Hey Sports Tech Fans,
I have been playing around with better ways to consume the stories shared given the sheer volume of stories covered each week and I am experimenting with an RSS feed to Flipboard offering.
It essentially puts all the stories covered each week in to a magazine format that Flipboard provide, which I love using on my iPad.
Let me know if it works on your end if you check it out as I am not 100% sure if it’s available to others or just me.
Check it our here:
https://flipboard.com/section/a-feed-called-stlreddit-r80plcbahbj69lg1
Comcast and Sky are launching their own smart TV lines in a very big move away from their traditional offerings of satellite TV in the UK and Europe and via cable TV in the US.
This is the first big move by the now single TV company following on from Comcast’s acquisition of Sky in 2018.
The aim of the move is to be a more streaming friendly offering with TV feeds being streamed as opposed to traditional methods of broadcast.
Streaming has been the hottest topic since this newsletter has started and we have covered it detail from a number of angles.
This is similar in a lot of ways to the stories that we have seen in the last 3 years around the fight for the “Smart TV Dongle” market, Amazon’s Fire TV, Google’s Chromecast, Roku TV, Apple TV etc.
This offering changes the game and offers a complete TV unit with the dongle effectively built in.
This is a big move and it might see others get in the game as well like Apple or Google as they look to compete in the hardware involved in delivering streams to users homes as well as in the software streaming wars.
Amazon and Roku already have their own TV offerings with deals with Chinese manufacturer TCL, who also produce Android TV’s, so Google is already in this game as well.
These TV’s will be manufactured by another Chinese TV manufacturer HiSense, which if you are a watcher of FIFA World Cup’s you will recognise them as one of the main sponsors, which is also in place for Qatar 2022.
This is the first major move from a traditional broadcaster into the streaming space via a hardware solution. Most major broadcasters now offer streaming apps and websites but this is a significant shift in the approach.
TV’s are seen as an expensive purchase, but most are actually cheaper than the latest iPhone of Samsung offering.
With most people keeping their TV’s for 5 to 7 years, it’s far from 1 to 3 years we see for iPhones.
When the technology hardware is built in, it is a big concern for me how these TV’s will look in 5 to 7 years time as the rate of change in streaming technology is so rapid.
The beauty of a dongle is, with a HDMI port and a WiFi connection you can upgrade the entire operating system and interface you are using to consume your content.
I am a big fan of Amazon’s Fire TV and have just ordered the latest 4k Max, after having a first gen and 3rd gen Fire TV.
What I have noticed is that within a couple of years the experience deteriorates significantly as the quality of the content and live streams continues to get better and better.
Right now my 3rd gen struggles with 4k content. So in 5 to 7 years time will TV owners be facing similar issues with 8k content and the metaverse requiring more and more power. RAM and bandwidth to keep up with the types of content people are watching?
With Apple having screens from a 3" watch face to 32" Pro Display XDR, will we see them merge their Apple TV box with the stunning displays and offer them as TV’s of 55" & 65"?
A move like this could prompt them to do so as the battle for end user streaming hardware heats up.
Have a great sporting weekend,
Will
