On the heels of the high-profile announcement of the company's shift to a "Smart" strategy three months ago, on August 16th in Beijing, Hisense Group announced the launch of a revolutionary product in China's color TV industry -- I'TV, the personalized smart TV. Hisense chairman Zhou Houjian said: "The new product, a result of "micro innovation and major revolution", brings to fruition my childhood dream and is the revolutionary product that I have waited a lifetime to produce."
I'TV (My Personal TV) is the world's first personalized smart TV. Compared with the many "pad"-type tablets now dominating the market, I'TV is positioned primarily as a TV and secondarily as a tablet PC, in other words, a tablet PC with a TV chip, according to Hisense.
As a smart TV, I'TV's most distinctive features include big-screen-to-small screen (any cable TV program received by the living room TV can be instantly transmitted to an I'TV or smart phone for viewing), small screen-to-big screen (any video program, in particular HD programming found through I'TV online, can be instantly transmitted to the living room TV), and remote screen (watch any TV program received at home from a remote location), enabling multi-screen interactivity and the ability to fully coordinate and control that interactivity, providing consumers with anytime, anywhere, total on-demand access to mobile TV programming. At the same time, thanks to embedded software applications including intelligent recommendation and social networking, I'TV becomes all of these things at once: the internet, an entertainment console, a PC and a tool for socializing that will completely revolutionize the experience of watching and enjoying TV. I'TV is in fact a form of social television, representing the complete re-evolution and transformation of the TV set.
Zhou sees I'TV as the game-changing product in China's color TV industry. The launch of I'TV marks a major milestone in Hisense's product development efforts. Zhou also pointed out that the effort was the result of a rare cross-sector cooperative development within the company, something that Hisense was able to put to its advantage.
I'TV is Hisense's proactive solution based on an in-depth understanding of what the consumer wants and expects, combining functions, technologies and systems into a slim and small product and providing viewers with a never before experience completely apart from that of traditional television.
Development of I'TV depended on efforts of a number of in-house researchers, with Hisense Electric as the general designer, Hisense Media Networks as the developer of the support platform and application store, Hisense Communication as the developer of the software operating system and Hisense Broadband Multimedia Technology as the developer of the multi-screen interactivity. Thanks to the in-house industrial ecological chain through a collaboration across multiple divisions and cross-sector cooperative development, Hisense was able to build technology clusters based on a combination of system software, cloud computing, internet applications, artificial intelligence, industrial design and operational services and complete development of the personalized smart TV in a short time.
With the launch of I'TV, Hisense aims to redefine and transform the color TV industry:
One way is through the application of a thin terminal - the separation of TV content from the viewing tools. The functionality of the TV terminal itself will be vastly expanded, and consumers will be able to view television programming through any device with a screen. The concept that television is watched on a TV set will gradually fade.
The second is through the cloud platform. An operational model that focuses on supporting the terminal will challenge the concept of traditional TV. Upgrades in functionality such as personalized intelligent remote control will boost the traffic to Hisense's background value-added services. Prospects for Hisense's customer-centric business model are promising.
Zhou hopes that the game-changing I'TV will become the catalyst for China's color TV manufacturers who have hit a wall in terms of product and marketing innovation and are facing saturation of the marketplace to reinvent themselves and create new sources of revenue. Production and sales of color TVs are positioned for explosive growth.
Hisense's timely launch of I'TV ahead of Apple signals the start of the "pan-TV" and marks a turning point for smart television.