Netflix endorsement shakes up TV manufacturers
● Last week, a small earthquake shook the cosy world of TV manufacturers — an industry often seen as being in lockstep, with similar major advances in technology announced almost simultaneously by market leaders every year.
The latest technology in high-end smart TVs is usually unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas each January. However, these are several generations ahead of what is selling in stores. The initial cost of a new machine is high, but falls fast as production volume increases and cost of new components comes down.
Now, suddenly, the industry has been caught napping. Global video-on-demand market leader Netflix has issued a list of recommended smart TVs “that provide the best performance and are the easiest to use for Netflix”. And, it adds, for “other streaming services”. Only three manufacturers make the cut: Samsung, Sony and Panasonic.
Not that the rest are technologically backward; rather that in their single-minded focus on the latest display technology, their integration of streaming services is not seamless. The criteria are simple, yet rare. Aside from several Netflix-specific features, a Netflix recommendation requires:
● TV Instant On: TV wakes up instantly and remembers where you were. Apps are ready to use right away;
● Fast App Launch: whether you’ve just turned on the TV, or switched from a different app, an app always opens quickly; and
● Always Fresh: the TV updates in the background, while the TV is “sleeping”, so the latest content is always displayed when an app is opened.
And according to Netflix only certain series of Samsung, Sony and Panasonic TVs fit the bill.
Other manufacturers can be forgiven for missing these tricks. For most, the innovation flavour of the moment is 8K display, which offers double the resolution of the previous high-end, known as 4K, which itself offers twice the resolution of regular high-definition (HD) TV.
When Samsung announced recently that its new QLED 4K and 8K TV models — the latter with price tags of R77,000 upward — were available in SA, it wasn’t mere hype. Last week, Samsung Electronics Africa CEO and president Sung Yoon told Business Times that several dozen of the 8K units had already been sold in SA.
Budget-priced 8K can be expected in SA as early as next year, with both HiSense and Skyworth entering the fray.
Smart TVs spell the demise of set-top boxes like the DStv Explora, since most of the programming functionality is built into the TV itself. Internationally, streaming devices have replaced decoders. The big names, Apple TV, Amazon’s Fire Stick, and Google’s Chromecast, all compete with market leader Roku.
Global market intelligence firm Strategy Analytics announced on Wednesday that Roku accounted for almost a third of US sales of connected TV devices in the first quarter of this year. Of these, only Apple TV is readily available in SA.
However, a service called FutureTV has brought Roku to SA, built its own software into the system, and bundled it with an internet router that masks users’ locations, and allows them to subscribe to international services, as well as viewing free channels that are locked to specific locations.
“We’ve been in the streaming industry for 10 years, and we know what services are available worldwide and how to make them happen in SA,” founder Steven Cohen told Business Times this week.