“Ultimately STB manufacturers are focusing on the needs of the purchasing company, which increasingly favour business rather than technology objectives, ” said Hans Jurgen Desor, CEo of iWedia. “Recently nothing from the technology side brought genuine value to the device. Chipset manufacturers are keen to convince buyers that Neural Network (AI) chips are the way to add that value. But purchasers will need convincing of this, because Neural Network chips are mainly used for AI architecture and it’s challenging to see any applicable use cases in TV services.”
Advanced Television
This report on the drivers behind OS choices on set-top boxes (STBs) is from Caretta Research but sponsored by iWedia, a company that builds on top of AndroidTV so, that’s a favorable outcome for it. The question is framed in such a way that it may elicit an expected response.
Putting that aside – it’s not really a deal breaker on making an assessment of this news – it kind of highlights the futility of the STB. Other than as a receiver for specific coax transmissions, STBs in the TV market make less and less sense. Not to mention the fact that no one will missing having. an ugly black box sitting on some shelf or table next to their TV and looking like more like a bug than a feature.
Television is a word that barely made it out of the 19th century and adding smart to the front of it doesn’t take away the stench of a cathode ray tube. Maybe we need to rethink what we call these giant screens that threaten to become entertainment hubs in a totally wireless networked home.
