Posts tagged ‘HDTV’
Twitter (and maybe Netflix) On Your TV
More news about Samsung’s new widget enabled HDTVs that are coming out later this year with an additional twist.
Coming this summer: Two “premium” video on demand apps, which we think could be Netflix (NFLX) and either Amazon (AMZN) or Blockbuster (BBI). Samsung tells us its media player is capable of handling many popular video codecs and HD video.
This is certainly to be expected especially since the new Samsung Bluray DVD players have models with Netflix already a feature. That the TVs will be able to stream HD from the net over a MoCA link or some other home networking medium seems a logical extension.
Widgets, Connected TVs and MoCA
The Wall Street Journal did a review on the first Samsung HDTV to run the Yahoo Widget engine, one of the exciting new features for Ethernet connected TVs that will come out later this year. Widgets are mini-applications that you can run on your TV, much the same as your Electronic Program Guide, except you will eventually be able to choose the different applications you want to see:
The Yahoo Widget Engine comes preloaded on TVs with four basic widgets to start: Flickr (Yahoo’s photo service), Yahoo News, Weather and Finance. When prompted, these widgets appear in a horizontal dock along the bottom edge of the TV screen, along with Widget Gallery and Profile. (If you just want to watch TV, you can hide the widget dock easily.) Yahoo expects to offer 20 to 30 widgets within two months, and estimates that it will offer around 100 by the end of the year.
The article goes on to say that by the end of the year, Samsung will have 17 models with what they call Internet@TV:
The Samsung LED TV 7000 connects to the Web via a wired connection or by using a wireless USB device, which Samsung sells for $80. Currently, Samsung offers four models with built-in Web access, which it calls Internet@TV. By June, the company plans to offer a total of 17 models with Internet@TV. All TVs with the Widget Engine will have remote-control shortcut buttons to pull up widgets.
With all the Ethernet connected devices coming out in your living room, it’s going to be a lot more cost effective to buy one set of MoCA adapters rather than the $80 dongle for each of your gadgets. Let’s count them up HDTV + Bluray + Xbox + Sling + TiVo + ??? = A lot of wireless interference. Plus, at some time in the future these widgets will be streaming video which is when you’ll really need the speed and reliability of a wired connection.
