What About Flat-Screen TVs?
Most of us think of flat-screen and HD TVs as devices that display TV and movies and nothing else. But that may not be true for long. Flat-screen TVs may soon become wireless picture frames, too.
I wrote about this possibility recently in examining how a new video and photo sharing service makes TiVO similar to digital picture frame companies:
To see how TiVO is edging towards our space, you have to think of a TV not as a delivery mechanism for TV shows and movies, but rather as a display for any visual information - including photos.
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In that scenario, you’d be able to display photos or share video and pictures on any digital display that’s networked and running the software. You might even be able to use the software to send all kinds of content to any digital display.
This expanded use for flat-screen and HD TVs is made possible by their form factors: these thin LCD panels can be installed on most any wall, something that tube-based TVs with their deep cases can’t offer. As prices on these panels come down you can expect to start seeing more and more of them in homes.
The average American family owns 2.5 TVs these days. If the panels do more than just show TV - such as bringing viewers Internet-updated news, weather, or recipe feeds - and offer lower prices than are available today, it’s easy to imagine a lot more than 2.5 of these panels in each home.
The potential for flat-screen LCD panels with digital photo frame capabilities will be even greater if a popular home media server takes hold. Such a centralized media server could be a computer or another device and would be used to store content and manage what panels it’s sent to. If a simple, powerful tool to provide this functionality arises (and perhaps Apple is heading that way with the Apple TV),
you can expect to see flat-screen panels in many rooms in each house.
If this happens, a new kind of convergence could come to pass: the TV and picture frame and the LCD panel and anything else that shows a digital image could all become one item.
