CEA launched a new standards process for 3D glasses Wednesday, with hopes of having a standard approved by October of this year, Dave Wilson, CEA director of Technology and Standards, told Consumer Electronics Daily. Principle areas of focus for the standard are the interface between the glasses and the TV, signaling between the TV and the glasses, set up and control and polarization, Wilson said. After proposals have been submitted, the R4WG16 working group will select proposals that will become the basis for standardization. The goal is to create a standard for 3D active eyewear glasses that can “help break down consumer barriers to purchasing 3D TVs and increase the expansion of 3D into the home,” according to the group. Wilson said the introduction of passive 3D TV models this year doesn’t affect the standards process. He said, “3D is a relatively small part of the overall TV market right now and there’s plenty of room for growth for different technologies.” Wilson said the standards group will meet in April to review proposals. Between April and September, the group will work to develop consensus. A vote on the standard in October assumes “work will be done in a timely manner,” Wilson said. The formal Active Eyewear Standards IR Sync request for proposal can be downloaded at www.CE.org/Standards/1401.asp. Proposals are due by 5 p.m. on March 31.
Warner Bros. Digital Distribution said Tuesday it will begin testing movie sales and rentals through the Warner Bros. Entertainment Facebook page. Consumers will use Facebook Credits to buy or rent select titles while remaining within Facebook. According to Warner Bros., fans who “like” The Dark Knight can rent the title through that page and begin watching the movie “within seconds.” The rental fee is 30 Facebook Credits or $3, Warner said. A member buys Facebook Credits using a credit card, PayPal account or a mobile phone. The movie offer is available only in the U.S., Warner said, and additional titles are slated for availability over the next few months.
3D films have “notably underperformed expectations” the past few weeks, BTIG said Tuesday, leading it to maintain its sell rating for RealD. The “overwhelming majority” of 3D films introduced since Alice in Wonderland premiered in March 2010 have been disappointments, resulting in a drop in license fee revenue per screen in the U.S. from $4,300 in June 2010 to less than $3,000 in December -- a figure expected to drop this quarter below $2,000, the firm said.
Warner Bros. Digital Distribution said Tuesday it will begin testing movie sales and rentals through the Warner Bros. Entertainment Facebook page. Consumers will use Facebook Credits to buy or rent select titles while remaining within Facebook. According to Warner Bros., fans who “like” The Dark Knight can rent the title through that page and begin watching the movie “within seconds.” The rental fee is 30 Facebook Credits or $3, Warner said. A member buys Facebook Credits using a credit card, PayPal account or a mobile phone. The movie offer is available only in the U.S., Warner said, and additional titles are slated for availability over the next few months.
SAN DIEGO -- The TV set would end up as a commoditized monitor, DisplaySearch TV electronics research director Paul Gray warned in 2008 -- if something didn’t change. Something did happen when the Internet and the TV collided, and the industry is banking on the connected TV to lead the product category well into the future. Gray said at the DisplaySearch Flat-Panel Conference last week that Internet video is creating a large traffic jam on the road to the future and few solutions are in sight.
SAN DIEGO -- Paul Gray, director of TV electronics research for DisplaySearch, warned the TV industry in 2008 that if something didn’t change, the TV set would end up as a commoditized monitor. Something did happen when the Internet and the TV collided, and the industry is banking on the connected TV to lead the product category well into the future. But Gray warned on at the DisplaySearch Flat-Panel Conference last week that Internet video is creating a large traffic jam on the road to the future and few solutions are in sight.
The TV set would end up as a commoditized monitor, warned in 2008 DisplaySearch TV electronics research director Paul Gray -- if something didn’t change. Something did happen when the Internet and the TV collided, and the industry is banking on the connected TV to lead the product category well into the future. Gray said at the DisplaySearch Flat-Panel Conference last week that Internet video is creating a large traffic jam on the road to the future and few solutions are in sight. The world is dreaming of a “wonderful” future in which data and video “will flow unencumbered down this gorgeous open road to our living rooms,” Gray said. “I'd love to believe that, but the reality is this is what it’s starting to look like already,” showing an image of bumper-to-bumper traffic. He said 20 percent of evening Internet traffic in the U.S. results from Netflix streaming by about 20 million households. Describing his experience at home using a connected Blu-ray player, which “works great until 9:30 at night” and then “buffers and grinds to a halt until half past midnight,” Gray said Internet capacity is a “problem of success” and “we have to start thinking about what will happen.” He said Internet TV doesn’t scale the way broadcast TV does. “With broadcast, when you turn on your TV it doesn’t affect your neighbor,” Gray said. “Connected TV may not be like that.” It’s unknown who will pay for the pipeline, “dig up the street, run fiber, and build content delivery networks,” he said. Additional issues Gray said are affecting the broad expansion of Internet infrastructure are net neutrality, “which could suddenly go from being an esoteric, academic subject to one that actually affects business,” conflicts of interest in who installs the infrastructure, tiered data rates and quality of service. Despite all the talk about “cord cutting,” with consumers canceling paid TV subscriptions and getting all their programming online, Gray said the percentage of paid subscribers having made the switch is about 1 percent. Cord-cutting “remains to be proven as a phenomenon, but it’s definitely a growing competitive threat if you're a paid TV operator,” he said. And connected TV is “as much an opportunity as a threat” for providers willing to “think differently,” he said. Intel’s Wilfred Martis, retail consumer electronics general manager, said software compatibility could limit smart TV expansion. TVs that aren’t connected operate in a “monolithic” world determined by broadcast standards, he said. With a smart TV, “you have to make sure the middleware stack can co-exist with any operating system or app environment,” Martis said. If audio from one app overlaps with another’s, as in the PC world as users move between applications, “you can’t mute a screen on a smart TV,” he said. “You have to figure out how the resources don’t step on each other,” which involves “lots of work” for those developing different standards, programming data and audio streams, Martis said. “That limits how fast you can scale around the world.”
SAN DIEGO -- The TV industry has gotten into a “precarious position,” and is facing “interesting challenges heading into the next decade,” said Paul Gagnon, director of North America TV Research for DisplaySearch at the Flat Panel Display Conference last week. Consumers have gotten used to “rapid declines” in flat-panel TV prices and manufacturers have offset the price declines by launching new features and introducing larger screen sizes to “to keep price erosion at bay,” he said. But the prospects for “revolutionary transitions” such as those to HD or from CRT to flat-panel TVs are “weaker,” he said, and manufacturers and retailers will have to lure customers back through more evolutionary features.
SAN DIEGO -- Facing pressure from low-priced passive 3D TVs and inexpensive polarized glasses from LG and Vizio, Panasonic will introduce sub-$100 active-shutter glasses this year, Jim Sanduski, senior vice president of sales at Panasonic, told us after a TV panel at the DisplaySearch Flat Panel Display Conference Wednesday.
SAN DIEGO -- Despite continued power reductions in flat-panel TVs, TVs remain by far the biggest electricity hog in the average home, Tracy Peacock, 3M’s global marketing manager, told DisplaySearch’s Flat-Panel Display Conference Tuesday. Watt usage for the average 32-inch LCD TV has dropped to 45 today from more than 200 watts four years ago, Peacock said, and Energy Star standards have accelerated ahead of pace since they were first introduced in the fall of 2008. She noted that Energy Star 5.3 goes live in September and Energy Star 6.0 specs will be published in November.