Panasonic
Panasonic’s VieraCast system, which we tested on a V10 set, is the mainstay of the manufacturer's connected TVs. Accessed by a dedicated button on the remote control, it provides access to a range of online services, principally video-based, but with a couple of extras.
YouTube on the tube: Panasonic's VieraCast
The main menu is based around a grid of icons, with the current TV input showing in the centre and seven squares around it. A recent update to the VieraCast home screen adds ‘more’ and ‘back’ arrows bottom centre, so you can access additional screens, and you can also arrange which applications go where.
That’s perhaps more useful for people elsewhere in Europe - services like the Q.Tom video jukebox aren’t available in the UK, and others, like Taggeschau or Nova aren’t in English. But UK users will still find the weather, Picasa, EuroSport Daily Motion and YouTube applications useful.
Navigating to an option is easy, and once selected, it takes over the whole screen. It’s easy to set up things like the default country for the weather, and both Picasa and YouTube allow you to sign in to your account.
In the case of YouTube, that’s particularly useful, as you can use the same account as you do on your computer. Searching with the TV remote's mobile-phone style keyboard works, but it’s easier to mark favourites on your PC or Mac, and then play them on the TV.
Check the weather
As with other consumer electronic implementations of YouTube, though, the new ‘Shows’ section is absent. Even if you mark, say, a 4oD item as a favourite on your PC, you won’t be able to play it on the TV.
It’s worth noting that there are new VieraCast applications coming this year, but some of them specifically won’t be supported on older sets, including Skype and a new video rental service.
COMMENTS
Just give me a dumb display...
... that allows me to connect, through a standardised port, the newest low-powered tech which comes along, that will do all the processing and content delivery, and can be replaced with the next, better thing, without disposing of my perfectly good dumb display, as and when I see fit.
Let us be absolutely honest......
....this is crap. Connect a bloody pc to the thing for crying out loud, then you have proper internet TV. Most of the modern flat screens come with three or four HDMI ports or (if you absolutely insist on connecting that way) a VGA port. This is a very poor facility which smells strongly of trying to lock you into something which they can use to seperate from even more money than the frakking TV cost you in the first place. The only thing I intend to use the ethernet port on our new Sammy for is firmware upgrades when/if necessary. TV@internet my arse!
Reliance on 'standardised' DLNA
I own a Sony KDL40W5500 and trying to get the DLNA to work is certainly not for the technologically challenged. I have finally settled on a solution that works great for me and my (not so technical) wife, but it's taken a while. Though I run an all Linux shop at home, the forums show problems for people on all platforms and this seems to recur for TVs with DLNA from all manufacturers.
For the record, the W5500 (and their siblings) support MPEG2 PS with AC3 audio and AVCHD video (MPEG2 TS with H264 video and AC3 audio) without transcoding, and also MP3, uncompressed PCM (i.e. WAV) and JPEG files.
My biggest niggle now is that you can't browse music for the next track to play while currently playing a track - something my Netgear MP101 was able to do via UPnP 7-8 years ago!
To those stating that they want TVs with a MCE extender built in... why would anyone want to be more tied to MS technology in their display device?? At least DLNA is supposed to be a standard, MCE extenders certainly are not.
Why on earth would anyone buy this?
Built-in means lock-in. A cheap external Internet thin client STB that can be thrown away when the next technology wunder comes along will be a much better bet. Pile in a hefty network disk store and scoff at Internet TV.
And BTW why are TV with analogue receivers still sold when soon there will be nothing for them to receive? Is this not as suspect as selling a 405-line set of a betamax video recorder?
walled gardens
Looking at that motley lot, it's not hard too look wistfully at Project Canvas and the treasures it might unleash. Why the disbelief that allowing access to a tiny, pre-selected section of the internet is going to be a successful selling point?
