Smart TV: Completing Short Boards to Create Industry Chain Advantages

Editor's note: 2011 was known as the first year of smart TV. With the drive of the triple play policy and the maturity of the market, domestic color TV companies have launched smart TV products to capture the strategic commanding heights of flat TVs. However, while domestic companies are exerting their power to develop terminals, they must also look for short boards in the chip and content service sectors. They should actively seek cross-strait and multi-party cooperation to form a joint force for industrial development and build the advantages of smart TV industry chain.

Terminal: Manufacturer "IT" Transformation Reporter Huang Wei March 23 TCL launched three series of super-smart Internet TV, March 28 Changhong launched multi-screen interactive high-definition smart 3D TV, March 30 Skyworth Android launched cool open smart In 3D TV, on March 31, Konka convened the "Kenja Net Smart Health 3D New and Online 3D Video Joint Conference." More than a week later, four major domestic color TV manufacturers have brought the market hotspots to “smart TVs,” and the “IT” transformation of the TV industry has begun.

Judging from the current state of industrial development, the color TV industry is once again at a turning point in transition. In foreign countries, giants such as Google have begun to infiltrate into the TV field and have taken the lead in opening up the development of smart TVs. In China, the integration of three networks continues to advance, and smart TVs under the open software platform will become the integration of home multimedia centers and triple play networks. Important carrier.

"The Google and Lenovo IT companies are all doing television across the border, and in a word, they will surely cross-sector development. Why don't we take the initiative to cross over to make smart TVs?" said Yang Dongwen, Vice President of Skyworth Group and president of the color TV business division. "With TV upgrades to Smart TVs will also bring about an industry upgrade, and the television industry will also become the IT industry. Recently, Skyworth, Hisense and others have launched smart TVs, and they believe that this will change our lives."

Display Search predicts that sales of flat-panel TVs with Internet access capabilities will increase rapidly worldwide, and the total volume in 2014 will reach 118 million units. China's color TV companies are currently collectively deploying smart TVs, and it is precisely this desire that they will be the first to obtain a “cake” in the development of intelligence. In such a short period of time, domestic TV companies have launched smart TVs so intensively, which also demonstrates the determination of domestic color TV companies to promote "smart upgrades."

As Bai Weimin, vice president and secretary-general of the China Electronics Video Industry Association, said: "Smart TV is one of the core directions of the current development. Domestic smart TV is gradually transitioning to 'ubiquitous computerization,' and the color TV industry has also entered this direction. Higher level of competition."

The growing demand in the domestic market has also provided strong support for the intelligent transformation of the color TV industry. According to the monitoring data from Zhongyikang, in the 52nd week of 2010, the retail sales of the Internet in flat TVs in the primary and secondary markets have reached 28.8%. "With the improvement of single-chip solutions, consumers' demand for Internet functionality will increase, and TVs with Internet applications will achieve better performance in the market," said Peng Xiandong, research manager of Beijing Zhong Yikang.

However, in the whole industry collectively optimistic about the development prospects of smart TV, domestic color TV companies to seize the opportunity, but also need to pay attention to several issues. First, domestic TV companies are faced with the competition between IT giants and the giants of flat panel display giants after they opened the "intelligent" development. Domestic color TV companies also need to identify their positioning in the competition and accurately determine the direction of technology.

Second, the development of smart TV cannot avoid the problems of national content supervision and barriers between different networks. This puzzle is difficult to understand. Smart TV applications still have obstacles.

Thirdly, on the whole, consumers have more wait-and-see attitudes towards smart TVs. The “2010 Research Report on the Development Status of Smart TV Consumer Markets” published by the China Electronic Chamber of Commerce shows that among consumers who plan to buy flat-panel TVs in the next year, 64% have knowledge of smart TVs, but only 17% plan to buy smart TVs.

As Yang Dongwen said: “At this stage, smart TVs are still in the stage of market promotion, which is still not universal, and the future market still needs to be nurtured.”

Chips and Platforms: Still Short Boards Qiu Jiangyong, a reporter from the newspaper, sees the global smart TV industry's competitive situation. The influence of hardware on TV is gradually weakening. Core chips and operating systems are becoming the leading factor in establishing the status of the enterprise industry. From the perspective of the development status of our country's above-mentioned fields, high-performance processing chips still need to be imported, and there is a lack of independent and open operating systems. China's chips and platforms urgently need to make up for it.

Let's look at the chip first. Smart TV chips are divided into Intel and ARM camps. Intel owns the entire chip architecture, production, and collocation. Sony, Samsung, LG, Sharp and other big-name manufacturers of smart TVs without exception use Intel's TV chip. The ARM Cortex architecture processor is already widely used in mainstream mobile devices such as smartphones and tablet computers. As far as the current situation is concerned, ARM's mobile processor products will have a relatively large development in the future. ARM provides the core design, not the production and manufacturing. The manufacturers who purchase patents even have the right to change the design, and they can also integrate their own proprietary technologies into their own application processor SoCs (system-level chips) with special capabilities. The advantage of Intel chips is that they can be compatible with multiple operating systems at the same time.

The chip has always been a shortcoming of the color TV industry in mainland China. At this stage, it will strengthen cooperation with Taiwan’s chip companies in China and may seek some breakthroughs. This is because of the increasing number of successful cases of cross-strait cooperation. On the other hand, the R&D level and product quality of Taiwanese companies are widely recognized.

In the second half of 2010, Konka, Hisense, Haier, and TCL smart TVs were listed one after another, and Taiwan companies in China have started to take action. By October 2010, Taiwanese chip companies such as South Branch, Realtek, Genesys, and Qunlian began to ship. At the same time, mainland companies have not given up on their dreams of chasing "core". TCL has cooperated with Taiwanese chip makers to develop network television chips. The next generation of intelligent color TV chips is also being developed in-house.

Look at the operating system and software. At present, the most common smart TV operating systems on the market are based on the original Linux, Unix, Android or other open source software platforms, of which Android's performance is the most eye-catching.

Android is called "the first truly open and complete mobile software for mobile terminals." The biggest advantages are the openness of the system, the free service, and the seamless connection with the Internet. However, for Android and other operating systems that have been "transplanted" from mobile phones, how to make users experience the experience on smartphones on TV is still a problem. In addition, there is also a need for support for mass applications such as TVs with large screens. In domestically produced TVs, Changhong, Haier and TCL have all adopted the Android system. Konka uses the OMI smart TV operating system based on the Linux system. Recently, TVs equipped with the Android system have also been introduced.

However, it must be noted that the operating system of smart TVs is open-ended. If China is unable to get rid of the lack of autonomous operating systems, the services, information, software and advertising revenues generated through smart TV transactions in the future will be grasped by individual companies. This will be very embarrassing for domestic TV companies that wish to take a turn for the smart TV.

Application Store: Creating the Core Link of the Industry Chain Sun Hongling, the reporter of the newspaper, has seen an endless stream of technological innovations in the field of flat-panel TVs in recent years. In 2010, color TV companies have entered the field of intelligence. As the core link of the entire smart TV industry chain, application stores have become the key to the success of enterprise competition.

Yan Xiaolin, vice president of TCL Group and director of the Industrial Research Institute, told the China Electronics News reporter: “The development and growth of smart TV is an ecosystem. There are many application developers in this system, and a large number of application developers can The application store develops its own application and gains revenue through the application. Consumers can enjoy the entertainment based on the application. Through the application store platform, everyone needs and wins together. With Android it has proven that this is completely feasible, and we believe that this model is also feasible for smart TVs."

In fact, mobile phone applications may not be suitable for televisions. Because there are different human-computer interaction modes between mobile phones and televisions, there are big differences in application scenarios, and there are large differences in screen sizes, applications for televisions need special development.

In foreign countries, smart TV manufacturers or partners generally have their own application stores. Samsung has established the world's first application store based on high-definition television platforms. In order to fill the gaps in China's smart TV applications and content, China’s color TV companies have also developed large-scale terminal application programs and installed new applications or value-added services through self-installed applications to meet the needs of diversification through triple play. Personalized needs.

The reporter learned that TCL has launched the first TV application store based on the Andriod+ system and launched the global smart application software development contest. The program store is a completely open platform that provides online services for the Andriod+ System Super Smart TV, allowing users to browse, download, and purchase third-party applications. Yan Xiaolin told reporters: “The TV application store based on Andriod+ system, the biggest feature is the unity and openness of the platform, with the help of an open operating system, the most familiar development environment, and upstream chip manufacturers’ full support for standard operating systems. It can Thousands of third-party software are provided to users for selection, allowing users to personalize installations as needed."

In addition, in order to create an open platform to attract more application providers to develop a wealth of applications, Hisense launched smart application stores to provide new software development services and add value to user products. Skyworth Coocaa Smart 3D TV also launched an online application store, which will be used as an independent portal for Skyworth TV.

Bai Weimin stated that in the era of intelligence, we stepped up our efforts in order to occupy the commanding heights of smart TVs in order to realize the upgrading and transformation of China's color TV industry and achieve a win-win situation.