DVD Playback a Predicament in Tablets Era, Samsung Says

Samsung Semiconductor took a PR swing to New York Thursday, promoting a late-April software upgrade for its Optical Smart Hub SE-208B that it hopes provides a solution to negative feedback the DVD writer/streamer got since introduction earlier this year. Samsung is banking on the Smart Hub and the recently launched SE-218BB external DVD drive to give its optical disc business relevance in the tablet and Ultrabook worlds at a time when optical drives face a dramatically reduced role in the upcoming Windows 8 era.

Upgrades to the Smart Hub include a “more intuitive” user interface that enables users to navigate among DVDs, CD, streaming media and photos, said Maverick Choi, senior manager of Samsung’s Optical Media Solution division. The device can now share resources through a home router on a Wi-Fi network rather than working only in a direct Wi-Fi connection with a tablet or PC, and Wi-Fi setup is simpler, he said. But the Smart Hub optical drive is still CD/DVD only, Choi said, citing “royalty issues” on Blu-ray hardware and software. Samsung is “still thinking about” Blu-ray, he said, “but not in the near future."

Samsung’s projections for the Smart Hub are modest, with a target of 50,000 units sold in the U.S. by year-end, Choi said. While the market is “still small,” he believes it will grow fast as more people use tablets as video players and look for ways to play back legacy files stored on a hard disk drive (HDD) or DVD. Consumers are streaming more and buying fewer DVDs, but “they still have a lot of files on their external HDDs, too,” Choi said. In the solution he showed us, a third-party external HDD was connected to the Smart Hub -- Samsung sold its hard disk business to Seagate last year -- creating a cumbersome solution for transferring media to a tablet. An external HDD that stores users’ content has to connect by USB to the Smart Hub for power. For consumers who own DVDs, the Smart Hub gives them a way to watch discs on a tablet without having to purchase the movie through Amazon or another streaming site, Choi said. He maintained that buying new DVD titles is “much cheaper” and faster than streaming.

The Smart Hub can work with smart TVs, too, but it won’t play DVD movies or music CDs when connected through a TV’s USB port -- unless it’s an Android-based smart TV. Samsung’s current TVs aren’t Android-based, Choi noted, citing the competition in the connected TV space where “everyone wants to create their own ecosystem.” Samsung has a partnership with Google TV, and the CE company has made no announcements about product introductions.

In its other optical disc product, Samsung is pushing design, codec compatibility and Samsung’s Smart Power functionality. The SE-218BB optical disc drive is designed to bring DVD playback to Ultrabooks and USB-equipped tablets, Choi said. The device’s 0.55-inch depth makes it the thinnest optical disc drive on the market from “qualified manufacturers,” Choi said. The metallic “hairline” surface was designed to complement the streamlined look of Ultrabooks, he said. Unlike other optical drives that require two USB ports for power, the SE-218BB needs just one due to Samsung’s Smart Power technology that adjusts read speeds to the power needs of the device and thus reduces the amount of power required via USB. For now the Smart Power drives are only being built for Samsung-branded products at the company’s plant in the Philippines, Choi said.

Samsung is pushing AV 2.0 connectivity on the SE-218BB, but that has created confusion among consumers who naturally associate a DVD player with a TV, Choi said. Users can connect the SE-218BB to allow a TV to read users’ digital audio and video files stored on CD-Rs or DVD-Rs, but Choi said that capability has been confusing to consumers who have tried to play a DVD on the optical drive through a TV’s USB port. “It is not a player,” he said. “You're just sending data files to the TV, and the TV will play those files.” The SE-218BB serves only as an external storage device, he said.

Adding to the confusion, Choi said some higher-end Samsung TVs have DVD playback functionality via USB ports. Only certain Samsung TVs have that capability, which has led to online debates by consumers over whether it’s possible to play a DVD from the SE-218BB drives through the USB ports on Samsung TVs. When we asked what would identify that functionality to consumers, Choi said: “It depends on the TV.” He added that Samsung “doesn’t recommend playing DVD movie titles through AV 2.0 connectivity."

Samsung’s aim with the SE-218BB is to bring optical disc technology to mobile devices that don’t come with disc playback. Ultrabooks and tablets are the target products but increasingly notebooks will come sans optical drives as trends continue toward thinner, lighter designs, Choi said. He said consumers still want optical disc drives, and the Samsung solution, because it only requires a single USB port for power, will meet users’ needs.

The days of promoting faster read/write speeds for optical discs are gone, Choi said, as consumers want thinner, quieter solutions, and the new model “follows the trend.” An 8x optical disc drive spins at 6,000-7,000 rpm, he said, which makes a lot of noise. A DVD or CD can spin at 2x speed without negative effect, and the Smart Power technology automatically adjusts for the slower, quieter speed, he said. When the drive doesn’t need to operate at maximum speed, it will automatically kick down to a lower speed that is quieter and uses less power, Choi said.