A hard drive in my TV? No thanks
Dwight Silverman saw this ExtremeTech story based on this announcement from LG Electronics and thinks putting a hard drive right into a TV is a great idea. ExtremeTech’s description, as Dwight snipped it:
The LG PY2DR series of 50-inch and 60-inch plasma displays contains the Seagae DB35, a 160-GB drive designed specifically for consumer electronics. The drive is built into a personal-video recorder (PVR) that Seagate has integrated into its display.
[deletia]
The drive can store up to 14 hours of digital high-definition programming or 62 hours of digital standard-definition programming. The new widescreen plasma-DVRs incorporate an automatic time-shift feature, which continuously records in one-hour intervals. Other features include slow motion rewind and forward capabilities and instant replay, LG said.
Dwight says, “The place for a TiVo-like DVR is inside the TV itself.”
I have to emphatically disagree. One small problem is noise. Hard disks click and whir and make a surprising racket. They also generate heat, which usually means a fan, which usually means more noise.
But there’s a much bigger problem. Display technology is relatively slow-moving, especially compared to storage technology. I kept my last TV (a projection-style 46-inch HD Mitsubishi) for a little over five years, and it was still going strong when I sold it before moving this summer. The new one (a Sony 50″ HD-capable DLP model) should last me at least that long, and I specifically chose it with an eye to keeping it for 10 years. I don’t think that’s unrealistic, either. I had a 19-inch CRT that I used as my main PC display that lasted from 1994 to 2003 and saw me through at least five changes in PC hardware. I wouldn’t have wanted a hard drive in that monitor.
A 160GB hard disk may seem big, but it’s not, and 14 hours of HD programming is pretty skimpy. How do I upgrade that drive? Will I void the warranty if you open it up? What happens if I’m a satellite customer? What happens when I have two shows I want to watch at the same time? External DVRs can handle two inputs, but this one can’t.
I don’t want to put words in Dwight’s mouth, but I think he’s really arguing for less clutter in the living room, a goal I agree with. I’d like to see a single, very small box that includes DVR capabilities with upgradeable storage, two-way communication with the signal provider (cable or satellite), management of other media types (music and pictures, for instance), and the ability to extend its capabilities with add-on utilities and applications. Networked, of course. All of that can easily be squeezed into a tiny box (Xbox 360, anyone), and a lot of it can be hidden in another room on a Media Center PC or similar device and streamed over the network.
Can you squeeze all that into a TV? More importantly, should you? No, thanks.