Quote:Medin has an even more expansive view of what the future of television may hold. The former NASA engineer sees not only Google, Apple and Amazon offering their own devices that can deliver all your cable channels, but an explosion of new competition among TV manufacturers who will be able to connect their smart televisions directly to your cable connection.

"If you can integrate, if you can provide extra functionality and search across these things, and give TV vendors a chance to differentiate from each other and really unlock innovation, I think it's a huge opportunity for those guys," he said. "Because what's the difference right now between buying a Samsung or a Sony or a Vizio?"

Baking the cable box's functionality directly into a television could even kill off the set-top box entirely.
"When you see what's possible in set-top boxes, people go 'Well, why can't I have that?' That's very powerful. And I think the answer is, there's no reason why you can't have that," he said.

(03-10-2016, 10:16 AM)BoFox Wrote: The future of television, according to Google

Quote:Medin has an even more expansive view of what the future of television may hold. The former NASA engineer sees not only Google, Apple and Amazon offering their own devices that can deliver all your cable channels, but an explosion of new competition among TV manufacturers who will be able to connect their smart televisions directly to your cable connection.

"If you can integrate, if you can provide extra functionality and search across these things, and give TV vendors a chance to differentiate from each other and really unlock innovation, I think it's a huge opportunity for those guys," he said. "Because what's the difference right now between buying a Samsung or a Sony or a Vizio?"

Baking the cable box's functionality directly into a television could even kill off the set-top box entirely.
"When you see what's possible in set-top boxes, people go 'Well, why can't I have that?' That's very powerful. And I think the answer is, there's no reason why you can't have that," he said.

The only reason I can think of why we need to "rent" cable boxes is because of the DVR functionality (500GB-1-2TB HDD built in).  $25/mo, or simply buy a $50 1TB USB drive and plug it into the SmartTV, and off ya go...  Better than paying $300/year.  SmartTV's can handle everything else just fine, like the premium channels, pay-per-view, etc...

What is not necessary becomes futile and is rendered obsolete..

The future is bright!  The cable companies can take it up the arse from the Best Buy employees who tell old farts to buy the new SmartTV that can do everything and save them money.