Buyers Guide To What Makes Smart Tv’s So Smart

By Author: Barry Knightly
Total Articles: 57
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Just as smartphones wiped the floor with the traditional mobile phone, Smart TV’s are set to blow the traditional telly out the water by offering a whole new spectrum of tailored media.



My previous article on the subject titled ‘Buyers Guide Explaining Smart TV’s’ introduced you to this revolutionary new type of telly – in a nutshell, by integrating your TV set with the Internet, you’ll be able to do a whole new range of things that were previously limited to PC’s, smartphones, tablets and other such devices. This includes the ability to download useful apps, stream video online and keep up to date with your social networking.



Current figures show that consumer interest in Smart TV’s has grown 124% this year compared to 2010, and they’re expected to take over the majority share of the flat panel TV sector by 2014.



The following guide will explore the main ways that allow Smart TV’s to access customised content in a whole new exciting way.



TV Applications


Apart from functioning as ...
... a traditional television, one of the great features about Smart TV’s is that they’re app based. In other words, just your smartphone allows you to download useful apps, this new TV wonder will do the same, giving you tools to make your life easier and more enjoyable through easy access to a wide variety of fresh content.



The number of apps available for Smart TV’s is increasing by the day, allowing you to stream the content of your choice directly to your telly via the Internet. This form of online activity is managed through hubs, which are similar to smartphone operating systems and app stores – you’ll have a customer friendly home screen where you can receive and manage apps and movie recommendations, as well as search through a huge variety of media available for download.



Because not every Smart TV model offers an inbuilt Web browser, the good news is that this is easily made possible with an app. And in the same way as we expand possibilities with mobile apps, there is a rapidly growing range of different platforms to access Smart TV applications.



Early Smart TV’s simply offered basic apps for sites such as Flickr and YouTube since consumer uptake had not yet grown. Another issue was that third-party developers were for the most part barred from contributing their creativity to the app market because of platform and copyright issues. This is now changing fast – these days open source platforms and hubs allow independent developers to sell their apps which encourages variety, and even big brands are racing to offer appealing widgets etc to grab consumer attention.



The weak link in the TV app market however is that as this market sector grows, manufacturers are releasing a confusing array of different platforms for Smart TV’s, meaning companies are then forced to develop individual apps for each of them. This in turn puts consumers into the frustrating position of having to put up with the limitations and quirks specific to the platform they happen to own.



TV Optimised Websites


Rather than you having to download the right app to access YouTube for example, companies are increasingly developing TV optimised websites that integrate with your Smart TV and thus allow you to view their content direct from source as if it came from a traditional broadcaster.



The problem with this however is that as mentioned above, not every Smart TV platform will permit you to access a Web browser. Many experts expect this to change as quickly as within the next year, but even if Web browsers don’t become a standard feature on all Smart TV’s, a TV optimised site can easily be turned into a TV app to allow access.



Another consideration is that HTML5 is rapidly gaining ground in popularity (it currently accounts for about 54% of all Web video content), which suggests it will soon become the norm. This will streamline the delivery of TV optimised websites considerably - currently, these types of sites are only to be found at dedicated Web video locations. As the capabilities of Smart TV browsers increase, and optimised sites are thus able to take advantage of more HTML5 features, they could have the potential to offer a better service than TV apps.



Conclusion


When it comes to finding and downloading content with your Smart TV, both apps and optimised websites have their benefits and disadvantages: unlike TV apps, a single TV optimised website is capable of serving multiple Smart TV platforms, whereas apps for TV tend to have more capabilities than optimised websites at this point. Nevertheless, as we watch this exciting new technology evolve, the main thing is that both methods are making Internet access through your TV open previously unheard of possibilities when it comes to home entertainment.



About the Author: Barry Knightly owns a Smart TV and electronics repair business.