Are tvs and pcs going to merge together into one general item over the next decade or two?

Well what do you think?

They seem to be growing towards eachother. Especially when you consider where the peripheral devices associated with tv's are going.

Re: Are tvs and pcs going to merge together into one general item over the next decade or

I don't think so.

A single guy or girl might be okay with an all in one device but if you've got a family, I can't imagine the rest of the family sitting around waiting for you check your email on the big screen TV when they all want to watch something on TV.

The home desktop/laptop is kind of a single user device. A large screen TV is sort of meant to be enjoyed by many people. The TV will certainly take on more and more aspects of a PC, but I think people will still want a separate device for personal use.

Re: Are tvs and pcs going to merge together into one general item over the next decade or

I use my Tv as a monitor out of necessity, because my room would have little space otherwise. It's...an adjustment, to say the least. I'd recommend this to folks with a lot of video files that they watch and/or edit on a regular basis. For regular web browsing, the text can look way small and even if you bring it up, you'll have to deal with funky things happening to pics and stuff. I can take this over cramming a desk and chair into my 10 x 11 room, but if given the choice, I'd rather keep the two things separate myself.

Re: Are tvs and pcs going to merge together into one general item over the next decade or

Why not go the other way around and use a computer monitor as a tv? That's what I used to do and it worked really well.

Re: Are tvs and pcs going to merge together into one general item over the next decade or

It has already happened.

Most PCs can and do easily replace quite a few formally stand alone devices:

• Telephone
• Radio
• Television
• DVD/Blue Ray player
• DVR/VCR
• Stereo

The television will go the way of the typewriter. Sure you can still use a typewriter but why would you want to use such a limited device?

My computer isn't anything special and it already handles all of those tasks without trouble.

As for the e-mail issue, it's true nobody likes their movie or TV show interrupted for any reason. Yet most homes have more than one television.

I'm somewhat surprised that the merging of all multimedia devices hasn't happened on a larger scale already.

Think of cell phones, they used to be big clunky things that needed their own suitcases and could do nothing more than make crappy calls. Now with a cell phone you can play music, videos, games, text, take pictures, connect to the internet ...

Cell phones have all but replaced land lines. You know, the phones with a limited service area that you can only use to make phone calls or establish a rather slow connection to the internet.

Televisions are destined to be deemed as nothing more than monitors.

Re: Are tvs and pcs going to merge together into one general item over the next decade or

Most certainly. Computers are the new cool way to connect with the world. Aside from the fact the technology is a fad unto itself, the sheer efficiency will encourage more and more useless, time-wasting soccer moms to log in to check to the weather. (Sorry, I just can't help myself)

Just look at what the Internet looks like now. Old farts like me remember ftp.cdrom.com, from where you could download good DooM maps 24/7. This divine service is now being provided by our overlords at file...fileplanet.

Just an example. I believe the speed of the transfer of info over the net surpasses the traditional media and surpasses it so much so that everyone will have to adapt to it.

Re: Are tvs and pcs going to merge together into one general item over the next decade or

If I were obscenely wealthy (heck, if I were even working at a pay rate for my experience) I would do this. Stick a server in a central closet and tie the TV and terminals and display panels (touchscreens? ) around the house.

Re: Are tvs and pcs going to merge together into one general item over the next decade or

I already use my PC monitor to do everything associated with a traditional television, including watching TV and playing console games.

Re: Are tvs and pcs going to merge together into one general item over the next decade or

I've never heard of a typewriter generating a blue screen . . . or freezing up . . . or being rendered inoperable by a virus . . .

Um, okay.

Re: Are tvs and pcs going to merge together into one general item over the next decade or

I'm more interested in having a television that's also a refrigerator.


J.

Re: Are tvs and pcs going to merge together into one general item over the next decade or

You know we've had the whole sharing a TV problem for years, having a second TV has proven to be quite an effective solution.

Re: Are tvs and pcs going to merge together into one general item over the next decade or

I have a Wii and can surf on my TV now, the web browser download cost us $5

Its cool to surf youtube on a TV. it does not have java support so you cant play games on pogo.com though.

Re: Are tvs and pcs going to merge together into one general item over the next decade or

Ah. Well, then, that still doesn't quite follow. Two TVs can work because four people can sit back and watch either one. The deciding factor, as it were, in determining whether there are "enough" TVs in the house is how many different things people in the house want to watch simultaneously (and whether the TVs have the capability to have that little other-channel box in the corner).

Computers are a little different. Even if two people want to do the same thing on a computer, odds are they can't comfortably do it together (aside from, for example, browsing shared email or playing certain games).

You'd basically be looking at a separate computer for every computer user in the home, with potentially a separate Internet connection for each and separate software for each. Not everyone has the for that.

Re: Are tvs and pcs going to merge together into one general item over the next decade or

That's what they are now... all the content comes from elsewhere, the TV just displays it.

You won't likely see TVs merging with PCs... you'll just see them hooked up to PCs more often.

By the time moore's law scales high enough that every TV has a PC built into it (rather than just attached to it), we'll be far beyond talking about "PCs". Computer chips will eventually be fast enough that people won't even consider specs, and everything will pretty much have tons of horsepower.

Nobody will think about everything being converged into "one device". More likely, every device will do almost everything.

Re: Are tvs and pcs going to merge together into one general item over the next decade or

I must not be communicating effectively again. I'm not talking about two TVs next to each other, I'm talking about TVs as they are typically placed in houses now.

Think about it, if you want to watch a show but everybody else is watching another show the simple solution is to watch your show on another TV in a different location.

Re: Are tvs and pcs going to merge together into one general item over the next decade or

That's what I'm saying.

Re: Are tvs and pcs going to merge together into one general item over the next decade or

I want to be able to watch Jeopardy on my toaster.

Re: Are tvs and pcs going to merge together into one general item over the next decade or

Remember them big ol' wooden console TVs? Screen was only 26", but it had this mammoth wooden cabinet?

When I was an undergrad we'd go down to the junkyard and buy one. But then it wouldn't get channel 6 or something. Or the sound was fucked up. So we'd go back and get another one to put next to the first one. This was also good because they typically didn't have remotes. Maybe you'd use the big TV as a stand for a smaller TV. Or you had a TV that finally died so bad that not even poor college students could use it. If you were really cool, you extracted the CRT and stuck either a smaller TV or a fish tank into the opening.

Re: Are tvs and pcs going to merge together into one general item over the next decade or

Ah. Well, then, that still doesn't quite follow. Two TVs can work because four people can sit back and watch either one.[/QUOTE]I must not be communicating effectively again. I'm not talking about two TVs next to each other, I'm talking about TVs as they are typically placed in houses now.

Think about it, if you want to watch a show but everybody else is watching another show the simple solution is to watch your show on another TV in a different location.[/QUOTE]
Al, Bob, Carol, and Dawn live together in a house with two TVs. Al and Bob want to watch Lifetime at the same time Carol and Dawn want to watch Spike. Solution: Al and Bob watch I'm A Victim, Pity Me: The Jenny Bo-benny Story on one TV, and Carol and Dawn watch the "Riding Lawnmowers Special" episode of Horrific Sports Accidents on the other TV.

Al, Bob, Carol, and Dawn live together in a house with two computers, each with an Internet connection. Al and Bob want to read and post to the I Love Yogurt! forum at the same time Carol and Dawn want to play World of Warcraft. Solution: Al and Bob post on their forum on one computer, while . . . wait. Hang on just a second. Unless they're sharing a forum account, they'll want to use separate computers if they're both going to be posting (unless they've got one of those new-fangled dual-user computers, with twice the keyboard and twice the mouse and twice the monitor, that nobody's talking about). So, um, because they're such nice guys, they can take turns on one computer, and Carol and Dawn can play WoW on the other compu . . . wait, no, I'm pretty sure most people like to have their own, individual, accounts for online games too. So I guess they'll have to take turns as well. Maybe Bob and Dawn can watch TV while they wait.

Al, Bob, Carol, and Dawn live together in a house with two compuTVs, each with an Internet connection. Al and Bob want to read and post to the I Love Yogurt! forum at the same time Carol and Dawn want to play World of Warcraft. Solution: Al and Carol (for example) use the computers first. Meanwhile Bob and Dawn will each do something else. Hey, Spike's got a Horrific Sports Accidents marathon on, Carol likes that, maybe this will work out well . . . oh, wait. They got rid of their old TVs when they bought the compuTVs. Ummm . . . . . . Sooooo, who's up for Old Maid?

Re: Are tvs and pcs going to merge together into one general item over the next decade or

NAHTMMM, you're arguing it is easier to share a single television than a single computer. And while I could point out the many reasons why sharing a television isn't such a simple affair it'd be easier to simply point out that you can watch TV on a computer, you can listen to music on a computer, you can download and watch movies on a computer, in fact there isn't anything a television can do that a computer can't.

Which is to say there is no difference between a monitor and a television. Now if you want to dedicate a monitor to watching TV shows that's fine but I can't see that being a popular choice in the coming years.

Checking e-mail or playing World of Warcraft will become just as common a feature on TVs as color, stereo sound, and remote controls.

I'm just not buying the argument that the ongoing consolidation of multimedia will somehow exclude the internet.

And let's not forget about the success of WebTV (now MSN TV), which has been around since 1995.

Re: Are tvs and pcs going to merge together into one general item over the next decade or

Possible. But by the time they become basically interchangeable, I'd expect the prices to have come down to the point that the number of such devices in the average home can feasibly stay about the same. That is, I wouldn't expect a family with two TVs and a computer to happily trade them off for any fewer than three total devices.

And while there's something to be said for being a jack-of-all-trades, there's also something to be said for specialization. Even looking at modern automobiles, there are a lot of body types, each of which are targeted at different segments of the population and have their particular uses. I'd expect there still to be compuTVs that leaned toward TVness and others that leaned toward computerness. Some people are not going to be interested in paying for, say, a ridiculously high screen resolution. Some people are not going to be interested in lugging around more than is necessary for watching their movies on whatever format is current.


Oh, WebTV? Yeah, I've heard of that in the past. Haven't even thought of it for years, though. Kinda figured it was a failed attempt at a fad. Hmm. Wikipedia claims that it topped out at a little over a million subscribers. Not bad, I guess.

Re: Are tvs and pcs going to merge together into one general item over the next decade or

The prices of both computers and televisions has continually gone down while the quality has continually gone up.

Sure there'd be different options but they'd all be compuTVs.

We've already addressed price and options.

Weight is unlikely to be a factor. Take some of the current cell phones, the have every feature of a computer and a TV and weigh mere ounces.

By the year 2005, 10 years after its founding, MSNTV had grossed about $150 million for Microsoft with a 65 percent gross margin.

Wish that all our failures were so profitable.

Re: Are tvs and pcs going to merge together into one general item over the next decade or

'Cuz it's easier to plug the DirecTV satellite receiver into the TV

In all seriousness, I really don't want everything tied up into my computer. If the computer crashes (and I suspect the reason it hasn't yet was due to being disconnected from the 'net for eight months of the almost two years I've owned it), I'd lose everything, including even Tv.

Admittedly, I don't watch much, but still.

Re: Are tvs and pcs going to merge together into one general item over the next decade or

^I can understand that, sounds like a monitor that can plug in like a TV would solve the problem. Which is pretty much what your TV is now.

In other words you already have a computer monitor that can plug in like a TV.

Re: Are tvs and pcs going to merge together into one general item over the next decade or

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Your prayers have been answered. For a mere $4,000 you can live the dream man!

Re: Are tvs and pcs going to merge together into one general item over the next decade or

Eh, don't know how well it is going now. My roommate back in Seattle was an Employee who worked for MSNTV. Remember earlier this year when M$ had it's first layoff (of Employees) ever? Most of the cuts were from the MSN TV and the Zune departments (luckily she got a nice severance package and about a month ago got another Employee position).

Re: Are tvs and pcs going to merge together into one general item over the next decade or

The video card I put in my new home PC has S-video and optical audio outputs, so I could conceivably hook it up to my TV and stereo. Haven't tried it yet, though. I have doubts about my TVs ability to handle it.

Re: Are tvs and pcs going to merge together into one general item over the next decade or

Don't know if someone already mentioned it, but I'm pretty sure most everyone here has a computer already hooked up to their TV. What do you think the Digital Cable Box/DVR is and what is OnDemand but a proprietary internet?


I personally don't see any dramatic paradigm shift, but a continual evolution of the shit we already got now.

In my house we have one TV/media setup, one high powered laptop and one netbook. Media Setup is for media, Laptop for Anne's surfing, work, bills, records, etc, and my netbook pretty much just for surfing and porn. I can't see the developement of a CompuTV ever cutting down the number of computer/television devices. Nor can I see it being worthwhile to increase the functionality of any device (then again, I'm a cheap bastard) Truth be told we are very happy with the setup we have now.

Re: Are tvs and pcs going to merge together into one general item over the next decade or

And if someone made off with all your computers and TVs tonight, and you had to go and buy new replacements without any insurance to cover it, that would not put a crimp in your bank account?

They have
* a mouse
* a nice-sized keyboard
* a power cord for functioning when the battery is drained
* DSL or better internet connections
* 16-bit 800x600 displays or better
* mute buttons and blank-the-screen buttons
* full-blown word processor (with capacity for working with speech-recognition software) and spreadsheet and slideshow programs
* graphics editing programs on the level of Photoshop
* the capability to hook up to a VCR or a DVD player
* the capability to pull in cable or satellite signals
* spots to plug in extra hardware, like joysticks and USB sticks and stuff
* the capability for anti-virus software
?

Cell phones are getting ridiculously elaborate, even I'm aware of that . . . but I think it's gonna be a loooong time before they're up to computers and TVs on every criterion.

Re: Are tvs and pcs going to merge together into one general item over the next decade or

Within a decade I imagine we'll see cellphones that can project displays on the wall, perhaps project a small keyboard onto a table that reads where you type on it. Battery lives will double, triple, or even more as well, and 4G networks and beyond will make internet speed over a cellphone comparable to that of a laptop. Plug in ports? Thing of the past, welcome to the wireless world. Oh, and one other thing, DVD players will be obsolete in 10-15 years, streaming will replace them ultimately.