SAMSUNG SMART TV

        Close to 70 percent of the 2012/2013 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 1500 apps now. 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.