Unified Content Interface On Smart TV
Television is the single screen that is shared by all entertainment devices and applications in the home. With that in consideration, televisions today are in desperate need of harmony and unification between the different content sources and services that are available in the home.
TVs are the starting point in our daily content consumption journey.
TVs are in control of our daily content consumption journey. The first step in watching TV is to turn on the display which naturally makes it the place to offer a unified interface across devices and services. Smart TVs must provide a continuous experience of watching TV that today faces challenges from the other content sources available in the ecosystem. In 2016, Samsung caused a stir with the introduction of their 9500 series Smart TVs, marking an industry-leading shift to a novel approach to consumers’ experience across content sources and devices. They turned the display into an intelligent hub for different content and services.
Leveraging QuickSet and an external HDMI hub concept this television platform and its remote discover and automatically control entertainment devices that are connected to it. With the automatic setup, consumers are able to seamlessly switch between content sources such as Set-top box, OTT box, Blu Ray Player etc.
"I can go from my cable box to my Xbox to Netflix in a snap….I can go to my favorite network without needing to switch inputs or touch that gosh-awful TV programming guide" by Geoffrey Fowler, Wall Street Journal
Samsung has won wide praise from reviewers for this innovative approach where they are putting consumers' needs for multi-brand, multi-control connectivity ahead of single brand compatibility. The TV presents personalized content and history in a single unified interface. As shown in the graphic, the TV presents all services associated with different content sources that are attached to the TV. Users can access a channel, content or service with a single touch.
In this video review, Geoffrey Fowler, personal technology columnist for the Wall Street Journal said.. “[The TV] actually fixed the three-decades-old pile-of-remotes problem….I can go from my cable box to my Xbox to Netflix in a snap….I can go to my favorite network without needing to switch inputs or touch that gosh-awful TV programming guide….[The platform is] even smart enough to pull channel data from over the Internet and make recommendations on the screen….A truly universal TV remote has an immediate impact on my life.”
Through an expanded set of discovery and control medium capabilities included in the latest release, QuickSet has further refined the vision of a unified and personalized interface across all devices. The solution is now capable of digging further into devices, discovering content such as current playing media, installed applications, and services contained within a range of devices. This helps address the issue of app confusion in this day and age where the same app may be offered through different smart devices. When used in conjunction with traditional media recognition and watermarking techniques, this method can help build a scalable, efficient, and personalized recommendation engine based on usage history across multiple content sources.
Smart TVs can play an important role in the next wave of smart home adoption. As connected and powerful computing devices, support for voice assistants on these platforms enabled by a range of new hardware designs offers new possibilities in integrating entertainment and smart home use cases, delivering new hybrid experiences on the largest screen in the home.