IFA 2013 - First Look at Philips New Cloud TV - news discussion

Steve Withers

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Philips latest Smart TV platform has its head in the ‘cloud'

If there's one phrase that has dominated the TV manufacturer's lexicon over the last few years, it's Smart TV. Everyone is looking to create an integrated digital hub with their specific TV at the centre and they all want a fully functioning eco system in the mould of Apple. However, does this rush to convergence miss the true nature of television? It is, after all, primarily a device for watching video and with people now consuming content on multiple devices, is the TV better off embracing its true nature?

That's certainly how Philips feels and with their new Cloud TV app they intend to offer their customers hundreds of channels, providing an unprecedented level of choice. In a recent survey, Philips found that Smart TV usage has increased by 120% over the last 18 months and in the case of Russia and Brazil, the increase has been over 6 times that amount. In fact, 81% of their customers use their Smart TV functionality at least 25 times a month and, of that usage, the majority is catch-up and video-on-demand services.

Which brings us to the Cloud TV app that Philips are now rolling out on their 2012 and 2013 models. The app will appear in the current Smart TV home page and will offer access to up to 600 additional channels, allowing users to create favourite channels and also search for specific channels or genres. The interface appeared very slick and well designed and in the demo the app appeared to work quite effectively, despite the difficulties in accessing WiFi in the convention centre. Obviously a lot of these channels will be country specific and it remains to be seen how many will be applicable to the UK but it clearly reflects the changing nature of television.

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Philips/TPVision CEO Maarten de Vries said that traditionally TV has been a push model where people have a limited amount of channels and have to watch programmes at a specific time. Now, TV has adopted a pull model where people choose what content to watch and when, although live TV events will remain important. The Cloud TV app reflects these changing habits and Philips also feel that gaming will play an important role, initially with relatively simple games but ultimately developing into more complex ones.

As the name of the TV app suggests, the cloud will be playing a far greater role in future Smart TV platforms and Philips are already addressing this with their Cloud Explorer. This feature will allow users to search the cloud for content which can be shared over your home network. The app currently allows access to Dropbox but the feature isn't tied to one specific service and more will be added in the future. As with the Cloud TV app, the Cloud Explorer has an attractive interface and appears easy to use, adding to the features available within Philips own eco-system.

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Philips have also added Miracast to their 2013 models, allowing second screen viewing with Android smartphones and tablets that support it, along with certain WiDi capable laptops. Another useful new feature is Philips Multi-Room, which will allow you to watch content from one Philips TV on another Philips TV in a different room over your home network. All the channels on the first TV, including the encrypted ones, can be watched on the second TV - even when the first is off. This could prove to be a useful feature and it certainly worked well in the demonstration.

The statistics behind Philips current Smart TV platform are impressive, they currently have 1,877 apps, 250 of which are premium apps. There are 75 catch-up TV apps and 35 video-on-demand apps covering 38 different countries. Philips platform includes both Spotify and Netflix, with the latter leading the revolution in people's changing viewing habits with 38 million users in 40 countries who each month stream over 1 billion hours of video.

Philips is also a founding member of the Smart TV Alliance, which also includes LG, Toshiba and Panasonic. The Alliance is currently working on a common developer support programme, as well as SDK 2.5, which is designed to support multi-screen apps and real app-to-app communication. The latest feature from the Alliance is Smart TV v3.0, which will be launched at CES in January and will add more UHD and Smart Home features. So it would seem that our TVs are set to only get smarter and, thanks to the cloud, more accessible than ever.
 
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