be marketed without making it sound like it’s some new technology that is not LCD. I don’t see how this benefits consumers, or in the long run, either Samsung or Best Buy.

You can win your very own Truth Patrol t-shirt if you send in an example of published misinformation — unintentional or otherwise — that might lead an HDTV buyer astray. Just send a link or a scan to alfred@hdtvprofessor.com”, and if your tip is published in the HDTV Almanac, you’ll receive a t-shirt of your very own.

The title doesn’t mean that I intend to phone it in today. No, instead I want to take a moment to complain — okay, maybe even whine – about remote controls. To quote Chef of South Park, most remotes have “more features than the Space Shuttle.” I’ve got one with 50 buttons. 50! And most of them have multiple functions depending on the context. It’s amazing that I can remember how to make it do anything.

Now look at the iPhone; no buttons. (Well, I don’t actually have one, but I think it has just four buttons.) And it will do way more things that my remote control can. Why? Because it has a touch screen that shows only the controls you need to consider for the task at hand. Smart! Sure there are some remotes that you can buy that are programmable and have an LCD screen with a few context-sensitive buttons, but they’re still covered with mechanical buttons. You can buy a touch screen remote control, but they appear to cost $350 or more. Why do these have to cost so much? (Yes, there are apparently apps for your iPhone that will let you control your TV, but they have some limitations and besides, you have to have an iPhone.)

I’ve been working with an Epson Artisan 810 all-in-one printer lately, and it’s great for a number of reasons, but the one I want to bring up here is that it has a seven-inch-diagonal touch control panel. About one third of this is 3.5-inch LCD touchscreen, and the rest has backlit touch regions (not buttons) that only light up when that function is available. The LCD touchscreen is big enough to have a number of buttons displayed at one time, and the end result is that your choices are always limited to the what makes sense in the current context. So why am I talking about a printer here? Because it costs $299 list. And in addition to this control panel, it also has WiFi, wired Ethernet, fax, scanner with automatic document feeder, and — oh yeah — a pretty fine full color duplex printing color printer. How much does that control panel represent out of the total cost? Even if it’s half (and that would be a lot), it still would be a lot cheaper than what’s on the market.

Maybe Epson should be making TV remote controls in addition to printers. All I know is that someone should make one that is as easy to use as an iPhone, and at a reasonable price.

It was bound to happen. Cell phone designers have been putting multi-megapixel cameras in their phones, so why not use them to capture video as well? With all those pixels, what the heck; let’s make them HD video clips! And that’s exactly what Sprint is offering in its Samsung Instinct HD smart phone. No, it can’t play them back in high-def on the little touchscreen display, but you can hook it up to an HDTV to watch them. That’s even better, because the point of the videos is to share them with others, and for that, you’ll need a big screen.

The phone just about every other feature you’d want: 3G network, WiFi b/g, GPS, 5 megapixel still camera with flash, Opera for browsing the Web, quick access to services including Facebook, Flickr, and Twitter. It can’t make the coffee for you, but it can tell you where the nearest coffee can be found.

Clearly the compact versus component debate is settled in the mobile device market; consumers apparently want every function they can possibly get crammed into a single device. Actually, I’m not convinced that it’s user demand so much as it is the manufacturers trying to differentiate their products, at least briefly. The development costs of all these “standard” features have more or less been recovered already, so it probably doesn’t cost that much more to add another one. So if you want to add “HD videographer” to the rest of the roles that your cell phone fills in your life, the Instinct HD may be the next step for you. It will sell for about $250 after a rebate and with a new two-year contract, starting this Sunday exclusively at Best Buy (the Sprint stores won’t get it until October 11).

Earlier this month, Nielsen published their “A2/M2 Three Screen Report” for the second quarter of 2009. (You can download it for free at http://en-us.nielsen.com/forms/report_forms/A2_M2_Three_Screen_Report. This overview report has some fascinating information about America’s viewing habits, and I was particularly interested in online viewing.

The graph doesn’t show direct TV watching; those numbers are more than 100 hours for all age groups, and graphing that would obscure the other information. I started to compare the timeshifted TV watching with video from the Internet, because these offer the viewer control over what content you watch and when. The Internet numbers are small for the most part, but note that the 18 to 24 year old bracket watched almost as much online TV as they did timeshifted. I have to think that this group is the bellwether for the rest of us, as they are likely to spend more time exploring technology and eventually will be the adult mainstream. As you move to the older age groups, the proportion of time spent online viewing compared with timeshifted viewing declines more or less steadily.

Then I decided to graph the mobile TV usage just for kicks, and I was blown away by the results. While 18 to 24 year olds watch an appreciable amount of video on their cell phones, it was the teens who have taken to this new mode in droves. They watched more video on their phones than they did timeshifted or Internet video. Note that the Nielsen survey of mobile video usage actually only starts with 13 year olds, instead of the 12 year olds covered by the other numbers, so the teen results could actually be higher.

So if the young adults are leading the way for Internet television, perhaps its the teenagers who will drive mobile TV forward.

Netflix is off to see to Oz (see yesterday’s post), but where is Blockbuster headed? The company has announced plans to close up to 960 neighborhood stores and install thousands of kiosks (presumably in an attempt to cut costs and compete with Redbox). But wait, it is has an online rental service that can stream movies to customers, which has more current titles but costs more than the “all you can eat” offering from Netflix to its subscribers.

And now Blockbuster has headed off in yet another direction. The company announced last Monday that it was forming “strategic alliances” with two cable companies: Suddenlink and Mediacom. These two will start offering Blockbuster-labeled video on demand services to customers in test markets, and Blockbuster will promote these offerings at their stores and kiosks. The curious detail is that Blockbuster is not providing the video on demand service; that’s being done by third-party Avail-TVN. Essentially, the cable companies are just putting the Blockbuster brand on this service. According to company’s press release, the hope is that customers will turn to Blockbuster to get a movie if it’s not available on the Avail-TVN service.

This is an interesting program, but I’m not sure that it will serve Blockbuster well. Trying to use new delivery systems to keep feeding traffic to the old (and possibly failing) models of storefront and postal service DVD rentals does not strike me as a winning strategy. It feels as though Blockbuster is getting squeezed hard between Netflix and Redbox, and it’s looking anywhere it can to find a competitive strategy that might work.

“The Wizard of Oz” is 70 years old this year, and Warner Brothers is celebrating by performing a digital restoration of the original film. And you can watch it for free, thanks to Netflix. For 24 hours, starting at 9 AM Eastern on October 3. All you have to do is go to www.netflix.com/wizardofoz to view the streamed movie on demand.

If you have a current unlimited Netflix subscription, you can watch the movie in high definition, also for free. Netflix will be relying on Microsoft’s Silverlight platform to stream the movie, which will let viewers pause, fast-forward, and rewind.

According to the company press release, Ted Sarandos, chief content officer for Netflix, said “Making a movie of this stature available for free over the Internet on an uninterrupted basis is a first. At the same time, it’s a great opportunity for people to get a taste of what instantly watching movies streamed from Netflix is all about. We’re thrilled to be able to do this on both scores.”

And that explains it all. As I’ve pointed out repeatedly, Netflix is tired of licking stamps, and is positioning itself to get out of the physical DVD disc business. (Perhaps they are ready to abandon it to Redbox.) They’ve been offering streaming movies to subscribers for quite a while, and it’s a staple feature for network-connected HDTVs. Even Microsoft Media Center supports Netflix streaming movies.

So this promotion signals that Netflix is about to get serious about movie delivery over the Internet, and it makes two statements for the price of one. For the general public, it offers a great movie for the whole family and gives them the opportunity to discover watching feature-length movies on the Internet. And for its subscribers, Netflix gives them a bonus and demonstrates that it can deliver streaming HD content. This is a double-dose of Netflix being ready to stand up and be noticed, and I expect that this will get some attention.

It used to be that a 35″ TV was about as big as you’d get for home use. Now many people are buying rear-projection and flat panel displays that are much larger, and there are concerns that these sets are more power hungry than the TVs that they replace. As is often the case, California is trying to get out in front on this issue. While the federal government has its optional Energy Star program, the California Energy Commission (CEC) wants to legislate energy consumption requirements for television sets.

The state already requires that all TVs sold in California (manufactured after January 1, 2006) consume no more than 3 watts of power when in standby mode. The proposed new regulations cover maximum power on usage. Sets built after January 1, 2011 with a screen area of 1,400 square inches or less will have to consume no more than 0.2 watts per square inch plus 32. For a 42″ set, that works out to about 183 watts, or about the same as three typical incandescent light bulbs. On January 1, 2013, the formula changes to no more than 0.12 watts per square inch plus 25. For a 42″ set, that will be about 115 watts, or about two incandescent light bulbs.

One interesting fact is that the CEC indicates that there are 848 sets already on the market that meet the 2011 standard, which would seem to imply that manufacturers could probably bring their products into compliance with next year’s models. The CEC also indicates that these new standards are likely to save consumers $18 to $30 a year, which hardly seems like a compelling incentive on a $500 or $1,000 purchase, until you consider the average lifespan for a TV set is 10 years or more. The CEC action has triggered strong reactions, both in favor and opposition. Some complaints predict doom, with massive job losses resulting from the new rules. One interesting complaint is that the new rules don’t allow for additional features that are not directly part of the TV functions and that could consume more power, such as Internet connections, on-screen caller ID features, or video calls.

You might be curious about the 1,400 square inch cap on the proposed regulations. This corresponds to a set a bit smaller than 58″ diagonal. The CEC determined that while sets 58″ and larger make up a tiny part of the overall sales, they are the major part of the sales for the custom installers and home theater integrators. The CEC intends to issue separate requirements for these larger sets, hoping to balance the desire to conserve energy with minimizing the impact on these small businesses.

The CEC will be holding a hearing on the proposed regulations on October 13, and you can find find related documents available for downloading at http://www.energy.ca.gov/appliances/2009_tvregs/documents/index.html.

Last night, I attended a “Holiday Spectacular” press event hosted by Pepcom in New York City. I saw all sorts of new sparkly shiny things there, some of which I will probably end up buying because they are just too cool and do exactly what I want and are priced right. For example, I’m due for a new digital camera, and I saw a lot of choices that include the ability to take HD movies – 1080p in some cases — along with still photos. And I saw a cool program that will go through all my photos and identify individuals in each photo by their faces. And it even works on kids as they grow older. I was impressed!

But that’s not the big take-away I gained from the evening. At least half the hardward devices I saw connect to a network, and in many cases, from there to the Internet. Whether it’s sending your photos up to a photo sharing service or to your Facebook page, or it’s accessing content that’s available on the Web such as Netflix streaming movies, everything is getting connected. And it’s not just the Internet; devices are looking to your computers and shared storage devices to send and receive content, such as movies, photos, and music files.

So if you don’t have a network connection in your living room, you will. Maybe it will be a wired connection, or maybe you’ll use a wireless connection (and there were lots of fast 802.11n products on display last night), or maybe even a Powerline network adapter that uses your house wiring to make the connection. But you’ll have a network connection in your living room sooner or later. And you’ll find all sorts of clever products waiting to connect to it.

Okay, they don’t have tuners. Their Wide VGA (800 by 640 pixel) screen is not HDTV resolution. But the new DreamScreens from HP fill an interesting hole in the home entertainment landscape. The HP product manager doesn’t like it when I say it, but these are the next logical step up from an LCD photo frame.

The DreamScreen comes in two models: the 10.2″ Model 100 and the 13.3″ Model 130. Both have 2 GB of onboard memory and can read data directly from an SD and other memory cards. Both have handy remote controls. Both can display still photos and videos. But the key feature is that both offer wired (10/100BaseT) and wireless (802.11b/g) network connectivity.

This means that you can gain access to photos and videos stored on other devices on your home network. Since it’s DLNA compatible, you can even play music from a media server. But the network connection also gives you access to the Internet. HP takes a “walled garden” approach, and so you have to rely on widgets to give you access to a variety of Internet services. For example, you can access Snapfish for photos, or Pandora for music, or get weather forecasts. You can even use it to access FaceBook. And if that’s not enough, you can access more than 10,000 audio streams that HP aggregates for you, so that you can find music, talk, news, or any other sort of programming that you might want, and then assign presets to access your favorite selections quickly. HP is negotiating access to additional services, and will be able to upgrade DreamScreens simply by downloading new software remotely, so new services will appear automatically on your screen.

I’ve never wanted a TV in the kitchen; I’m usually busy doing other things when I’m there, and would rather have access to music and other content such as photos of our granddaughter. But the connected aspects of the DreamScreens have a lot of appeal, and I think it’s just what I’d want as a connected entertainment display when I don’t want a whole television. And at $249 for the 100 model (which is available now) and $299 for the 130 model (which is slated to ship later this fall), they’re reasonably priced.