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By Cara McCoy 
Friday, Jan. 8, 2010 | 2:05 a.m.
CES 2010: The Year of the 3-D TV
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The 3-D TV may have been introduced at CES last year, but this year, some major companies are bringing it to market as early as this spring. A panel Wednesday summarized the major 3-D TV announcements from CES 2010. We asked viewers how they liked the experience and got a behind-the-scenes look at three of the hottest new models.
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- Industry working to clear up misconceptions about 3-D television (1-8-2010)
- Intel says fully connected homes on the horizon (1-8-2010)
- Ford unveils in-vehicle 'Touch' technology at CES (1-7-2010)
- Gadgets and garters: It’s convention in Las Vegas (1-7-2010)
- Puff of air controls new computer mouse (1-7-2010)
- Sony aims to become global leader in 3-D (1-7-2010)
- Microsoft anticipates 'biggest year ever' for the Xbox (1-6-2010)
- Las Vegas braces for 110,000 at Consumer Electronics Show (1-6-2010)
- Consumer Electronics hot ticket: 3-D television (1-6-2010)
- Analysts predict flat electronics sales for 2010 (1-6-2010)
- What others are saying about CES (1-6-2010)
The popularity of devices like smartphones, set-top streaming boxes and Internet-capable televisions would seem to indicate consumers have a hunger for on-demand video.
But a disconnect between what people want and what media companies are willing or able to provide continues to exist.
The question is why? Why can’t consumers get exactly what they want, when and where they want it?
Technology publication CNET set out to find some of those answers Thursday during a panel session at the International Consumer Electronics Show.
The discussion focused on Internet Protocol television, or IPTV, which is essentially video streamed over a broadband Internet connection rather than traditional cable or satellite TV.
Some early adopters have abandoned their cable TV subscription in favor of downloading or streaming content from the Internet. Most, however, continue to be cable TV watchers.
Many of those traditional cable consumers are looking for more choice from the companies already providing them service, the panelists said.
“People are getting a lot of great options to consume content on a lot of different platforms,” said Sam Schwartz, executive vice president of Comcast Interactive. “The challenge for companies like us is to continue to innovate and create value for our current subscribers.”
The important thing, Schwartz said, is “putting the consumer in control.”
Terry Denson, vice president of content strategy and acquisition at Verizon, said what’s important is for companies to focus on being multi-platform.
“As consumer behavior evolves, their expectations shift,” he said.
CBS Interactive CEO Quincy Smith said a key to success in the changing video landscape is for companies to be able to package content across platforms and to have a coordinated advertising strategy.
He cited the success CBS has had with Fantasy Football, which has morphed football from being simply a Sunday experience to something consumers interact with throughout the week.
CBS is CNET’s parent company.
Before the session, CNET posted several polls on its Web site to gauge consumer attitudes toward the shift to online video. The biggest obstacle to watching TV online, its tech-savvy readers said, is bandwidth. The selection of content available was the second-biggest obstacle.
A second poll indicated readers felt the movie/TV industry was most at fault for online video’s obstacles. The audience at the panel discussion was also polled via electronic clicker and shared similar sentiments.
Boxee CEO and co-founder Avner Ronen had harsh words for the digital rights management, or DRM, hoops consumers often have to jump through, saying DRM “is annoying and it’s useless.”
Boxee offers downloadable software to stream video and connect with social media.
On Thursday at CES, the company announced a partnership with D-Link to offer a set-top box. It also announced the public launch of its beta software.
“DRM is just the penalty you pay if you are an honest customer,” he said. “We support DRM in Boxee, unfortunately. It’s a necessary evil.”
If consumers are getting screwed in the pocketbook because companies like Time Warner and the networks can't agree on pricing under threat of loss of signal, once again the consumer is on the crap end of the stick, just like everything else happening in the marketplace these days..
I don't really think that consumers per se are demanding IPTV. I think that allot of boxes and equipment out there are being sold to a minority who want them, but most of the time people are buying products like iPhones, Droids, and Samsung TVs that just happen to have the features of streaming video. Sure the products that we're buying are data capable of streaming video, but they're certainly not the driving force behind consumer purchases. Apple TV & Netflix's box that allow you to rent movies from home rather than going to to video store or waiting for them to become available through On-Demand or even Pay-TV networks are the clear winners as to what consumers are going to want. But even then, those are just for occasional use to view select programming. It will be a long time before anything like that becomes a primary entertainment appliance. TV on a phone or MP3 player is just a novelty. Notice how even Apple has started to place less and less emphasis on watching movies on their devices. They still tout it as a feature, but it's far from their main selling point now.
I think that viewing video over the internet off of sites like Hulu was popular for two reasons: 1. When first launched, they didn't have interruptions from Commercial Advertisements. and 2. People were in a financial crunch because of the economy, and a high-speed internet connection offered the best of both worlds for a single item that gave communication abilities as well as entertainment functions. Now of course the economy is starting to turn around, and Hulu and others are now injecting commercials into their online content. It will be their undoing. Why sit though commercials online, when I can get a DVR or TiVO to fast forward though annoying adds with either a cable or satellite provider? Or even an off-air signal. You can't do that online. Also online vs. TV: I like most people have a far bigger TV than I do computer monitor.