CES Panel Debates Prospects of ‘Smart’ TVs

Tempering the hype at CES for Internet-connected “smart” TVs and app-based home entertainment, a panel of Hollywood digital gurus agreed that device manufacturers and digital content distributors have yet to earn mass-market appeal for such devices.

Today’s smart TVs are “clearly not ready for primetime,” said Lionsgate’s Curt Marvis (via paidContent). Marvis was critical in his review of one anonymous device: “Other than Netflix and Qriocity [Sony’s streaming video-on-demand service], there was nothing on there that worked very well at all. It reminded me of the old CD-ROM days.”

Meanwhile, Fox Broadcasting’s Hardie Tankersley dismissed Google TV’s web-browsing as a “lame” experience that “nobody wants.”

Other panelists saw promise beyond the first generation of “smart” TVs and devices. “The app environment,” said Steve Canepa of IBM’s media and entertainment unit, “allows for authentication, it allows for a business model that gets a much better share for the content creator.”

Studios Look To Restore Balance Between Rental, Ownership Models Online

“We are finally at the tipping point where digital is becoming relevant,” Lionsgate’s digital head Curt Marvis tells the Los Angeles Times, “But right now rental is dominant over sales.”

In a state-of-the-industry report, the Times examines the issue of whether inchoate download-to-own services stand a chance of gaining market share alongside access-oriented digital services such as Netflix streaming and video-on-demand.

Some believe that studios are already living on rented time, as it were. “We’re almost inevitably moving toward a model in which download-to-own is a niche business,” says Screen Digest’s Arash Amel.

But with proponents of the Ultraviolet digital rights platform preparing for product launches next year, studios say the download-to-own business has only begun. Thomas Gewecke, Warner Bros.’ digital president, predicts that 2011 “might be a watershed year in making download-to-own better for the consumer.”

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