Rebecca Day

SAN FRANCISCO -- With broad implementation of the smart grid some 10 years out, CE and appliance companies are grappling with issues of infrastructure, customer interface and distribution that will impact how products and standards evolve during ramp-up, experts said last week on a CEA Industry Forum panel.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Connected TV is a “survival game” for the industry, Gaurav Arora, senior manager of Broadcom’s consumer electronics group, said on a panel at this week’s CEA Industry Forum. The Internet-centric purchasers of five to 10 years from now are in college and if TV sets aren’t connected for them, “the product will die” and be replaced by an iPad, laptop or smartphone, he said.

SAN FRANCISCO -- After last January’s exuberance over the next coming of 3D TV, the industry is undergoing a “reality check,” Dan Schinasi, the head of HDTV product planning at Samsung, said at the CEA Industry Forum. He spoke of “aspirations of selling 2 million 3D sets this year,” although CEA forecasters in a previous session had called industry projections for sales of 2.1 million units “an understatement at best,” a sign of the optimism-reality issues facing the nascent category.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Like the Home Technology Specialists of America two weeks ago at their fall meeting in St. Louis, members of the former PARA organization met at the CEA Industry Forum here with an urgent agenda for change. PARA, folded into CEA six years ago, had become an acronym, “and no one knew what PARA meant,” according to Vance Pflanz, owner of Pflanz Electronics and chairman of the newly named CEA Audio-Video Retailer division. The group took on the new name to improve its identity within CEA and better reflect its place in CEA, Pflanz said.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Connected TV will be the focus of TV makers at the upcoming CES and for 2011, Jason Oxman, CEA’s senior vice president of industry affairs, said Monday at the CEA Industry Forum. But the growth of connected TV, whether from TVs themselves, Blu-ray players or set-top boxes from third-party companies, will hinge on managing the content and helping consumers navigate the vast amount of content available.

Apple’s recently announced AirPlay streaming media protocol could have a significant impact on the connected home in a way that DLNA hasn’t, said a report from ABI Research. Apple’s opening of the AirPlay software development kit to third-party vendors should result in a “significant increase” in the development of networked audio and video devices in the home, said Jason Blackwell, practice director of digital home at ABI. DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance) technology is found in more than 200 million products from more than 200 partner companies, according to ABI, and its primary shortcoming has been lack of consumer awareness. “We would be hard-pressed to find an average consumer who knows what DLNA is or how to use it,” the report said.

After changes of ownership and a move to an online business model, speaker company NHT is back to market with a second-generation SuperZero speaker as part of streamlined, direct online distribution model. The speakers have been retooled and re-priced at a “value-oriented” $99 each, Chris Byrne, co-owner of NHT told Consumer Electronics Daily.

The lack of standards in the 3D world “is a real problem,” said Alan Young, chief technology officer of SES World Skies, during the keynote presentation of Content & Communications World in New York Wednesday. In the absence of industry-wide standards, SES World Skies has developed a 3D TV industry test platform for 3D infrastructure, formats, compression technologies and displays to measure 3D performance in a lab environment, Young said.

Dolby is pushing to make Dolby Digital Plus the chosen format for surround-sound audio in the connected TV world. Vudu already incorporates 5.1-channel Dolby Digital Plus audio in its streaming movie service, and Dolby plans additional content aggregator announcements “very soon,” Craig Eggers, Dolby’s senior manager, consumer electronics partner marketing, told Consumer Electronics Daily. Eggers would not comment on specific aggregators or whether Dolby Digital Plus will be part of the Google TV announcement, set for after our deadline Tuesday.

ST. LOUIS -- Amid forecasts that HTSA dealers’ total 2010 sales will drop below $400 million, after a 20 percent decline to that dollar figure in 2009, association executives are urging dealers to build solutions around Apple products, more-affordable home control and mobile electronics. “You need to have as many arrows in your quiver as you can,” Executive Director Richard Glikes told Consumer Electronics Daily.