LIVEdigitally

Tag Archives: hdmi

What a Next-Gen Apple TV Could Bring

Posted on by

While I’m not as bullish as others that the following tweet should be taken as gospel, I’ve been thinking a lot recently on what a new version of an Apple TV product could look like.

So, in no particular order… “why update the Apple TV?”

  • 4K video
    I wouldn’t bet on this, at all, since there’s virtually no content available today, and probably won’t be much in the next 24-36 months.  If 4K looks promising, they can rev again in the future.  Further, Apple has historically *not* led in this category, and I’d be surprised to see them do it this time.
  • Rich SDK
    Yes, there are plenty of apps available for Apple TV today, but access is limited and granted in an ad-hoc fashion to selected content providers.  Many folks assume one day they’ll open this up to a wider developer network -as in, all developers.  I know very little about the programmability/guts of the Apple TV, but I have to assume the current one simply wasn’t designed to be uber-expandable.  As a sub-point, I *could* see an argument for an extension of iOS here, but I’d hope it’d be a differentiated offering to relate to the different UI mechanisms.
  • HDMI Passthrough
    For the literal heaps of things Google TV has done wrong, HDMI passthrough was smart.  Enabling the Apple TV to sit on Input 1 at all times enables no-input switching for any connected experience.  But even better than that, it’s not a stretch to see a version of AirPlay with a, wait for it, transparent layer.  What does that mean?  Imagine every cool thing about Interactive TV you’ve ever heard or thought of, minus all the lame stuff, now have it actually work, powered by your iPhone/iPad.  Awesome.
  • Gaming
    Many of us already believe the next generation of consoles is doomed, but what if the Apple TV came with an optional joystick and as much gaming horsepower as an iPad or Xbox 360, and stayed at the $99 price point?  It’s the exact opposite strategy Microsoft is taking with their platform (gaming first, everything else second), but since about 1998 that’s pretty much a winning approach.

And that’s it – which is telling in its own way.  There’s no other “basic” TV/streaming need to upgrade the current hardware, and Apple certainly isn’t going to put out a new version without a very specific reason.  Perhaps I’m missing something (comment please!), but I am at a loss to come up with any other drivers for new hardware.   Oh, and yes, I’m ruling out Siri, physical motion gestures, cameras, etc – while any could certainly come at some point, they aren’t going to exist without one of the above as well.

Which leaves me with the following: if you do not think the above reasons are compelling, and you can’t come up with a better one, I think you can pretty much write off a new piece of hardware.  Further, I have strong convictions that the only truly viable option above is adding a Rich SDK/open developers kit, so if we don’t see that next week, I don’t think we see any new device show up either.

Why Your Gadgets Don't Play Nice With Each Other

Posted on by

I’m in the business of helping make your devices and gadgets work better and more seamlessly in your home.  But the truth is, if the industry made just a few simple decisions differently along the way, I wouldn’t have a business to be in.  The “remote control overload” problem we all have comes primarily as a result of your devices being digitally ignorant of each other.  Which, from the consumers’ perspective, sucks (industry term).  But the reason this sucks more than it seems is that your devices could be talking already, they just… don’t.  And they don’t in two different ways!

Connection-based compatibility – HDMI
Pretty much every HD product shipped in the past ~5 years has an HDMI connection. And HDMI has this protocol cleverly called Consumer Electronics Control – you can guess what it’s for.  It’s been part of the HDMI specification since the very beginning. And in general, virtually no manufacturers use it to control other brands’ products, though even more egregiously they even use this protocol to control their own products.  So your Samsung TV knows when a Samsung Blu-Ray player starts a movie playback, but ignores a Denon receiver’s request to change inputs. Fail.

"standards".

Network-based compatibility – DLNA

Back in the early aughts, there was this thing called the Digital Home Working Group, formed by several consumer electronics companies with the specific goal of – wait for it – making sure that consumers’ electronics products would work together harmoniously.  The DHWG was renamed into the friendlier Digital Living Network Alliance, and then launched in 2004. I was personally on the original working groups for the (both?) organization(s?).  Even at the time, it was beyond obvious that this open standard by committee approach wasn’t going to give consumers the solutions they were looking for.  7 years later, and I’d assert that consumer awareness of DLNA is negligible, and the standard has yet to provide the industry a reliable solution.  

So there we are, oodles of technology, tens of thousands (if not more) of man-hours developing standards and platforms, and still, consumers have to deal with the “input one” problem (in a nutshell: devices connected to anything but the first/primary input of a TV tend not to get used, with the lone standout exception being video game consoles, which is likely due to a) more explosions and b) children operating the equipment).  Why is this the case? My friend Julie Jacobson ponders a little conspiracy theory over at CEPro.

My sinister plot scenario is actually much simpler.  I think there are specifically two reasons why consumer electronics products don’t do anything “advanced connectivity”-wise together:

  1. It’s hard to make it a priority.
    Testing technology, in general, is challenging.  QA can take as long as actual development time, often more.  Many products get rushed to market even before the testing is complete.  So imagine, if you are the person in charge of shipping the product, and your marketing team probably (a) announced prematurely and (b) likely set expectations too high.  You are likely underresourced, understaffed, and concerned about just shipping at all (or maybe a few weeks too soon?).  How much energy do you think you’d spend on testing other companies’ products?  Right, me too.

    I'm not in charge of line-straightening, that's a different department.

  2. It’s not financially rewarding to make it a priority.
    As illustrated above, just getting the darn product to market is a major chore.  Further, you know that much of your sales and success in the marketplace have to do with product reviews, as well as customer ratings (and worth of mouth and social media, etc – but these all come from the quality of the product itself).  Lastly, you know that virtually no reviewer, either “expert” or “typical consumer” is going to take the time to really do a lot of testing of compatibility, unless of course you claim compatibility.  So if you don’t, and just sit back on the sidelines and phone it in when it comes to cross-brand compatibility, it isn’t going to hurt your product sales or market perception in any meaningful way.

The only meaningful standards to expect in living room are (1) most content should be able to play on most devices, and (b) most devices should use the same cables as most other devices, and (c) most devices will come with arbitrarily confusing directions as to how to connect said cables.  Oh, and don’t forget (d) most devices will not come with the cable you really need at 11:30pm when you finally get to setting it up.

Maybe they'd do better if they stopped asking for my phone number just so I can buy some more AA's?

Why the Mac Mini is not, at all, an Apple TV

Posted on by

Lots of musing yesterday that the new Mac Mini is a “Apple TV in disguise.”  It’s not.  Here’s why:

  1. Price
    There’s a world of difference between seven hundred and one or two or even three hundred dollars.  This is even more the case in the icing room as opposed to the ipad or mobile devices, where theres no precedent or parallel for the product.  Further people evaluate living room stuff extremely differently, and seven hundo is like buying two xbox 360s.  Too much.  In fact, you can truly skip the entire rest of this piece, since this price is an utter non-starter for this discussion.
  2. But what about HDMI?
    Just because the product has hdmi doesn’t mke it a living room product.  Sure front row or Boxee will have that effect, but there’s a radical difference between a purposeful and incidental use case for a device like this.  Hdmi is there because it’s replaced dvi as the digital video standard, and because a huge screen does make a beautiful monitor.  An interconnect does not alone a product make, otherwise I’d be comparing the Mac Mini to a router because it has an Ethernet port.
  3. Software
    Per the above comment, today it’s front row or nothing, from apple direct.  Yes, users can download Boxee or plex, but to think consumers en masse will throw down seven hundred dollars for this solution is way off the mark.  For that purpose, they’d just buy an apple tv, or a roku or a wdtv, etc.
  4. But what about New Software?
    Okay, it’s fairly naive of me to say the future of this scenario is the existing version of front row.  Obviously they’ll rev it, and lets assume the rev is solid.  Per all the above points, it doesn’t matter how much better it is.  It’s not about a “better experience” when we are talking the price point.
  5. The Apple Way
    Apple makes products with high margins, mass appeal, and excellent software.  A seven hundred dollar apple tv is only one of those things, and at best can get to two.  Why would they make such a bizarre strategy shift here?  It’s not, at all, the apple way.  Far from it.
  6. Consumers and boxes
    Most consumers don’t buy extra boxes for their living rooms.  They buy TVs, game consoles, and media playback devices (the cheapest of the bunch).  When they do buy add ons, they tend to be under $300, such as the slingbox, roku, or wdtv.  In these cases, the value add for the price point is clear.  So looking at the new Mac mini from the lens of ‘what new content or services does this bring to the living room?’ the answer is practically nil.
  7. Consumers and content
    Cable tv (and by that i include satellite and other existing offerings) is, on average, pretty good.  The average American has access to tons of content, both on broadcast and on demand systems, not to mention whatever they are dvring.  Throw in a dvd player and a game console, and the content universe is quite outstanding.  The quantity of people who truly want to throw away their existing stuff is really really small.  Its not to say there isn’t room to add in more, but its not seven hundred dollars worth more in any consumers’ eyes. For a box that expensive to earn a spot in the living room, it must supplant existing content offerings in such a way that consumers clearly perceive the value.  So not only is a brand new software package a requirement, but a massive increase in content, especially free content, is as well.

But What If?

If apple discontinued the apple tv line, this would have a shift, but only a minor one.  In that scenario, I’d imagine the opportunity truly shines for google tv products and the Boxee box by dlink (full disclosure: I consult with dlink), as they will offer similar value propositions but at steeply discounted prices.  And unlike the comparisons between the iPad and the janky tablet rivals, these other products are far more likely to show promise and value.  Still doesn’t add up.
And now for something completely different.
A man talking about the same topic, in video form:

HDMI introduces 1.4 version, prepping millions for confusion

Posted on by

Want a quick way to confuse a customer?  Throw a new version of something on the market.

In the software world this is accepted, and typically expected, though nobody really likes it.  New versions cause support and communication breakdowns between customers and vendors, and create extra work for software teams to test and maintain.  But again, with software, it’s just the way things go.  You can choose not to upgrade something and keep using the old version, or be on the cutting edge and try the pre-release “beta” version of something.  Again, software is easy when it comes to versioning.

Hardware, on the other hand, is a little trickier.  When my MacBook has a firmware upgrade, not only is a reboot in order, it takes complete control of my system for a while.  The same is true for my cell phone, my Slingbox, and other gadgetry I own.  Upgrading a device usually requires a dedicated application/program to do the work for you.

But how do you upgrade a cable?  Well, it turns out you don’t.  You buy a new cable. And you clearly tell consumers the difference.  Unless you are HDMI, in which case you upgrade the standard from 1.3 to 1.4 and require a new cable, despite not renaming it. This, my friends, sucks.  Here’s a little vision of the future for you:

Random customer in Best Buy: “Hi, can you help me find an HDMI cable for my plasma?”

Best Buy employee: “Sure, do you need a 1.3 or 1.4 cable?”

RC: “What is that, metric?  How about 6 feet?”

BB: “Hah, no, I meant what version HDMI cable?”

RC: “One that works with my plasma.”

BB: “Here, I’ll show you the two cables, see how the ends are different?  Which one looks like the one on your plasma.”

RC: “Gee, I don’t know, why on earth would I remember that?  I sure remember when they were red/yellow/white, or red/blue/green, or S-video.  Now I have a plasma, and my son said I should get HDMI.”

BB: “Yes, well you need to know if it’s the 1.3 standard or 1.4 standard.”

RC: “What’s the difference?”

BB: “1.4 is faster!  It can send Internet content too!”

RC: “I’m going home now.”

and… scene.

To be clear – I think the new technology is cool.  But why couldn’t they just call it something completely different?  A “point upgrade” for a cable?  Really?  Bad idea.  According to a graph I saw on VentureBeat there are over a billion HDMI cables already on the market.

As a technologist, I “get” the upgrade as a concept.  But as a consumer I dread the support calls I’ll inevitably get from friends and family members with incompatible devices, equipment, and cables. I certainly don’t want to have a call like (I’ll let you find the source to the following, as it’s one of my favs)…

Okay. Did you use the Intensifier Disc?
Yes.
Turn the controls 18 degrees to the left?
Did that.
Are you in Europe? Do you need an adapter?

I hope when HDMI 1.4 comes to market it has a completely new name, like HDMI-PRO, or S-HDMI, or something other than a number. Ditto to the USB 3.0 people, by the way.  There’s a certain point where the numbers have to go bye-bye, and mass-understandable concepts must take over.  This is one of them.