DigiHunter

CES 2009 Report Part 2--Internet TV & MIDs

Jan 19, 2009 23:46

Internet TV isn't new technology to me since IPTV is already in service in Korea and I also have a settop box to download content from the Internet. However, Korean IPTV and the newly introduced Internet TV aren't the same at all if you looking closely. Korean IPTV provides very limited access to online content, with the main content coming from the three key broadcasting channels' past productions (dramas, shows, news, etc.) and a number of categories just like SKY TV's various channels (kids, movies, shopping, sports, etc.). The difference between SKY TV and IPTV is a two-way connection that is not tied to a time schedule. You can able to see any content anytime you like via Internet connectivity.

Blu-ray + widget channels


Samsung TV + widgets

So, what are the main differences between Internet TV and IPTV? It's about the content that I can enjoy. All the UCC sites can be added as one of your favorite channels and over 78 countries have Internet broadcasting channels which you can able to connect to. There will be minor points like quality of the content since UCC sites can't provide us HD-quality content all the time, while some of better-known American channels aren't able to connect to countries outside of the US. It will automatically ignore your request by IP trackdown of your location.

Personally, I love to have Netgear's ITV2000. Is size is just about the same as one of its Access Points and has the ability to connect your TV to the Internet to enjoy all the online movie content and an HDMI port to sync with your TV set.


ZeeVee's device GUI


Netgear ITV2000


Netgear ITV2000 GUI

Samsung, LG, Panasonic, Sharp, Sony and all those TV makers now have TV sets with LAN ports to connect to the Internet. Motorola, Gigabyte, Samsung and Tatung also presented their settop boxes with Internet connectivity built-in. Some of manufacturers have adopted Intel's media processor to bring about better performance and Blu-ray players now also include Internet connectivity to offer better value add to consumers. It seems most of the upcoming home theater systems will have Internet connectivity in the near future. All those players also have USB port to connect your external HDD or USB drives to act as a DivX player as well.




Intel's MID section

At CES, Intel divided its booth into four to five sectors, comprising MIDs, Netbooks, Core i7, WiMAX, Internet TVs, and others. I counted 14 MIDs displayed at the booth, with four of them manufactured by Korea brands: The UMID M1, TG Luuon Mobbit, Viliv S5 and Wibrain. I don't know why Digifriend and other companies' MIDs were missing at the booth. For instance, LG and Toshiba introduced their MIDs at CES 2008, while Samsung was planning to introduce its next model of the Ultra Q series, the Q1EX. But, somehow, I didnt' see any Samsung's PC products at its CES 2009 booth and I didn't come across the Q1EX as well. UMPCportal.com reported that the Q1EX was there, but what I saw was just like the Q1Ultra. I don't think Samsung would release its new device like that since it failed with that design in the past. I discovered some old report on the missing Samsung PC products from a Korean media. Samsung apparently couldn't display any of its PC and laptop products because of HP and Dell. Samsung recently announced that it would officially enter the US PC market with its brand, but this wasn't good news for HP and Dell which are purchasing many PC-related parts from Samsung. As a result, they might switch supplier on those parts and it could be quite a damage to Samsung. This might be one reason Samsung didn't present any PC products since they it hasn't fixed its decision on competitors' reaction to its recent announcement.




UMID's M1

Without Samsung's Q1EX, UMID's M1 got the spotlight among the other 13 MIDs at Intel's MID booth. It's like a miniature of the traditional laptop but it runs on Intel's Atom processor with good performance as well. UMID had an offering of two colors: Wine red and Pearl white. This will be out in Korea in February, though the price remains unknown. Viliv S5, S5, X70 weren't displayed as working models at the Intel booth as Viliv wasn't able to submit the devices before the deadline. Without the four Korean MIDs, I wasn't able to find any new MIDs from the others. The only OQO2+ was a model that had been upgrading its hardware, though the outlook was the same as the previous OQO.






Viliv' MID S7 and its booth

I visited the Viliv booth as well to catch up with the S7 and X70 that I didn't see at the Viliv S5 launch show in Korea. The S7 was acutally introduced at IDF 2008, but much improvement has been made since, with the major difference being the GUI which Viliv created for XP via Adobe Flash. This kind of GUI exists only in Korean MIDs because Korea uses Windows OS rather than Linux for its Internet environment (ActiveX). 4.8-, 5- and 7-inch LCD sizes aren't good to operate Win XP on, so those Korean manufacturers try to provide PMP-styled GUI to consumers to run more efficiently. I've recorded Viliv S7's GUI in action, soi check it out below.

Viliv MID S7 demo

 

 

Viliv MID S5 demo


Viliv S7, S5, S7 black version


Viliv's MID X70 with keyboard attached.

I also visited Nvidia's booth to get update information on its Tegra devices, but there wasn't much improvement in its device status. The same PMP-sized products and ASUS Eee PC with Tegra CPU integrated. Unfortunately, the Tegra Netbook runs WinCE only, not WinXP. I expected anonymous Tegra Netbooks or MIDs with Win XP from CES 2009, but failed to find any.


Nvidia's Tegra section




Netbook with Tegra 600 series built-in.

I also discovered a critical issue of those MIDs which didn't have a physical keyboard. Most customers would set the password to login to Win ,XP but Win XP doesn't display a virtual keyboard at the login Windows since it's not a tablet version of the XP. The problem is that most MIDs running on Win XP are not tablets. So you need to connect a keyboard to the MID to login to the device if you have set a password login on it. Damn!


Toshiba's Internet Viewer

 

The most impressive MIDs I've seen at CES 2009 would be Toshiba's Internet Viewer and other conceptual devices. Toshiba displayed its prototype MID at CES 2008, but it didn't appeared in markets. Hope those conceptual MIDs get shipped out to market soon.

Sorry for the messy post. It's hard to combine so many stories into one post and maybe I've been tired these days, too.

My next report would be on the wireless charging solutions and pico projectors spotted at CES 2009.

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