January 5, 2009 by William Peebles
For years now media types and Internet gurus alike have been telling anyone who’ll listen about how the competition between Internet and TV is irrelevant, that we’re heading for ‘synergy’ between the two mediums and soon they will be practically indecipherable. Well, that dream came a step closer to fruition today with the announcement that major TV manufacturer LG, is to produce a line of TVs that can receive and play Internet video as well as traditional digital signals.
The new televisions will be known as ‘Broadband HDTVs’. For the privilege of flicking between X-Factor and YouTube-style videos of X-Factor, you’ll be looking at about $300 dollars more than a traditional TV of the same specifications.
These TVs will not allow you to surf the Internet freely – they’re not computers, although, they will be hooked up to specific sites allowing you to download particular programmes and movies. The most exciting of these collaborations is with Netflix – Broadband HDTVs (they really need a better name) will have access to the entire ‘Watch Instantly Library’ on Netflix, which holds around 12,000 films and TV shows.
This is just a taste of the way things are going. LG, like everyone else realise that the eventual goal is to have a TV that can freely connect to the Internet and seamlessly switch between it and regular programming. The trouble for LG is that regular people tend to buy one main TV every decade or so. For this reason people may decide to hold out for a model that gets closer than LG have here, it can’t be far away.
Related posts:
