CES Trend #3: High-def displays seek differentiation to avoid commoditization
Sharon Fisher, BetaNews Senior CES Analyst: With everybody and his brother coming out with a high-definition display, how does a vendor stand out? Judging from CES, it seems like the best way to succeed in this market is to study those qualifications ending with that marvelous suffix "-est."
Biggest
150-inch, 2,000 lb. Panasonic TV. 12 ½ foot diagonal screen, about 10 feet wide, 11 feet tall.
Thinnest
You can never be too thin or too rich. Sony showed off a 3 mm (.12-inch) thick Organic Light Emitting Diode (OLED) television for $2,500. It's also the contrastiest, with a ratio of a million to 1 compared to the 20,000 to 1 of a regular plasma screen.
Pioneer had a "concept model" 50-inch (127-centimeter) LCD high-definition television 9 mm deep. The TV measured less than an inch thick and weighs 41 pounds.
Panasonic and Samsung demonstrated new TV sets that are only one inch thick.
Hitachi showed a 1.5-inch-thick LCD model that is actually available.
Blackest
Pioneer showed its two Kuro concept TVs that have no backlight, meaning they can go to "absolute black" with extreme contrast.
Greenest
Philips's 42-inch Eco TV, is said to use no more power than a 75 watt light bulb.
3D-est
Philips and Texas Instruments each demonstrated 3D tvs. TI's uses wireless eyeglasses; Philips' doesn't need any glasses at all.
Online-est
Panasonic, Sharp and Sony all showed off boxes with various kinds of partnerships with content providers. Sharp will provide weather, stock quotes and comic strips. Samsung Electronics has a deal with USA Today to provide news, weather and stock information. Panasonic announced a deal with Google to pull down YouTube videos and images stored on Picasa.
Sony Pictures Television announced an ad-supported channel on YouTube; five-minute versions of "classics" like as "Charlie's Angels," "Fantasy Island," "Married With Children," "NewsRadio" and "Diff'rent Strokes"; and content from World Events Productions, distributors of cartoons "Voltron" and "Saber Rider."
Social-est (not to be confused with "socialist")
Toshiba's television includes social networking by letting people watch a television show and link online with other people watching it, exchanging instant messages on their screens during the shows.
Ed Oswald, BetaNews: The rush to avoid commoditization could not be more apparent at this year's CES from the amount of new HDTVs with features that move the set away from just being a to more of a 'jack-off-all-trades' entertainment device.
A good example of this was JVC's addition of the Teledock, allowing for iPod integration directly with the TV set. Negating the need for cables, all the user needs to do is plug his or her iPod into the dock and they're able to view content right off of the device.
Not to be outdone, Panasonic is looking to the Internet service side, adding a YouTube button to their remotes in coming models. While yes, its not going to be a perfect way of watching those films on the big screen, it's certainly a start.
The fact is, without any extra features these days, its just a television. But in this era of covergence, and the dissolving of the line between online and offline content, moves like this in the market aren't all that surprising.