January, 2012 | HD TV PROFESSOR

Month: January 2012

Stream the SuperBowl

January 31, 2012 | Author: Muneeb Mannan

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;...

We Call It “Television”

January 30, 2012 | Author: Muneeb Mannan

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...

NetFlix Posts Good News

January 27, 2012 | Author: Muneeb Mannan

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...

Great Gift for Grandparents

January 26, 2012 | Author: Muneeb Mannan

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...

Will DLNA Become Indispensable?

January 25, 2012 | Author: Muneeb Mannan

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...

Google TV Lives!

January 24, 2012 | Author: Muneeb Mannan

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...

CES 2012: Sleeper Subject of the Show

January 23, 2012 | Author: Muneeb Mannan

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...

Another Passive 3DTV

January 20, 2012 | Author: Muneeb Mannan

At CES 2012, Westinghouse Digital joined the ranks of manufacturers offering passive 3DTV technology, along with LG, Vizio, Panasonic, and Toshiba. The company announced that it plans to ship the 47" W47S2TCD later this spring with a list price of $899, including four pairs of glasses. This means that this technology will now be available from one of the lower-priced brands on the market. I don't see this as the...

Look, Ma! No Box!

January 19, 2012 | Author: Muneeb Mannan

One of the most curious developments to come out of CES 2012 for the television industry was the announcement from DIRECTV and Samsung. The two companies are going to partner by building set-top box functionality into a line of Samsung Smart TVs. This becomes curiouser when you add the fact that Verizon and LG made a similar announcement. The Samsung sets will connect to a DIRECTV DVR set-top box, so...

Glasses-Free 3D HDTV Coming This Year!

January 18, 2012 | Author: Muneeb Mannan

Okay, your wishes have been heard and the display gods are going to give you what you asked for. Just remember that when you get it, I told you so. One of the big splashes at CES 2012 was the unveiling of Toshiba's monster 55" 3D HDTV, and to the breathless adoration of the technology press, it doesn't require that you wear glasses to see the 3D images! But wait,...