CNET has an article about internet connected HDTVs and for all of the words typed in the article, they’re wrong. I don’t have all of the answers, and I’m not all seeing or all knowing but I know that this article is just wrong. On the internet, you’re allowed to have an opinion but it’s a completely different thing when you’re owned by a multi-billion dollar company. The bar has to be raised higher. In fact, below are the reasons why I know this article is wrong:
Sorry to say, but this article is incorrect for a couple of reasons:
a) Everyone doesn’t have and won’t be able to get an internet connected HDTV for it to make sense to be the “future” – most people don’t want to pay more than $600 for a HDTV (based on a poll done on this site). While the day may come where these television drop down in price, they are currently $2000+ and will take at least 5 years for them to come down. Even then, it may still be an issue when it comes to people buying and owning these televisions versus television which don’t have this feature.
b) Connected HDTVs only sound great in theory - Do you remember WebTV? If you don’t, it was a service where for $9.99 you could see, check, and respond to your email through your television. They were made by companies like Philips, with service from MSN and were sold in electronics stores all around the country. Ultimately they failed because most people who were already paying $25+ for the internet wouldn’t want to pay $10 for another service and for people who could pay didn’t understand or see the service as useful. The same is true here. Less than 50% of the US has HDTV, even less actually watch HD content through their television. HDTVs will get better and more feature full but the innovation will come through the screen – the color gamut it produces, and the technology used to power them. They’ve come close to making them as thing as people will care about.
c) Cable companies won’t allow it - What is to stop cable companies from providing all of the services and widgets that Samsung, and other companies are providing today? They have millions of people by the balls tied up in triple-play combo packages with rate plans and contracts they can’t break out of without paying a fee. If the business gets too big (or has too much potential) look for the HDTVs to remain dumb, while the cable companies get smart, and charge an extra fee for access to these applications and the marketplace which under pin them.
d) Every manufacturer does it differently – Going back to my previous point, when you want to access the internet through a Samsung HDTV, it’s a different experience than how you do it through a Sony HDTV, and I’d imagine that every company will implement it differently. There’s no reason to expect them to do it all the same when they sell their televisions in different countries, with different standards and there’s little money in trying to tweak software for this purpose.
The real innovation coming to televions and HDTVs which is real is 3D. That’s a story I can get behind.
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