We’ve spent the past month looking back at the history of television, from John Logie Baird to OLED. So what’s next?
The next 5 years:
Expect to see LCDs and plasmas remain. They’ll get cheaper, thinner and their picture quality will continue to get better. Energy consumption will go down, screen sizes will go up and we the geeky consumer will always feel unsatisfied with their purchase as soon as a newer and better model gets released.
TV broadcasts will shift from the traditional form to a more “on demand” style over the internet. Services like HybridTV’s Caspa and Foxtel’s On Demand will become even more prevalent, with the ability to purchase TV shows and movies whenever you like (or download them for free with limited advertising) quickly becoming the norm.
We’ll start to see OLED and 3DTVs become more and more prevalent. They’ll both be expensive (OLED much, much more than 3D) but as time goes on, both will get better at delivering content. We’ll probably see a prototype 3D OLED TV in the next five years as well.
And Beyond:
Science fiction will become science fact, as holographic technology is refined to allow us to watch three dimensional representations of characters move around our loungerooms. Eventually, we’ll even be able to interact with the holograms as well.
(At least until the robot uprising of course, which will destroy human civilisation as we know it. Fortunately, our last remaining scientists will perfect zombie technology and create an army of undead slaves to fight the robots and reclaim the earth. Those of us who survive the holocaust will have to reinvent television, and so the cycle will begin again…)
History of TV is Giz AU’s month-long look back at the development of the world-changing medium and its influence on our daily lives.
matt
Friday, November 27, 2009 at 12:13 PMalso, there’d be Velociraptors.
Mat Unwin
Friday, November 27, 2009 at 12:39 PMNice summary Nick – Robots and Zombies – you covered all the bases…
M@
Darcii
Friday, November 27, 2009 at 2:26 PMFortunately we will have the electronic ‘Zombies Ahead’ road signs to alert us to any troubles. When kids realise that it is actually true they will then hack them again to give general road saftey and detour notices. This will wreak havoc on unsuspecting motorists and get a post in Gizmodo
Dan Raica
Friday, November 27, 2009 at 2:58 PMhas anyone else noticed a decline in foxtel first/on demand content??
Red T-Rex
Friday, November 27, 2009 at 5:14 PMI think wireless HDMI will also be more commonplace and allow most people to have nice cable free wall mountings without the hassle of channeling cables back to receivers and consoles.
As the screen sizes get bigger, i would like to see multiple channels displayed simultanously as has been portrayed in sci-fi movies and a video version of the current text only on screen program guide that shows video snippets of the programs. Home digital library integration will be easier and more widespread as well.
ed
Sunday, November 29, 2009 at 5:32 PM1. Convergence.
Already you can get a pvr within your tv, or youtube applets within your tv, or play content from your nas on your tv. BUT to do it properly you still need a separate pc (or something) because tv makers are slow to update the firmware to add more features (and they want to make it solid so they keep it simple and locked down, whereas a pc is the opposite i.e. open but crash prone). maybe android running on the telly?
2. Bandwidth.
Sometimes broadcast tv channels (if we are still watching them) on 1080i look very compressed (or possibly upscaled poorly?). maybe we can stop the marketing doublespeak and call 1080p the minimum for HDTV.
Flame
Monday, November 30, 2009 at 9:32 AMHey Nick – just wanted to say I was on a VirginBlue flight this week, reading their magazine, and saw a tech article with a section from you. Nice one.