IFA 2012 – BERLIN. TPVision, the joint venture between Philips and TPV, is launching Blinkbox, YouTube Rentals, music streaming service Deezer and a new Social App on its smart TVs.
YouTube Rentals will be available later this autumn, thanks to a non-exclusive deal with the online video portal. Philips will also introduce a single payment system for all transaction on its smart TVs, so customers have to only register once to make payments with the various service providers on the smart TV platform.
YouTube Rentals will be rolled out in various European territories, the US and Canada and South Korea with others to follow.
The new Social App will allow users to watch linear television at the same time as following social media including Facebook and Twitter. Un til now, viewers had to leave the TV signals when accessing a social media app.
“We have been pioneering smart television since 2008. Right now, 80% of our product range is smart TV. Very soon, that will become 100%. We are one of the founding fathers of the Smart TV Alliance because we believe in an open eco-system,” said Maarten de Vries, CEO of TP Vision.
Other improvements on Philips smart TVs include the Series 9000’s remote, which now comes fitted with a QWERTY keyboard on its reverse.
In terms of usage, Philips now says that around half of all smart TV sets sold in Europe are actually connected to the internet. Some countries have an even higher percentage of active connections, e.g. In the Netherlands 80% of all sets sold are connected.
Once connected, 75% of all viewers use at least one smart TV app per day. This compares with 60% at the beginning of the year.
