As Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics vie for leadership in terms of smart TV sales, Web portal Daum Communications has chosen to pursue a new niche market by supplying platforms for the latest highly-convergent goggle boxes.

In front of dozens of reporters from Seoul at its newly established Daum Space. 1 building in Jeju Island, the Kosdaq-listed firm unveiled on Friday its new Daum TV, an Android-based operating system for smart TVs.

Despite existing amid a fog of confusing definitions, smart TVs offer Internet connectivity without the need to link up to a separate computer. They also tend to function more like smartphones running on apps rather than regular flat-screens. Regular TVs can be upgraded using a set-top box.

Daum also introduced Daum TV+, a set-top box running on the platform. The small black box, which is just 10 cubic centimeters, will go on sale next Monday at discount chain store E-Mart for 199,000 won ($175), the company said, adding that supply channels will be expanded later.

The gadget turns a standard TV into a smart Internet-connected one. Daum stresses that nearly all regular broadcast and cable shows - except for digital content transmitted in high-definition - will be freely available the moment subscribers connect the cubic box to their TV.

At present, most households must pay monthly subscription fees of at least 10,000 won for either cable TV or the Internet protocol television (IPTV) service. The new set-top box would make this unnecessary, effectively paying for itself within a year and a half.

It does not provide access to video on demand (VOD) and other paid content, but the company is discussing ways of surmounting this obstacle with service providers, according to Daum CEO Choi Se-hoon.

This is the first time a local portal site has launched a smart TV operating system to serve as a bridge between TV and content. The Daum platform also enables users to watch various videos for kids and sports enthusiasts, explore the Web with the help of Daum’s search engine and use various apps as much as smartphone users do.

One of the most notable features about the software is Daum Cloud, which provides 50 gigabytes of storage for free and makes it possible for users to view photos and videos from the storage on TV - a similar mechanism between iCloud and Apple’s family of gadgets.

	Daum TV+, a smart set-top box, is set to go on sale on Monday.

Smart TV versus set-top box

“A number of smaller TV set producers are rushing to unleash smart TVs from May,” said Choi at the press conference. “But we think anyone can make a smart TV and we are more interested in software than hardware.”

Kim Jee-hyun, director of Daum’s strategy division, painted a picture of bright horizons.

“Why shouldn’t Korean IT firms dream of creating a universal and open platform?” he said. “Should Android and iOS be the only options? It is regrettable that the only made-in-Korea operating system out there is Samsung’s Bada smartphone OS, so we want to gain a stronghold in the arena of smart TV platforms.”

Kim said Daum is willing to supply its platform to Samsung if Korea’s tech king expresses a desire to ditch its self-developed Android-powered OS and switch over.

Although Daum claims to be prioritizing its new software, the set-top box has already been magnetizing public attention after Shinsegae Vice Chairman Chung Yong-jin wrote on his Facebook account on Thursday that it is “even better than Apple’s iTV.”

Known as an early adopter, Chung may well have been leaking this teaser out of promotional intent. Nonetheless, there is a strong argument for the set-top box given its price-competitiveness over many smart TVs.

A 40-inch smart TV from Samsung with an LED screen and 3D feature costs at least 1 million won, and the latest 55-inch LED TV with the same features carries a hefty price tag of 4 million won. But if you buy Dream View TV from E-Mart, a 32-inch full HD LED TV that costs only about 400,000 won along with the Daum set-top box, it costs less than 600,000 won for you to have a smart TV set.

That may change the perception among tech-savvy Koreans that the smart TV sets from Samsung and LG are the only options for them. “The biggest merit of set-top boxes is that even if you buy a new TV, the service remains the same,” said Lim Yang-soo, head of the convergence industry research team at Digieco, a management research institute attached to KT.

In fact, cable TV service operators and mobile carriers - KT, SK Telecom and LG U+ - which operate IPTV are already bracing to cash in on the latest smart TV boom with their own set-top boxes.

That the Korea Communications Commission is scheduled to entirely shut down analog broadcasting by the end of this year and transit the system to digital is also spurring many consumers to decide between a smart TV set and a new smart set-top box enabling reception of digital content, a cheaper option.

Among cable service operators, C&M, one of the biggest in size, is seen to take the lead in the smart set-top box market. In collaboration with LG CNS, an IT convergence arm of LG, the cable firm has developed a so-called “smart set-top box” running on Android. The machine is scheduled to be placed on market shelves by the first half of this year.

LG U+ was the fastest among mobile service providers. It came up with a set-top box named Smart Seven in 2010 while KT is set to unveil its self-developed Android-powered set-top box in July at the earliest. SK Telecom is planning to commercialize a set-top box next year. IPTV is a market with a huge potential for set-top box sales; Given as of April 11, the number of subscribers has surpassed five million, only three years and four months after its launch.

Prospects for smart TVs

Price factors aside, smart TVs from LG and Samsung are armed with a number of cutting-edge technologies such as speech recognition and motion sensibility - features not available in set-top boxes.

“Existing mobile handset makers, the majority of whom also roll out TVs, have faltered in the aftermath of the enormous success of Apple’s iPhone,” said Cho Joon-il, researcher with the LG Economic Research Institute. “Samsung sort of caught up, but others such as Nokia, Motorola and LG have been suffering so far. And that prompted TV producers to mobilize all means to gain an upper hand in the smart TV market before others do.”

According to estimates from Digieco, some 37 percent of all TVs sold in Korea this year will be smart TVs, and the figure is expected to climb.

But even though companies are eyeing this area as a new growth engine, there remains a distinct lack of public awareness about what exactly smart TVs can do.

Kim Soo-hyun, a 28-year-old office worker in Seoul, said she recently picked up a 2 million won smart TV from Samsung but is not making use of any of its myriad of functions.

“I bought it just because I heard it was better than an ordinary TV,” she said. “But the functions seem way too complicated to understand, and I don’t have time to learn them by reading the manual. They say I can watch YouTube videos on the TV’s bigger screen, but I don’t get the point. The content from the Web site is limited and I am not really willing to splash out on paid content.”

She is not alone. Web communities are flooded with questions about how to define and use smart TVs. “It is true that the advent of smart gadgets has destroyed the value of existing products and has brought about a number of changes, but the direction these changes will head in remains hard to predict,” said researcher Lim of Digieco. “While the media tend to worship ‘smart’ technology, TV makers also seem confused over what their core value will be in the smart era, and how they need to change accordingly.”

Kim Jee-hyun at Daum said, “The future of smart TV lies in carefully observing the behavioral patterns of TV watchers - how they can best enjoy the TV and its multiple functions while leaning back.”
 

한글 관련 기사

단돈 20만원에 스마트TV를? 진실은…

디지털TV → 스마트TV로 … 다음, 차세대 셋톱박스 내놔

인터넷 쉽게 접속 … VOD도 감상


소프트웨어 기업인 다음커뮤니케이션이 디지털 TV용 셋톱박스 ‘다음TV플러스’를 출시한다. 디지털TV에 연결하면 마치 스마트TV처럼 TV를 통해 인터넷에 자유롭게 접속할 수 있는 셋톱박스다.

　다음커뮤니케이션은 지난 20일 제주시 영평동 첨단과학기술단지에 위치한 본사에서 출시회를 열고 “오는 30일부터 전국 이마트에서 다음TV플러스를 판매한다”고 발표했다.

제품은 셋톱박스 제조업체 가온미디어, 리모컨 제조사 쿠르셜텍과 함께 만들었다. 이날 공개한 다음TV플러스는 가로·세로·높이 10㎝의 정육면체 형태로, 뒷면에 TV와 인터넷선을 연결할 수 있는 단자를 달았다. 이 셋톱박스를 설치하면 현재 다음이 PC용 인터넷을 통해 무료 제공하는 각종 주문형비디오(VOD) 콘텐트를 보다 고화질로 감상할 수 있다.

　케이블TV나 위성TV 셋톱박스와 연결해 사용하는 것도 가능하다. 이렇게 하면 한 대의 TV로 케이블TV도 보고, 인터넷 접속도 할 수 있다. 다음 측은 “하나의 셋톱박스만으로 케이블TV와 인터넷을 모두 즐길 수 있도록 하는 방안을 몇몇 케이블방송 사업자와 논의 중”이라고 밝혔다.

　값은 19만9000원으로 99달러(약 11만원)인 애플·구글의 셋톱박스보다 비싸다. 애플과 구글은 현재 국내에서 셋톱박스 사업을 하고 있지 않다.

　최세훈(45) 다음커뮤니케이션 대표는 “향후 TV 일체형 제품을 선보일 계획”이라고 밝혔다. 셋톱박스뿐 아니라 TV 제조 사업에까지 진출하겠다는 선언이다. LG전자와 제휴해 ‘구글 TV’를 내놓고, 일본 소니와는 함께 셋톱박스를 만들고 있으며, 휴대전화 제조업체 모토로라까지 인수한 구글과 비슷한 행로를 가겠다는 얘기다. 이는 소프트웨어를 심어 퍼뜨릴 수 있는 하드웨어 사업를 갖추고 있어야 소프트웨어 분야 강자의 지위를 지킬 수 있다는 판단에서 비롯된 것이다.

　다음의 셋톱박스 사업에 대해 익명을 요구한 업계 관계자는 “케이블TV 사업자들이 지금껏 무료로 제공해온 셋톱박스를 소비자들이 20만원 가까운 돈을 주고 살 것인지는 두고 봐야 한다”며 “다음이 고객들에게 얼마나 독자적이고 다양한 콘텐트를 제공할 수 있을지가 성패의 핵심이 될 것”이라고 말했다.