Samsung Smart TV Internet TV Apps

What online TV Apps are included with Smart Hub?

by Nancy de Jonge, Contributor

At the CES show in Las Vegas this year, Samsung promoted its Smart TV technology prominently throughout its monstrous booth. Close to 70 percent of the 2011 HDTV Samsung models will have the Smart Hub installed on their systems. Smart Hub is Samsung's answer to the oncoming wave of internet tv. Offering more than 200 apps now, up considerably from the few dozen shown at CEDIA, Samsung is taking seriously its efforts to bring streamlined channels that are optimized for the consumer's viewing benefit while dealing with the technical aspects of managing bandwidth for optimized viewing. Beyond the expected Netflix and Hulu channels, sports channels like NHL and MLB, Samsung also offers viewers everything from games, videos, Facebook and Twitter links, a streamlined YouTube channel, and international cinema and news channels, including French cinema, for example. Samsung has taken a leadership role among HDTV manufacturers to provide open source for developers, which will bring many more programs, games and features to Samsung Smart Hub. Overall, SmartHub is an well-designed layout that sub segments types of channels in an intuitive way. Categories are broken down into sections such as sports, lifestyle, video, games and news.

One of the most interesting features that Samsung displayed is its Smart Search function, which Samsung also calls AllShare. All Share lets consumers type in any phrase, let's say the "Monk" tv series or "Winter 2010" photos and the proprietary search tool will find every item on their local home network. This means plenty of access to personal photos, videos and music. If consumers have a higher-end Samsung HDTV model with Smart Hub, Smart Search will also search through any of the subscribed channels on Smart Hub and also browse across the internet. We were pretty impressed with the search results we saw at the show. Today, Smart Hub is only available in English. No one at the CES show could confirm any additional languages available for the solution, but we anticipate that Spanish and French for the North American market will quickly follow.

Samsung Remote Controls Available on Smart Phones

Samsung Smart Hub remote control systems are also available for use on smartphones. Any Samsung internet ready HDTV gives user the option to add a remote control for their iPhone and iTouch. While Samsung showed a functioning Android remote app at CES, the Android app will be available for consumers by the middle of this year, if not earlier.

Samsung App on Smart TVs for Technical Issues

While not a big sales driving issue, we also want to mention the improved Samsung trouble shoot and informational app called SPSTV. Available on Smart Hub, Samsung provides useful videos on how to troubleshoot issues with multiple Samsung products, including all of their electronic lineups, from HDTVs to Samsung cameras, and even Samsung refrigerators and washer and dryers. Videos walk consumers through trouble shooting options which are short, to the point and display step by step functions.

Samsung has actively recruited TV Apps makers over the past year with the intent on quickly growing their Apps to #1 in the TV industry. These Apps are included in the Samsung Smart Hub Smart TV options on the companies LED and Plasma Televisions. They have succeeded in having the most Apps with well over 1000 to date. The challenge with a $225,000 prize pool is called the 2011 TV Challenge and it culminates at the CES 2012 show in Las Vegas. Following are the 3 Apps finalists for this contest to give you an idea of what they best Apps descriptions are like:

FREQSHO – music fans can create their own music channel to stream music from any artist using a smartphone, tablet or TV. An easy-to-use search engine helps users quickly find their favorite artists and social connectivity allows them to follow the latest artist information and tweets in real-time.

Let's Play Stop – an interactive word game that challenges players to come up with words that correspond to a random letter in five categories: country or city, body parts, fruits, colors and animals. The first person to complete the round with as many unique words as possible wins.

Party Shots – a fun, interactive way to enhance any party. Users simply download the app onto their smartphones, snap photos at the party and these photos will instantly be posted onto the Samsung Smart TV as part of a dynamic slide show. Photos may be customized with captions and stored via the app so that they can later be shared over the web.

To see the details on the challenge visit: http://FreeTheTvChallenge.com
To visit the developers forum visit: http://www.samsungdforum.com