As pretty as a painting, as smart as a computer
MANILA, Philippines - Back in the day when TV sets were lumped under the quaint name “brown goods” (because most electronic equipment were encased in wooden cabinets or simulated wood paneling) and they weighed a ton and were as thick as an aquarium, nobody could have thought the idiot box would come to this.
So who’s the idiot now?
Certainly not the inventors and engineers who kept pushing technology until TV became so thin that now we can say that perhaps this is the thinnest it will ever be. But then again, that’s what they probably said about LCD a couple of years ago.
Samsung’s new LED HDTV is only 29 millimeters or 1.14 inches thick. Imagine if you did a Rip Van Winkle in the 1960s and woke up in 2009 and saw, for the first time, a color TV and in this size. It would be enough to put you into a coma — again.
Samsung’s LED HDTV was first developed in 2006. Only three years earlier, the company entered the LCD TV market and quickly dominated it. But in 2006, senior management realized that TV always took up the most important position in the house — literally and figuratively — as families gather around it to enjoy their time together. They created the “World’s Number 1 Digital Taskforce” and gave it a tall order: to “make the world’s best TV.”
The taskforce worked for six months on the thickness problem and found the solution in LED. But there were other issues: from the most important picture quality to the seemingly mundane but no less crucial wire to be used when mounting the TV on a wall (they eventually settled on a wire wall hanger that lets you hang it like a picture frame).
Samsung engineers liken the process of developing the company’s own picture enhancement chip to giving birth, except that it took more than a year to conceive it, let it germinate, and finally roll it out of the lab. “The chip is comprised of hundreds of millions of transistors,” according to Samsung. “The entire chip would ‘die’ even if a single connection failed, which would put all efforts in vain as it took at least three to four months to redesign it.”
Today, Samsung is one of only two TV manufacturers in the world to have its own chip. Since introduced LED TV in March this year, it has since sold one million units. It has captured 90 percent of the global market and the number of LED TVs it has sold is more than five times of all LED TVs sold in 2008 (around 196,000).
At the launching of Samsung’s new Series 8 LED TV at Oakwood Premier last Monday, Samsung Philippines vice president for consumer sales Jay Ha says the prices of LED TV have dropped by about 15 to 20 percent since they were introduced (in the Philippines the Series 6 and 7 with screens reaching 40 to 55 inches were made available last May). The Philippine TV market, he says, is only 1.4 million units with about 20 percent having LCD TVs, 35 percent slim-fit TVs, and the rest have the “normal” or CRT TVs.
A three-bedroom suite was fitted at Oakwood with LED TVs with the living room showcasing the new 55-inch Series 8. The TV is packed with features: 240 hz, ultra clear panel, full HD engine, wide color enhancer pro, mega dynamic contrast, HDMI, BD Wise, Anynet, SRS Tru Surround HD, Media 2.0, Content Library, USB 2.0 ports, DLNA, and eco-friendly features (energy consumption is cut down by 40 percent with the use of LED backlighting).
Okay, this sounds too technical for me. What all these features simply mean is that this is a kick-ass TV (not a bad tagline, eh?). Picture motion is seamless (there is no juddering), colors actually do look more real than real (I had never seen Van Gogh’s paintings so vivid), and details are so sharp.
What is more impressive, though, is the ability of the Series 8 to bring Internet capabilities with Medi@2.0. You can check the weather, read the news, watch YouTube videos — while still watching your favorite programs. This is indeed interactive TV that’s easily navigable with TV widgets appearing on one side. It has its own library of recipes, children’s learning videos, and images among other things. Samsung is currently developing local widgets that cater specifically to the Filipino market.
“Samsung has leveraged our technological design leadership to create a new category, market and demand for LED TVs,” says Spencer Shim, president and CEO of Samsung Electronics Philippines. “With shortening product cycles, demand for LED TV is increasing exponentially and the market potential is immense. Our upcoming marketing initiatives will generate further momentum and propel us towards achieving our target of 3.7 million units in global sales this year.”
