Ten... smart TVs IPTV Week logo Smart functionality has become the new must-have feature for TV. With hi-def and 3D pretty much taken for granted, it’s now ‘net connectivity, media streaming and IPTV which are driving sales. But with huge differences between proprietary network portals, both in the amount of free and subscription content on …
@AC: " the IP part of these TVs will be obsolete in a couple of years..."
Agreed - in fact, they're already obsolete. We but a much cheaper TV (fantastic display, but not "smart") and plugged an AppleTV into it. Suddenly the TV is just a bigger display in the household as an extension of anything from our phones to the desktop computers, and we stream media, games, and TV from all these sources as required. There's no need for the TV to be "smart" - it's just a big display for the smart devices we already have.
@AC: " I do use my TV's 'smart' tv functionalities over the (same)ones supplied by say, my Xbox, simply to save the 5p in energy costs from having it draw 150W over a 2 hour movie"
Many devices are now dedicated to this purpose and use far less than the XBox. The AppleTV, for example, draws only 6 watts in use, and vastly less on standby. A 'smart' TV could easily use that much more power over a 'dumb' display if it has to support WiFi etc. The software is kept up to date by Apple, and it's no great hassle to replace if it dies (unlike replacing the whole TV set!).
Why pay a premium for a TV with baked in functionality which will be obsolete and possibly non functional in a few years? May as well just buy a dumb TV and augment the box with some kind of stb that can be updated as time progresses.
What is necessary is for TVs to implement a full and complete command and control API so that the native UI can be disabled in the TV and implemented by a stb with an HDMI passthru instead. e.g. you hit volume +/- and it's the stb that puts the volume panel up for you, not the TV. Then the TV can be dumb as a bag of hammers but the user can still enjoy a rich experience.
I built a very nice HTPC with dual DVB-S2 tuners for under £400.
There's a fantastic free program called MediaPortal which I use with a highly illegal Sky cardshare which gives me a TV/PVR/MediaPlayer with amazing capabilities which I can stream to any TV around the home (and theorectically anywhere in the world).
I would gladly buy a 'dumb' TV with nothing but a screen and a HDMI as it would hopefully save me several hundred pounds in useless never used features.
Hmm :) Interesting bunch of tellies.
A few days ago a customer asked me about TVs, saying he likes to watch sports shows online, etc. I told him to buy a Netbook with HDMI, and a TV; because as far as I know none of these TVs will be guaranteed to work with websites that stream proprietarily to a web browser.
The war ain't won yet...
What would be nice to see is a TV that can mirror a laptop screen, wirelessly. I recently set up a projector with one of these for a customer - http://cirrich.com/product_into1.asp?iid=235 - and it worked very well with SD content and more; so it is possible to do it. Why don't they??
the thing is, unless yo place the tv in the position you are going to place it in at your home then no matter how it is shown in an illustration you are never going to know exactly how its going to look.
the photoshopped "fills" on the screens are near enough impossible to do any other way without looking totally ridiculous. taking photographs of the TV is a bit of a nightmare as your going to get all sorts of reflections in the screen itself. Its a choice really of these "radial fills" or some crummy saturated photograph of hot air balloons or something.... I refer the "radial Fills"
as tvs are near enough mush of muchness, they all look very similar, particularly if you wall mount it and do away with the stand. the options really are gloss, satin or mat finish to the bezel (or a combo) the principle consideration on buying one should be its function and how it fits in with what you want.
the pictures are plenty good enough and make it clear that the Samsung SyncMaster TA950 27 3D TV/PC Monitor will never have a place in my home bast on aesthetics, but kudos to them for trying something different !
I like the Samsung we bought in December pretty well, but some models let you stream movies from Amazon, others don't. Oopsies, ours doesn't. The built-in web browser is a dog playing piano; if you've ever browsed the web, you'll do it once on the TV and then hook your laptop up, and if you've never browsed the web, this will confirm to you that the web is overhyped and not worth your time. And the Samsung app store doesn't let you search; you have to browse all the pages of apps.
with Smart Vierra connects tuff and it works just fine. The apps update fairly regularly when new ones come out and for the price I paid I cannot complain. Yeah it might be obsolete in a year or two but so is every phone you buy and PC and laptop. Mine has a built in FreeviewHD thing, iPlayer, Youtube and the others mentioned in the Panasonic review and I'd be surprised if it doesn't have YouView when that comes out. If you want a simple big screen with HDMI then there are quite a few out there. This review was 10 SMART TV's though and seems to have done it's job.
I hope no-one ends up buying a TV based on this article alone
The author has just written the manufacturers' specifications for each set and given a "reg rating" verdict based on advertisement material only. If you don't have any access to these units then you should at least drop the "reg rating" factor. The first two LG units get a 90% verdict, yet only the Cinema version gets the thumbs up icon. Why??
If you actually reviewed these units, just mentioning MKV or AVI support is worthless unless you truly test these features. Does the MKV support include chapter support, or multiple audio/video/subtitle tracks, external subtitles? MKV is still evolving standard you know. I'd also like to know how sluggish the UI is when dealing with USB for example, or can you expect the IT declined people to use the streaming services or USB files easily?
Not to mention that I've always found LG screens to have a horrid picture, LCD/LED to have garish over processed images and plasmas to be the only realistic watchable images. Given Pioneer's left the game, that leaves a Panasonic plasma as my next purchase. The reviews do indeed smack of a quick feature list rating.
From the screens I've seen the Philips are generally among the best. They've got net access and apps so it's strange to see them missing from this lot. Mind you the judging criteria seem a bit confused. For me, image quality must come first then ergonomics and usability - what are the remotes like? - then you can start arguing over things like add-ons and power consumption.
I have a 40" Samsung LED 'smart TV'...
MKV & MP4 play?
No... Sure, it's listed, but no matter which settings I used in Handbrake or any other ripper/converter, I ended up with a file the TV would either tell me was 'not supported' or it would just hang the TV...
The .AVIs I managed to get to work were 50% lager, and generally crappy quality.
I've also gotten a few of the 'apps' to hang the TV, just by doing a selection, then quickly using the 'Return to previous' button, but that may not be Samsung's fault...
Record to USB storage...
What the manual doesn't say is that Flash-based storage isn't supported(not fast enough) and that you need to use a fast HDD. Also, it can only record from DIGITAL channels(I have basic cable... ) and any recordings will be DRMed and can only be played on that one set.
Skype...
Yes, it's possible... But you don't want to know that the camera costs...
(No, it can't use a normal webcam)
And the final insult?
The VESA-standard mounting points are recessed so that most mounts won't fit unless you use some badly-fitting plastic spacers, in which case the screws that comes with the VESA mount won't be long enough.
I'd rather get a (much) cheaper TV and plug in a £100 Apple TV box - plus many Blu-Ray players have IP functionality built in. My Apple TV gives me all my iTunes media (which these smart TV's probably would not) plus Netflix streaming and can buy / rent newer movies from Apple.
If not the Apple TV there are other boxes that are similar from people like Western Digital.
Before I bought any of these I'd wait for the new Apple TV's to be announced and see what they can do - that or buy an Apple TV box and plug it in. I know people who use them who don't even use it to stream from iTunes - you can setup an account and rent movies (from Apple) or stream TV / films from Netflix and a few other sources.
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