What Smart TVs Need to Succeed: Three Pillars of Smart TV's

The Internet and TV are finally converging, in a way consumers seem to be responding to.
Intel is trying to brand smart TVs as something different from Internet-connected TVs - poised to be a hot item this holiday season - that have web-based features but fall short of being smart.

In Intel's world,says Wilfred Martis, a smart TV must meet the following three pillars:

Unlimited Content Access: "To do that, you need a browser." This means a smart TV shouldn't be restricted by the apps available to run on it. It should be able to grab any content that lives on the web. The only product that really does that, at the moment, sort of, is Google TV (available on some Sony products and the Logitech Revue).

Extensive Use of Apps: Martis emphasized that the architecture should be easy for app developers to use so apps would be plentiful. Again, this plays into Intel's strengths since its basic architecture is widely used and would allow easy portability of apps from one platform to a smart TV platform. "Creative developers will enhance the way users experience television," he says.

Immersive Experience: OK, this one's kind of obvious, but also one that's difficult to get right. Having used Google TV for a couple of weeks, I'm a little split on how immersive it is. But it is pretty good and the best method I've seen to integrate the web beyond the gated community of apps you will find on devices like a PS3, Roku or most Internet-connected TVs.

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Google Acquires Two Companies, Voice Synthesis And Video Optimization

Google has agreed to acquire acquire Cambridge, England-based Phonetic Arts, and video software maker Widevine Technologies. Financial terms were not disclosed for either.

While Phonetic Arts will help Google support speech synthesis to support natural computer speech from recorded voices, Widevine will allow the Mountain View, Calif. company to stream videos to consumers supported by optimization software and a digital rights management (DRM) platform.

Google will maintain Widevine's agreements with customers and provide support for existing and future clients such as AT&T, Best Buy and Netflix. There are plans to build Widevine's technology into Google's to enhance both sets of products, which should improve lagging video content available through devices such as Google TV.

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Content disputes mar Google TV’s launch, keep things even with Apple TV

Just as the first Google TV devices became available last week, Hulu said that it would block access to its site from Google TV-enabled devices. Now, major TV networks ABC, NBC and CBS are saying they will block access, too, at least to most of their content.

Networks don’t see enough of a payoff and don’t feel that Google is guaranteeing enough content protection. Could these blocks actually level the playing field between Google TV and Apple TV, which has been roundly criticized for its lack of content partnerships?

Apple has the most to gain in this scenario because they can at least say that it has content from ABC and Fox. Some observers of the initial Apple TV revamp announcement found the platform to be limited by a lack of content partnerships, but Google may be even more limited—at least in terms of the traditional TV content it can offer—if it doesn’t resolve these disputes.

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To Be Free, or Not to Be. Does VP8 Limit Revenue Potential for GoogleTV?

There is a wave of reaction and analysis around the Google TV and VP8 announcements, and I hope this doesn’t simply add to the noise level.

From the point of view of revenue security, I get the impression that rather than uniting the world behind a common (OK, supposedly free) codec, Google is really driving a wedge between commercial content and user-generated content (or at least not fee-based content).

Why do I think so? VP8 is not suitable for revenue generating video services because Google believes that “DRM is fundamentally in conflict with open source and open standards.” As a result, commercial content will continue to be distributed using standards that are compatible with protection techniques such as MPEG-2 transport stream and AVC coding. Non-commercial content may use the VP8 open source solution. Google is doing the same thing with YouTube – converting user-generated free content to VP8 while using Adobe Flash for paid content.

But in reality, these two worlds are really not exclusive as they might seem.

Some content may start as paid content, and later on may be distributed in the clear with commercials and eventually distributed freely. Other business models allow users to chose between paid but ad-free version or ad-supported version of the same content. Content providers or service operators are not likely to transcode each content for different distribution models if they can avoid it.

As a comment on Google’s apparent position here, I don’t see why an open source codec or open standard should be fundamentally incompatible with revenue generating services. This has been disproved by several standards organizations including MPEG, DVB or OMA, but that is a discussion for another day. The bottom line is that if valuable content will eventually be encoded and distributed using VP8, we’ll be able to protect it if the business model requires it (it is open source after all, isn’t it?) Read on NewTeeVee why open sourcing VP8 matters.

The other issue in debate is whether open source VP8 will stay free. It is unlikely that after a quarter of a century of digital video compression research, Google (or On2) would be able to come up with a codec that is of comparable quality as those developed by MPEG/ITU without infringing on anybody’s patents. If I remember correctly, Microsoft tried something similar with VC-1 and it did not work according to the original plan.

I don’t believe that any serious service provider will jump on the VP8 bandwagon without being able to accommodate all licensing fees into their business model upfront. Maybe this will speed up MPEG’s effort to create a royalty-free version of MPEG codec, which will avoid splitting the pay-TV and free-TV worlds.

Submitted by Verimatrix

Intel Keynote to discuss Smart TV at CONNECTIONS Conference

Parks Associates announced Wilfred Martis, General Manager, Retail CE, Digital Home Group, Intel Corporation, will deliver the keynote “Smart TVs: Ready for Primetime” at CONNECTIONS™ on Thursday, June 10, at 9:00 a.m.

In his keynote, Mr. Martis will discuss Smart TV, a new category of CE devices that will offer consumers an entirely new interactive TV experience. He will discuss newly announced Google TV*, based on Android*, Chrome* and the Intel® Atom™ processor CE4100, which is a premier example of a Smart TV experience that seamlessly integrates television, the Internet and personal content with search capabilities and access to virtually unlimited applications.

Mr. Martis will examine the technological, content, and business factors that have aligned to jumpstart today’s Smart TV Era. He will offer a roadmap and highlight the business strategies necessary to succeed in this rapidly moving market, which will start to show winners and losers in less than 18 months.

CONNECTIONS™ features multiple sessions on the design, business, and marketing challenges for connected CE and the growing demand for interactive entertainment. Sessions include industry-leading consumer research and executive analysis to highlight the next opportunities and future business strategies for video technologies and platforms.

For more information, visit www.connectionsus.com.