CES Brings Internet Capabilities to TV

With CES now well under way, there continues to be a steady stream of product announcements still coming out of Las Vegas. With so many new gadgets, it’s difficult to gauge how popular these devices will really be, but clearly we are seeing a great deal of interest in bringing the capabilities of the internet to the TV.

OpenTV (OPTV) shows off High Definition IPTV - OpenTV is probably better known as a satellite and cable middleware provider, but don’t count it out of being part of the future of IPTV. With telephone companies continuing to invest aggressively in this technology, OpenTV has positioned itself as a legitimate solution for the next generation of TV. Through a collaboration with Silicon & Software Systems Ltd., OpenTV was able to demonstrate its middleware running IPTV, using an Amino A13x set top box. Between OpenTV’s innovative advertising solutions and the power of IPTV, OpenTV has positioned itself well to capitalize on the trend away from broadcast and towards interactive TV.

NDS (NNDS) and VBox Team Up To Bring HDTV To The PC - VBox unveiled a partnership with NDS and released their Cat’s Eye PC-TV receiver at this year’s CES. The receiver allows consumers to directly receive and record premium HDTV content on their home PCs. There is no mention of cable card support or price, so it will be interesting to see how legitimate an option this may end up being, but for those who want the advantages of a DVR, but don’t want to give up the platform of a PC, the VBox may be a solution for watching and recording HDTV.

Neuros Demos Open Source DVR - With so much potential functionality, the Neuros OSD is the swiss army knife of the DVR industry. Sick and tired of DRM and proprietary DVR schemes, last year, Neuros turned to the open source community for help creating a Linux based DVR. In only 14 hours, they sold 100 units of an early stage alpha product to a group largely composed of software developers, which has been building it out from there. With upcoming support being built for Skype, placeshifting and portable media storage, the Neuros OSD will be one sick machine when it is launched at $250 per unit, later this year. While it’s likely that its open source nature will prevent HDTV from ever being an option, given its hackable Linux core and the hardcore developer following, I expect that we’ll see the Neuros OSD push the envelope of DVR innovation for years to come.

Apple (AAPL) Unveils iDongle Changes Name To Apple Dongle - This one isn’t technically CES related, but Steve Jobs donned his black turtle neck and set his reality distortion field to overkill once again, for this year’s MacWorld. While most are buzzing about the iPhone, even some of Apple’s biggest fans are questioning the strategy behind Apple TV. Consumers have clearly indicated that they want to see an Apple PVR, but for reasons I’ll never understand, Jobs has continued to ignore their pleas. Instead of giving his customers an Apple based PVR that could serve as a legitimate entertainment hub, Apple pre-announced - for a second time - a glorified video iPod that connects directly to the TV. Beginning in February, Appleheaded fanboys everywhere will now be able to pay $300 for a device that won’t stream DivX (DIVX), can’t play your personal DVDs and won’t work with other paid VOD services, all for the luxury of being able to play overpriced iTunes content, from a skimpy catalog of 250 movies, at less than DVD quality resolution.

Broadcom (BRCM) Announces Upcoming DivX Supported HDTV DVR - Broadcom announced that it's teamed up with Coship Electronics to provide a DivX supported HDTV DVR for the Chinese set top box market in 2007. While no launch date was given for the BCM7452, the set top box will include upscaling technology to display standard definition content on an HD display, six video digital/analog converters, support for high fidelity audio as well as dual USB2.0, and HDMI support. With the digital revolution clearly happening at an even faster pace outside of the U.S., China represents a very lucrative market for DivX to tap. With the Chinese government having taken a laissez faire attitude towards media piracy, DivX is in a strong position to drive healthy consumer demand for set top boxes that support their codec.

Comments

[Tom B]

I'd definately go with the Apple device.

[DavisFreeberg]

That's because you are an Apple fanboy Tom. Normal people won't be buying Apple TV. How is the Apple Dongle even slightly better then Netgear's fully function HDTV PVR that supports, DivX, Amazon, iTunes, WMV, & just about every other codec you can come up with? It's not. Given the lack of titles that iTunes has, I would never lock myself into their media universe when there is so much content out there. Consumers are much better going with something where they can get YouTube and iTunes onto their home theater systems. Steve Jobs really dropped the ball on this product. He could have made it awesome, but went mediocre just so that he can try and maintain a monopoly on the content that you can play with Apple products. In the long run Apple's proprietary nature will very much work against the company.

[Tom B]

Umm, excuse me-- maybe I am misreading, but you don't seem to discuss the Netgear product in your article. I would never buy ANY product of this type unless I had confidence in the company. In the TV space, that pretty much means Miglia, El Gato, or Apple. Alternately, I'd need a DETAILED review from a trusted reviewer-- someone like Pogue or Le Vitus or Mossberg. Tha't all I meant.