3D television isn’t the only next step in evolution for TV technology. At the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas last week, there was also a buzz going on about Web TV. Watching content from the web from your living room television.

Students are busy enough as it is with classes, papers and exams. Most of them don’t have the luxury of setting aside hours a night every week to watch television. And the ones that do find it increasingly difficult to stay caught up with their favourite TV shows. So most of them have resorted to watching their favourite shows on the internet, either by downloading a torrent or streaming the video. But they end up sacrificing the luxury of watching from a large screen television for the sake of convenience.

Enter Boxee

Boxee Beta from boxee on Vimeo.

As the video above demonstrates, Boxee allows you to do more tha just watch streaming video of your favourite shows from the internet. You can also watch viral videos from sites like Digg, view photos from Flickr and Picasa, and listen to music from sites like Pandora (though Canadians will probably need some kind of hack). Moreover, you can also connect with your friends on Facebook and Twitter, and see what they are watching, and recommend stuff to them as well.

There are a couple of limitations to Boxee however: a content issue, and a hardware issue.

First, Boxee is an U.S. product, and thus its default settings only have support for U.S. content. This is a problem because Canadians are barred from viewing internet content from sites like Hulu, ABC, and Netflix due to geographic IP filtering. However, several independent third-party developers are working on apps to provide support for Canadian content, such as GlobalTV, Comedy Network, YTV, Much Music, and the National Film Board of Canada.

Secondly, as of now, the only way to use Boxee is to download it for free, install it onto your computer (compatible with Windows, Mac, and Linux), and connect your machine to your television. The problem with that is that you would have to dedicate your computer entirely to playing Boxee on your television. But fortunately, Boxee is coming out with their own hardware, the Boxee Box, which connects directly to your television via HDMI, SPDIF and RCA Audio. It is scheduled to come out sometime between April and June. By that time, developers should have completed support for at least some Canadian content.

DivX TV on deck

Boxee isn’t the only one trying to revolutionize your TV experience. DivX is parterning with LG Electronics to bring DivX TV to the living room. But unlike Boxee, DivX TV will not require any additional hardware. DivX will be installed directly into LG’s existing Blu-Ray players and home theater systems with NetCast Entertainment Access via a firmware update that will be available later this year. The service should also be available on mobile devices, allowing you to remotely stream content from your computer’s media library onto your phone.

The DivX TV content lineup includes more than 70 channels from a variety of genres, including short web videos, as well as premium Hollywood content. Content providers include the Associated Press, CNET, Dailymotion, Picasa, Revision 3, Rhapsody, TED, and Twitter. More content parters are expected to sign on once the service becomes more popular.

TV Widgets and Apps

In a different move to take advantage of this web TV trend, Yahoo! is planning on launching a service that allows people to use “internet widgets” from their television set. With this, people can can communicate with friends via Facebook and Twitter, check the news, weather, sports scores, and stocks, as well as view pictures from Flickr and Picasa. See the video below. Yahoo! formed parternships with Samsung, LG Electronics, Sony and Vizio last year in order to push this service on their HD TVs and Blu-Ray players, and have released Widget Development Kit to engage more content providers.

Similarly, Samsung will also be launching an app store for their HD TVs in July 2010. Actually, it’s reported to be a multi-device app store, meaning you can use the same app on your PC, mobile device, or television. This sets up the potential for synchronizing between devices.

TV of the Future?

The next ten years of TV watching are going to be very different from what we were used to when we were growing up. From 3D television to web TV, these are only the beginning of what our living room liesure time is going to be like in the future. But the question is, are people ready to adapt to all this new technology? I, for one, am looking forward more to web TV than I am to 3D TV, just because the relative quantity of content makes it seem more feasible for the developers and manufacturers, and also more economic for the consumer. But what about you? Are you looking forward to purchasing web connected technology for your television?

[photo credit: DivX.com]

At the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Los Vegas last week, the buzz was all about 3D televisions. With the success of 3D movies like Avatar, and more 3D movies coming out, like Alice in Wonderland, the world is ready for 3D to hit the small screen. Last week, three big announcements were made, implying that 3D televisions aren’t just going to be a fad, but rather are the next step in the evolution of TV technology.

First, Discovery Communications announced that they are engaging in a joint venture with Sony and IMAX to bring 3D televisions to the living room. Sony will be producing the 3D-capable televisions that will be required to view Discovery’s 3D programming, while IMAX will likely be responsible for providing the technology for filming programs in 3D, and converting 2D programs into 3D. The Discovery-Sony-IMAX triumvirate will launch a 24-hour channel in 2011, which will be dedicated to running all 3D programming. The channel will feature programs on natural history, space exploration, adventure, engineering, science and technology, motion pictures, and children’s programming. Unfortunately, plans as of now only intend to broadcast the channel in the U.S., but you can bet that Canadian broadcasting companies will immediately follow suit.

On the same day, ESPN also announced that they were planning to kick off their own 3D-dedicated channel on June 11 2010, to broadcast the World Cup soccer match in 3D. ESPN is committed to keep this channel running for at least one year, with a minimum of 85 live 3D events. Other planned events include the Summer X Games (for extreme sports), NBA games, and college basketball and college football. They do not plan to air reruns, so the network will go dark when there are no 3D events to air. Again, there might be a delay before this becomes available in Canada, but it would be great ig we could watch the World Cup in 3D!

Later that week, DirecTV also announced that they were set to launch a trio of dedicated 3D channels by June 2010. This will include a 3D pay-per-vew channel, a 3D video-on-demand channel, and a free linear 3D channel intended as a “sampler demo channel”. DirecTV is also also planning to work with other programming partners and movie studios to produce more 3D content, including CBS, MTV, NBC Universal, and Turner Broadcasting System, as well as the Fox Sports Network to broadcast the MLB All-Star Game on July 11 2010, (hmm… not as exciting as watching the World Cup in 3D, but still pretty exciting). Current DirecTV customers with existing top-sets will get a free firmware upgrade to support 3D programming, but they will still need to buy a compatible 3D television, such as the Panasonic Viera Full HD 3D TV. DirecTV has signed a deal with Panasonic to be the exclusive sponsor of their services.

Clearly, 3D televisions aren’t just going to be a passing fad. It’s only a matter of time before every household in Canada owns one. But the question is, how much time? There are still some among us, I’m sure, that are still trying to catch up with the HD trend. But it’s the nature of technology to make leaps and bounds before everyone can catch up. From black and white, to colour, to HD, to 3D, the evolution of television just keeps getting faster and faster. Technology grows at an exponential rate, but people are much slower to adopt such technology. So how long are you going to wait before your house gets their own 3D television?