Posted on July 3, 2013 in ATSC News
The exciting work by members of the Advanced Television Systems Committee on the emerging ATSC 2.0 and ATSC 3.0 standards will enable the future of television – from seamless integration of linear TV and online content to delivery of 4K Ultra High Def content.
The ATSC’s efforts don’t happen in a vacuum.
ATSC Standards now in development will address many subjects covered during sessions at “CE Week” in New York at the end of June. On the docket were discussions about Ultra HD 4K momentum, getting consumers to connect to Internet TV, and the emergence of “Second Screen” apps.
Technology continues to evolve, and a number of sessions at the late June CE Week in New York showed how the landscape continues to change.
Ultra High-Definition Television
In the short-term before 4K content is widely distributed, differentiating between various Ultra HD TVs may come down to upscaling technology used to make best use of an existing library of Blu-ray Disc content.
“Buy the TV with great upscaling right now,” advised Toshiba’s Scott Ramirez, who said that the quality of the upscaler will be the key differentiator between various brands – from name-brand products to no-name offerings that may cost thousands of dollars less.
ATSC 3.0’s capability to deliver 4K broadcast content is a ways off. Shorter-term, the evolving HDMI standard represents another challenge. Current HDMI allows for display of Ultra HD images, but only up to 30 frames per second. The newer HDMI 2.0 will double that frame rate.
Manufactuers on the panel explained that they are all working on ways to keep early adopters’ Ultra HD TVs current as standards evolve. Samsung, for example,is introducing a modular component that could be changed out to “guarantee you an upgrade path,” according to Dan Schinasi of Samsung.
In terms of projected sales, CEA’s Shawn DuBravac is predicting that UltraHD televisions will account for 5 percent of TV unit sales in the U.S. in 2016, when 1.43 million Ultra HD sets will ship. Slightly more than 20,000 sets are expected to ship this year.
DisplaySearch offers a rosier prediction, with analyst Paul Gagnon suggesting that the industry will ship more than 2.5 million Ultra HD sets in 2016. And he predicts sales of 124,000 units this year.
Internet TV Connectivity
At the “Second Screen Summit” during CE Week in Manhattan, the subjects turned to Internet connectivity and apps developed to enhance the TV experience.
NPD Group’s Ben Arnold reported that TVs equipped with Internet functionality are expected to account for 20 percent of unit sales this year, up from 16 percent a year earlier. About half of consumers who own Internet-capable sets actually connect them to the Internet – a statistic that is growing.
Arnold says getting viewers to connect their sets is a challenge. “That remains a big area of opportunity for manufacturers and retailers to educate people on how to do it, what services are available and what they can do with the TV.”
LG Electronics’ Tim Alessi reported that 75 percent of LG sets this year will have access to the company’s Smart TV platform or Google TV.
Among the various connection choices, the most popular are Netflix, Hulu, Vudu and Amazon, according to speakers at the event.
“Second Screen” Content
With tablet and smartphone sales growing, the installed base of devices that might be companions to TV viewing are becoming more important, according to experts at the conference.
CEA’s DuBravac says some 40 percent of U.S. households have a tablet, up from 22 percent in 2012 and 11 percent the year before. Density of tablet ownership is also on the rise, growing from 1.4 tablets per owning household in 2012 to 1.5 this year. Smartphones are now in half of U.S. households.
Identifying an important opportunity for ATSC 2.0, NPD’s Arnold says the landscape for “second screen” apps is still “nascent,” Arnold said. The next step in the second-screen era is content integration with devices.
Media strategist Robert Tercek pointed out that younger “millennial” viewers typically see TV as software, and that they are tied less to specific devices. “There is a blistering change in mobile video, which is the first real innovation in TV in the past decade. There’s really two ways to look at the ‘second screen’ concept – one as supplementary to a big screen, but another as a replacement for that big screen with a personal device.”
Tercek panned most “TV Everywhere” efforts by cable operators as “going nowhere” defensive efforts that are confusing and cumbersome. “In a sense, a tablet is better than a TV,” Tercek said.
One challenge faced by manufacturers getting consumers to interact with multiple screens in a unified experience in the “second screen” world, said Brian Siegel of Sony, which shows consumers how to get screens to work together in Sony stores.
Manufacturers already are bundling tablets with top-shelf TVs in retail promotions, said Samsung’s Shane Higby. At Samsung Experience stores within Best Buy outlets, there’s a display showing TVs and mobile devices using sharing apps (when consumers tap a photo on a tablet the image is then displayed on the connected TV screen.)
Posted in ATSC News
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