TV Sets

A number of companies last week announced plans to offer interactive TV applications on supported Samsung HDTV's, Blu-ray players and Home Theater Systems through Samsung's recently updated Internet@TV over-the-top (OTT) platform, and its newly announced Samsung Apps app store service (note: for more on the latter, see the article published on itvt.com, January 7th). They include:

Mitsubishi Digital Electronics America announced Thursday that it has begun shipping two new models of its Unisen Diamond 249 series TV sets which are enabled out-of-the-box with the Vudu over-the-top-TV service.

London, UK-based interactive TV company, Miniweb (note: last September, the company--which is best known for offering an interactive TV alternative to the red button on the Sky satellite-TV platform--announced that it had raised $32 million in venture funding--see [itvt] Issue 8.06 Part 1), and Bristol, UK-based TV manufacturer, Bristol Interactive Technology, announced Monday that Miniweb's software platform has been integrated into a new range of Bristol HD-ready digital television sets.

Semiconductor company, Broadcom, said Monday that its integrated BCM3549 digital TV system-on-a-chip (SoC) solution has been selected by LG Electronics for its new broadband-enabled HDTV sets, the 47LH50 (now available at Best Buy and other US retailers) and 42LH50 (scheduled for availability this summer) LCD models and the 50PS80 (now available) and 60PS80 (scheduled for availability this summer) plasma models.