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AMD, Intel, NVIDIA: our silicon will power future "smart" TVs

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This year has seen two major developments in the TV market: 3D, and the Web. TV makers are betting that consumers will flock to stores this holiday season to upgrade their plain old 2D and Web-less panels with models that will let them bring the Internet into their living rooms without requiring them to add another box to their entertainment center. In this four-part series on the Future of TV, Ars takes an in-depth look at the major transition that TV is currently undergoing.

To understand some of the technological innovations that will enable a shift in how we use TVs, we spoke to AMD, Intel, and NVIDIA. All three companies shared some information about what hardware we can expect to see integrated in future TV sets and what innovations they believe will be driven by new hardware capabilities.

In talking with representatives from some of the top suppliers of CPUs and GPUs for next-generation "smart" TV, a few common themes emerged. One of those themes that garnered the most discussion is that 3D will be big in future TVs, in more ways than one.

Interface in three dimensions

As TVs become "smarter," we'll need smarter ways of interacting with them. Advanced interaction will call for more advanced user interfaces than we've experienced so far, and many of those interfaces will incorporate effects and animations best handled by a 3D accelerated GPU.

Cameron Swen, product marketing manager at AMD, told Ars that powerful GPUs will enable a more fine-tuned UI. "One of the hardest things is developing a user experience that is like an appliance, not like a PC user experience."

Intel's Lance Koehnders, director of marketing for the company's Digital Home Group, agrees that advanced 3D interfaces will become more prominent. "Instead of very boring grid guides, imagine live video streams displayed in a 'Cover Flow' 3D effect," he said. "We expect to see a lot more of that over the next year or so."

Future TVs won't rely on keyboards for a good user experience.

NVIDIA sees the processing power of its GPUs going beyond mere UI enhancements, however. "We're doing a lot to push the capabilities of TVs, including everything from increasing refresh rates, powering 3D content display, accelerating H.264 or Flash, all via the GPU," David Wyatt, NVIDIA platform architect engineer, told Ars.

Pushing pixels at 1080p resolutions alone is a challenge, but more powerful GPUs enable those pixels to be pushed at incredibly fast rates. "Entry-level graphics hardware just wont cut it—a real GPU is what is needed to power high refresh rates," Wyatt said. "That's important for a variety of functions, including reducing inter-frame artifacts, motion blur reduction, real-time wide-gamut color space conversion—all using GPU horsepower to achieve a better experience."

3D graphics capabilities are also a natural fit for stereoscopic displays. "When you have things that are going to be stereoscopic, 3D-capable GPUs will be even more important for for doing necessary graphic calculations," Koehnders explained.

TVs capable of displaying 3D content are just beginning to take hold in the market, but most rely on active shutter glasses. These glasses sync with the TV to show alternate views to the left and right eye at speeds that exceed the nominal 30fps frame rate. However, higher refresh rates—the kind that Wyatt thinks are coming in short order—can also enable autostereoscopic display using lenticular screens or passive 3D glasses. These technologies typically cause less irritation and eye fatigue for viewers, but they depend on the kind of 3D graphics horsepower that modern programmable GPUs can offer.

3D gaming, sans console

Another big feature enabled by powerful GPUs is gaming. All three companies see an opportunity for connected TVs to enable some kind of on-demand-like gaming experience. "We have products that can enable gaming with HD graphics, not exactly like the 3D experience on desktop computers, but comparable to something like the Wii," Koehnders said.

Despite attempts to stream games from remote servers and display them on a TV, though, the reality of network latency and the resolution of today's (and tomorrow's) TVs just don't make that a great solution. However, the integrated CPU and GPU of systems-on-a-chip like Intel's Atom-based CE-series, AMDs x86-based Fusion, and NVIDIA's ARM-based Tegra offer combined logic and graphics processing to easily enable the casual-type gaming experience made popular by the Wii, or even the iPhone and iPad.

Games could be available on-demand to play directly on your TV.

Instead of streaming a game in real-time, a game could be downloaded directly to the TV from a service provider—think your local cable company—or from an online service, and either saved or cached locally. The game could be enhanced with online play to challenge other players remotely. Combined with Wiimote or Kinect-like gesture-based input, such "social gaming" could be completely enabled via the TV itself, instead of relying on a separate console or set-top box.

NVIDIA envisions a compromise between these two extremes, however. "Pushing 1080p 3D content over what is essentially a thin pipe just won't work," Wyatt told Ars. "There are other ways to approach that problem, like balancing rendering and computation on either end to limit needed bandwidth."

AMD even sees pluggable GPU add-ons for a more PC or console-like gaming experience. "This is one area that opens up the opportunity for back-end services," suggested Swen.

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