THE FRONT LINE: SEPTEMBER 2009
CEDIA EXPO 2009: Upon Further Reflection…
It’s been a couple of weeks since the Cedia Expo trade show in Atlanta, and while the show was relatively quiet — perhaps reflecting a still-weak market for custom home electronics — there were some clear trends to be seen.
My primary reason for traveling to the World Congress Center was to teach seven hours of classes — my first teaching experience at Cedia University. In fact, if not for the instructor request, I’m not sure I would have attended at all, given how soft the custom home electronics channel continues to be.
With the nation’s housing market in turmoil, new construction starts have declined precipitously. Foreclosures and distressed sales have boosted the market for existing homes, certainly at the expense of new housing developments except at the very high end of the market. Not surprisingly, several students in my classes told me they were doing more “retro” work than rough-in wiring and installs these days.
The last time I visited the show was in 2006, and I was amazed at the large number of non-Cedia products on display, particularly at companies who traditionally do most of their business through distribution, or through big box stores like Best Buy.
That trend hadn’t changed much three years later, although many of the booths had gotten smaller. Samsung, LG, Sony, Panasonic, Sharp, and Toshiba all had their latest and greatest LCD and plasma HDTVs out for display, along with a plethora of new Blu-ray players and Internet-connected media devices.
Figure 1. Samsung’s 8500-series LED LCD TV was a big hit, but YouTube streaming
(through
their BD player) generated more buzz.
It is that last category that I find most intriguing, and I’m not alone. Sales of Internet-connected HDTVs soared in the 2nd quarter, and more Blu-ray players are coming equipped with Ethernet ports. One BD player in particular — Sony’s BDP-N460 — contains built-in software to communicate with a Linksys/Cisco WET610N dual band wireless bridge, the first time I’ve seen that done. (I use the exact same product on my home network with a Brother printer.)
Down the hallway, Samsung’s booth was certainly dominated by the introduction of its 46-inch UN46B8500 LCD HDTV, loaded for bear with LED local dimming backlight and a 240Hz refresh rate. Impressive, except that most of the interest seemed to be on the outside wall of the booth where demos of YouTube videos were streaming through TVs and BDP-1600/3600/4600 players.
LG also had a nice wireless demo, featuring their 55LHX, 47LH85, and 55LH85 LCDS HDTVs. The 55LHX incorporates RGB LEDs with local area dimming and 240Hz processing. But it was the 1080p streaming capability that interested me most, as all three models can be used to move high bit rate content from Blu-ray and red laser players, cable and satellite set top boxes, and other media devices over a distance of 30 feet from LG’s proprietary media “hub.”
Figure 2. Sony showed a 1080p/24 wireless HD connectivity solution that worked well.
Figure 3. Yes, it’s Web video, but not all that good looking on a Bravia LCD…
Back in the nearly empty Hall B, TiVo showed concept demos that allowed home automation through Series 3 DVRs, partnering with Lifeware. TiVo DVRs have already had the ability to access TV shows and movies from other Series 2 and Series 3 DVRs over home networks, and also support streaming and downloads from Netflix and Amazon. Now, they can control everything from room lighting to drapes and thermostats (my wife will love that!)
For readers who have been following the CE industry closely over the last decade, there have been other attempts to “marry” the Web and televisions, most of which have ended in failure. Web TV used slow dialup connections and a keyboard to deliver limited, low-rez content to CRT televisions. It was later bought out by Microsoft and has largely evolved into a broadband set-top box product, sold under the Microsoft Network (MSN) banner.
Princeton Graphics founder William Wang experimented with a custom content delivery system called CH.1 a few years back. It had a neat-looking user interface and also employed Internet connections in the early days of broadband. It didn’t last very long.
The trick, as all of these companies learned, is not to turn the TV into a computer. Rather, it is to provide access to Web content as “just another TV channel.” TV viewing is largely passive — we sit and push buttons, then let the movie or TV shows take over the driving. So adding YouTube as a virtual channel is a no-brainer.
Figure 4. LG has their own wireless connectivity and “widget” solutions.
Figure 5. Pioneer’s ETap media hub
can download managed copies of Blu-ray movies and TV
shows.
So is adding streaming capability to set-top boxes, such as TiVo’s Series 3 HD models, which can take 1080p/24 downloads of TV shows and movies from Amazon’s Unbox service for rental or purchase. Sony, Samsung, and LG all have BD players that will stream content from Netflix, albeit low-resolution video. But it’s easy to access.
Even Pioneer has gotten into the game with Project ETap (or “Entertainment Tap”). It’s basically a Blu-ray player/DVR combo with the ability to go out and find audio, video and still photos from the user’s home network, plus stream and download from sites on the Internet such as YouTube. The ETap module can also download “managed copies” of movies and TV shows.
I’ve seen similar products in Japan that include hard drives ranging in size from 250 GB to 1 TB, incorporate both RF and Ethernet connections, and are equipped with BD-R drives so you can record to the DVR and burn your own Blu-ray discs. Now, that’s a product, but it will be a cold day in hell before you see ‘em sold on this side of the Pacific Ocean.
There were numerous other Ethernet-connected products at the show, perhaps too numerous to mention. How will they affect the Cedia channel? Will wireless connectivity put a dent into the lucrative rough-in wiring business? Is the “home theater in a box” concept being re-invented to include 802.11n hookups for everything, including speakers?
Stay tuned…
