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EMCgenius
Nothing was said about antenna implementation. A trace along the side of the PCB ...
Bert22306
Why ad-free? It's not ad-free. In the US, at least, there are many sites that ...
Yoshida in China: Streaming sticks threaten TV makers
Junko Yoshida
10/16/2012 10:55 AM EDT
TOKYO -- HDMI- or USB-based "stick products" that look like thumb drives are designed to turn ordinary flat panel displays into streaming or smart TVs. The emerging product category has caught fire recently among China's fabless chip companies, a development that caught me by surprise.
Many Chinese chip companies that design multimedia processors that go into sticks have already lined up manufacturers to produce their stick products. I’ve seen a USB-based stick called MuPad designed by Apexone, a fabless company based in Shenzhen. Nufront, an applications processor specialist based in Beijing, is readying an HDMI-based stick.
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Inside Nufront's HDMI streaming stick.
Readers may have heard of the “Streaming Stick” first demonstrated by Roku at the Consumer Electronics Show in January. This month, Roku finally announced a commercial product priced at $99. Once plugged into the MHL port of Roku-ready TV, the stick adds streaming features to HDTV without a PC, a standalone set-top box or cables.
As far as I know, Roku is the only company offering streaming sticks in the U.S. Not a single, traditional CE company has discussed plans for such products. The silence is almost deafening.
Think about it, though. Why would Samsung, Panasonic, Sony or Sharp ever want to launch a $99 product? After all, they want consumers to shell out $600 to buy a new 40-inch smart TV.
'Nonexistent' market
For now, “This market is almost nonexistent,” said Jordan Selburn, senior principal analyst at IHS iSuppli. The market researcher hasn't even bothered to release a market forecast.
“Almost nonexistent” wasn't my impression while reporting from China over the last several months, even it is true that there is no market yet in the west for stick products.
Selburn isn’t entirely writing off the product category, however. "There are sufficient reasons to expect that the stick form-factor [product] could become quite popular, and it wouldn’t surprise me if this became a major portion of the 'over-the-top' (OTT) segment.”
Selburn defines OTT as a box used to access Internet content, as distinguished from STB, a traditional paid digital TV set-top box provided by the service operators.
Selburn assumes that stick products function as OTT boxes. The market, however, is still “quite small,” he noted. OTT boxes, including home media streamers like Western Digital’s box, are expected to ship about 12 million units this year, he estimated.
The market for stick "boxes" could be as high as 20 million units per year by 2016, Selburn estimated. While that figure strikes me as conservative, Selburn explained that not all OTT boxes will be replaced by sticks because many media boxes contain HDDs.
Next: End of STB?
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Bert22306
10/16/2012 5:07 PM EDT
It's very frustrating to see CE companies not doing what is in the best interest of their customers -- that would be us, the TV buyers. Instead, they seem to be in bed with either OTT Internet sights or the cable and satellite TV providers.
So-called "connected TVs" are a joke, in my opinion. They seem designed for obsolescence. You have a handful of available web sites, and if these should die off, or if you know of new sites to try, too bad for you.
These sticks sound like a good idea. I've gone further, though. I've simply written off the CE companies, and dedicated a Win7 PC to my TV and stereo setup. This gives me access to any sites, Internet radio or TV, or even e-mail and the pizza joint, lots of upgradeability, and freedom from the articially imposed constraints that the service providers and CE companies want to bind us to.
Remember how it took an act of Congress to get TV makers to build digital TV tuners into their sets? Well, we're talking about the same effect here. Fortunately, though, PCs exist in quantity. Where good-performing stand-alone digital TV receiver boxes, in the US, were extremely difficult to come by a few years back.
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Duane Benson
10/17/2012 12:26 AM EDT
This seems like an excellent idea - provided the useability is there. I've used a few low-cost video capture product and most of them have had software that's been barely functional at best. The potential seemed there, but little effort seemed to have gone in to making the software easy to use and reliable.
If these follow that trend, then they'll be a source of disappointment for most purchasers. If they plug in and work as easily as a standard TV set, then I can see a huge market.
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dblaza1
10/17/2012 12:02 PM EDT
Bought one of these in Shenzhen in June at the Huaqiangbei electronics market, it runs Android and works fairly well but the software is buggy, surprised that these haven't sold in large numbers here yet. I blogged on it here: http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-blogs/techtropolis/4375548/Experiencing-the-Chinese-supply-chain--up-close-and-personal?pageNumber=2
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Jhallwachs
10/17/2012 1:02 PM EDT
How is this different than Google-TV ... ?
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jameszhou2000
10/17/2012 3:02 PM EDT
It looks similar. Google TV is supposed to be the high end version of smart TV which has better graphics, better CPU power to handle complicated apps, and web browsing, advanced voice/video interaction etc.
The android on a stick might be considered as the lower end “smart TV” and it actually makes non-smart TVs smart by combining smart functions into an HDMI input to traditional TVs. These sticks just use basic configuration of Android platforms. It should be able to handle video streaming, some connectivity functions, simple apps, and web browsing. If the app like Netflix is really smooth, I think it will have a good chance to attract more users. if it works, this can replace the streaming boxes like Roku, and perhaps taking over some smart-TV market share. But advanced smart functions such as gesture recognition, voice control etc., might not be possible to be implemented on the stick.
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Duane Benson
10/17/2012 1:19 PM EDT
David - The buggy software is the problem that I would be concerned about. When making something simple, like plug it into a monitor and go, buggy software just doesn't cut it.
Bad software makes it the type of product you can find on a shelf at Fry's or some other electronics store where most of the boxes have a sticker on them indicating that it's been purchased and returned.
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vapats
10/18/2012 9:23 AM EDT
I must emphatically agree.
I have a nice little $200 HanTek USB DSO, and it works great -- except for the bugs.
What a pity.
No chance wrt upgrades or firmware fixes; the product was abandoned as soon as it was sold.
I hate to say it, but this is all too typical of Chinese products: they will produce the "flavor of the week" ASAP, but there is zero commitment to building brands, trust, and reputation.
I can no longer tolerate this get-rich-quick business model.
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kaydub
10/17/2012 4:04 PM EDT
Favi Entertainment has a SmartStick running Android JellyBean. I just ordered one to play with. Dune has announced one for US market. Of course there is the Roku stick as well so that's three vendors right there. Infinitec has shown one on Kickstarter so there is four. Plus the ones mentioned above...
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kaydub
10/17/2012 4:10 PM EDT
Control can be a problem; goofy small keyboards and air mouse combinations. Excellent opportunity for a real motion pointer with RF or low power Bluetooth and large, on screen keyboard. The stick solutoin vendor that can get this human interface right and provide a bug free product will do very well in this new market. They are also cheap (I see $50-80 range per stick)
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Battar
10/18/2012 3:48 AM EDT
One of the problems not being addressed here is the fall-off in profitability of TV broadcasting. If you-all are watching ad-free content streamed from the web, who's financing TV productions?
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Bert22306
10/18/2012 1:44 PM EDT
Why ad-free? It's not ad-free. In the US, at least, there are many sites that provide TV content, either for a fee or with ads. The major TV networks themselves each have a web site, where you can catch up on any shows. And other sites, like Hulu, offer content from many different networks, as well as movies, either for free (regular Hulu) or for a fee (Hulu Plus).
The problem is, so-called "connected TVs" sold here in the US don't allow access to just any site.
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EMCgenius
10/18/2012 8:39 PM EDT
Nothing was said about antenna implementation. A trace along the side of the PCB will have miserable performance, like the teensy WiFi adapter here on my desk that won't connect to the wireless router farther than about 3 feet away. Unless there is an external antenna jack, this little guy will be nearly deaf to over the air broadcast.
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