California based-Roku has launched new Pro Series TVs that boast top-notch features for an immersive viewing experience. The star attraction is Mini LED backlighting for superior brightness and contrast. These 4K TVs pack a punch with QLED panels, HDR10+, Dolby Vision, and a 120Hz refresh rate for crystal-clear visuals and flawless motion handling.

The quad core processor ensures that TV operations are smooth

Roku designed the Pro Series for seamless streaming. A speedy quad-core processor ensures responsive menus and quick app launches – no more waiting on loading screens! Plus, Wi-Fi 6 ensures smooth streaming, especially for 4K content.

Immersive audio is another highlight. The Pro Series features side-firing Dolby Atmos speakers for a wide, cinematic soundscape. These TVs integrate seamlessly with wireless or wired soundbars, speakers, and subwoofers for a customized audio setup. Bluetooth connectivity lets you connect wireless headphones for private listening.

A new neural processing unit (NPU) unlocks smart features on the Pro Series. Smart Picture Max uses AI to automatically adjust picture settings based on what you’re watching, optimizing color, sharpness, and motion for the best viewing experience. This extends to brightness, automatically adapting to your room’s lighting.

While Smart Picture Max is exclusive to the Pro Series, all Roku TVs will receive upcoming OS updates. Backdrops, a fancy screensaver featuring curated artwork or your own photos, is a fun addition. Deeper IMDB integration and a revamped mobile app with a streamlined design, improved search, and new content categories further enhance the user experience.

The Pro Series is available now at Best Buy, Amazon, and Walmart. Prices start at $900 for the 55-inch model and go up to $1,700 for the 75-inch version.

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(Via)

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Roku is nearing the launch of its 11th generation of devices, and most probably it would include the new Roku Streamber. As per a new FCC listing (via GChromecastHub), Roku is working on a new Streambar and it bears model code 9104X. The listing also unveils that the device supports WiFi, Bluetooth Classic, and Bluetooth Low-Energy capabilities.

Must See: Best 75-inch TV in 2023 – LG, TCL, Samsung & More

For those who are unaware of the Roku Streambar, it is a streaming device molded into a soundbar. It supports the ability to convert a 2-in-1 Roku Soundbar, it even supports attachment with a Subwoofer. Those who want to enjoy the premium sound can convert into a Surround System with a pair of other two speakers. The plug-an-play system over the air seems quite fit for the users.

It was first introduced in October 2020, and upon its good reception in the market, the company introduced a Roku Streambar Pro Model in May 2021. Now, it seems the Roku Streambar (2023) is set for launch.

Details about its launch or availability are not yet known, but it seems the announcement is not so far away.

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(source)

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The Roku Select and Plus Series Smart TVs have been launched by Roku. The new TVs come in sizes ranging from 24 inches to 75 inches with either HD or 4K resolution. The Plus Series has a 4K QLED panel with local dimming, Dolby Vision, and HDR10+.

The new smart TVs are the first to be released by Roku and they were first announced at CES 2023. Roku has established its presence in the manufacture of streaming devices and licensed OS. The Roku Select TV has 8 size options (24, 21, 40, 43, 50, 55, 65, and 75 inches), while the Plus Series offers three sizes (55, 65, and 75 inches). The Roku Select TVs feature either HD or 4K resolutions while the Plus Series models all have 4K displays.

Both the Roku Select and Plus Series models support streaming from popular streaming services like Netflix and Disney+. You can also cast content from mobile devices for both models via Apple AirPlay. They all feature integrated speakers and built-in sound optimization features like auto speech clarity, night mode, and Dolby Audio. The Roku Smart TVs come with a rechargeable voice remote compatible with Google Assistant, Amazon Alexa, and Siri. The remote also has a Find My Remote feature that helps you quickly locate the device when misplaced.

The Roku Select TVs from the 43-inch model and all Plus Series models support automatic brightness adjustment to suit the ambient brightness. The Roku Select Smart TVs start from $149.99 for the 24-inch model. The 75-inch Roku Select Smart TV is priced at $799.99. The Roku Plus Series TVs are priced between $649.99 for the 55-inch model and $1,199 for the 75-inch model.

The Roku Select and Plus Series smart TVs are exclusively available from Best Buy in the United States. There are no indications yet on the pricing and availability of the Roku Smart TVs in other markets.

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Besides Etsy sellers affected by the sudden shut down of Silicon Valley Bank(SVB), many more American companies and businesses have revealed recently that they were affected by the collapse of SVB. Amongst those banking with SVB, the most notable are Vox Media, Roblox, Roku and Circle.

Vox Media

Let’s start with the most famous one in tech circles, Vox Media. Vox Media is the parent company of The Verge – the popular online technology news outlet based in the United States, Vox – the viral American news and opinion website, and Polygon – the entertainment news website that covers news from the video game industry, as well as movies, comics, television and books.

The New York Times reported that Vox Media had a substantial amount of its operational cash in Silicon Valley Bank. The Vox Media personnel who was familiar with New York Times also told that Vox Media’s credit cards, which Silicon Valley Bank issued, had stopped working on Friday.

The personnel also claimed the company does not expect any disruption to its business yet, including payroll to its employees. Penske Media, Vox Media’s largest shareholder, said in a statement that it was ready if the company required additional capital but added that it didn’t foresee any issues for the time being.

Roblox

Roblox, the 21st century viral online game platform and game creation system, has also been affected by Silicon Valley Bank’s shutdown by regulators. According to Forbes, Roblox Corporation held 5% of its $3 billion in cash (150 million USD) at the bank. However, according to a filing, the video game company said SVB’s collapse will “have no impact” on its day-to-day operations.

Unity

Unity Technologies, the American video-game technology maker widely known for its video game engine, Unity, disclosed to authorities in the country today that the company held less than 5% of its cash and cash equivalents at Silicon Valley Bank and expects “minimal impact” from the bank’s collapse.

However, Unity Technologies has swiftly informed its video game publishers using Unity via email to swiftly update their payout institution from SVB to other banks before March 20, 2023 to avoid delays in payments.

Roku

Roku is an American corporation that offers Roku TV, its hardware digital media players, and a service of releasing streaming media content on its TV players.

Roku showed much concern in its SEC filing. The company reports that 487 million USD of its cash was within SVB, which is 26% of the company’s assets. What is more worrying is that Roku’s deposits with Silicon Valley Bank are largely uninsured. At this time, Roku does not know to what extent the company will be able to recover its cash on deposit at SVB.

Circle

American Cryptocurrency firm Circle, the owner of stablecoin USDC, had a massive 3.3 billion USD invested with Silicon Valley Bank, the company revealed in a tweet. That’s around 8 per cent of the company’s total $40 billion, which is held elsewhere.

Circle, stated in a statement, “Like other customers and depositors who relied on SVB for banking services, Circle joins calls for continuity of this important bank in the U.S. economy and will follow guidance provided by the state and Federal regulators.”

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(Source, Source 2, Via 1, Via 2)

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The YouTube TV app on smart TVs has been facing an issue across the globe. The service has been freezing up for many smart TV users. This issue even appears to be affecting people across different platforms as well.

According to a 9To5Google report, users of smart TVs from multiple brands have reported on facing an issue with the TV app service. The freezing bug doesn’t just affect the content being streamed but also the platform itself. A temporary fix for the issue is to exit the app and restarting it from the home menu. As per the report, the issue first start surfacing a couple of days ago after the Roku update.

As of right now, this issue affects all sorts of streaming boxes, including Roku, Fire TV, Chromecast, Apple TV, Nvidia Shield, and others. Furthermore, the problem has also been affecting game consoles from the PlayStation and Xbox platforms, but the freezing bug has not been affecting smartphone and tablet users. Notably, the issue had first surfaced on Roku devices, with a common fix requiring users to remove the TV app from the device and reinstalling it.

Sorry to hear about this – just to clarify, are you having this issue on Roku? If yes, we're already aware of this issue, and our team is currently working on a fix. We'll let you know as soon as we receive an update. Let us know if it's something different.

— TeamYouTube (@TeamYouTube) November 20, 2021

Unfortunately, this might not be possible anymore as the TV app has been unavailable on the Roku Channel Store for months. But while Google had added a clever workaround in the standard YouTube app, its base service is also set to be removed from Roku next month, as both companies continue to feud.

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Strategy Analytics has released its report on the Global Connected TV Devices Market for Q4 2020. According to the report, Amazon overtook Samsung to become the leading brand overall for the first time. Also, in the smart TV segment, TCL came second ahead of LG.

As per Strategy Analytics, OEMs sold around 109.1 million units of connected TV devices (smart TVs, streamers, gaming consoles) in Q4 2020. Whereas, the figure for the whole year was 305.3 million units with a 7.6% YoY growth. Out of which, 186 million units were smart TVs and 81 million units were streamers.

The Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K was the best-selling streaming device in 2020. It helped the American eCommerce giant to dethrone Samsung to become the world’s leading connected TV devices brand. Additionally, Amazon and Roku together led the streaming devices category with over 60% market share.

Talking about smart televisions, Samsung maintained its top position. However, LG slipped to third place as TCL managed to come second. 

Further, Sony was the third-largest brand as a whole, thanks to the sales of PS5. However, Microsoft came distant ninth as it does not sell TVs like the Japanese electronics giant.

Also, it is interesting to see Nintendo in the fourth place. This clearly indicates how popular the company’s gaming consoles are despite their unavailability in a large number of markets.

As far as Chinese OEMs are concerned, TCL, Hisense, and Xiaomi ranked seventh, eighth, and twelfth respectively. Whereas, American tech giants Google and Apple acquired tenth and eleventh positions respectively

Last but not least, Strategy Analytics predicts the global connected TV devices market to continue growing in 2021 as people are migrating towards internet-based video platforms around the world.

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Some feeds monitored on Reddit have indicated that Roku may soon unveil a rechargeable remote control for its set-top boxes called the Roku Voice Remote Pro. The Roku Voice Remote Pro does not need the AAA batteries as it has a built-in battery that is rechargeable using a USB cable.

With the new Roku rechargeable remote control, the days of looking for your misplaced remote without success are gone, as there is a lost remote finder feature on the device which enables the user to provide voice commands to help notify and ping the remote. This means that the new Roku remote control has a microphone that would be capable of picking voice commands from its range.

The soon to be released rechargeable remote control also has two programmable buttons, in addition to the four pre-programed buttons that could be used for streaming services.

In addition, the Roku Voice Remote Pro which sells for $30 has an audio jack for a more compelling listening experience, as well as customizable shortcuts that could mean a user can create shortcuts on the device to suit his aesthetics and desires.
The several impressive features of the Voice Remote Pro puts it in a seemingly sound footing to catch the fancy of Roku users and even draw new customers.

Reddit users who had the opportunity of testing the new device have given it the thumbs up, as it has been getting rave reviews and comments.

According to a Roku spokesperson, the company is always working on introducing new products and features to its customers, that is why it has a policy of public testing of new products among a small set of its growing customers. The feedback has always been useful in further development and advancement of products.

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CES 2021 is almost here but that hasn’t stopped the brands from announcing their latest technologies, innovation, and products. The first-ever all-digital event will be one of a kind this time with companies hosting virtual experience booths. 

Around 1,950 exhibitors are expected to hold conferences that include biggies like HiSense, TCL, Asus, Lenovo, LG, Nvidia, Panasonic, Samsung, Sony, and more. Ahead of one of the biggest shows that will fall between January 11-14, 2021 at CES 2021, let’s briefly look at already announced and expected products.

Announced Products

LENOVO

Lenovo has introduced new Laptops, All-in-one Desktop, tablet, and more. You can take a look at them below:

• Laptops- IdeaPd 5G, IdeaPad 5 Pro, 5i Pro, NEC LAVIE Pro Mobile, NEC LAVIE MINI
• Desktop- Yoga AIO 7 (All-in-one PC)
• Smart Products- ThinkSmart Soundbar, ThinkSmart Cam, ThinkSmart Edition Tiny for Intel Unite(already announced in December, will be showcased at CES).
• Tablet- Lenovo Tab P11
• Monitor- Lenovo L27e-30, Lenovo L24i-30
• Software- Show Mode on Alexa for PC.

Samsung

Samsung will introduce a lot of new technologies, and products at CES. In fact, it has already announced a few of them ahead of January 11, 2021, at the 9 AM ET conference below:

• Laptops- Galaxy Chromebook 2
• Tech- Solar Remote Control, C-Lab Inside and C-Lab Outside.
• TV- Neo-LED 8K QN900A, 4K QN90A, and Micro-LED TV panels 
• Smart Home- BESPOKE refrigerators 2021 model

LG

LG’s 2021 is packed with a lot of new techs from TV-panels to refrigerators. You can experience them in a virtual booth from January 12 till February 15.

• Tech- Transparent OLED, Bendable CS-OLED
• Laptops- LG Gram 2021– 2021 LG Gram 14,16,17
• Smart Products- CordZero ThinQ A9 Kompressor+ Vacuum cleaner
• TV- Eyesafe certified TV display,
• LG InstaView refrigerators

Sony

Sony’s main conference is on January 11 but the company has already announced it’s  Bravia XR 2021 lineup of TVs. Let’s look at them and other announcements below:

• Tech- B-Series and C-Series microLED displays
  •  modular Crystal LED C-series (ZRD-C12A/C15A)
  • B-series (ZRD-B12A/B15A) with high brightness
• TV- Bravia XR series – 5 Models-  X90J, X95J, X93J, A80J, 
  • A90J 4K,  Z9J 8K – Master series
• Sony 360 Reality Audio-Compatible Speakers- RA5000 SRS-RA3000

EDITOR’S PICK: Opinion: Brands should Offer Phone Accessories as an Option at Checkout

Acer

Although Acer isn’t hosting a typical stream, it will have virtual events throughout the two days from January 12-14. You can look at some of the announced products below:

• Laptop- Chromebook 514 spin with metal build, AMD 3000 C-series CPUs.
• Gaming Monitors- Predator XB273U NX, Predator XB232QK NV, Nitro XV282K KV.

DELL

As always, Dell has jumped the gun to announce a few Laptops, PCs, and Gaming Monitors as mentioned below:

• Laptops- Dell Latitude 9420, 9520
  •  Dell Latitude 7520,7420 
  • Dell Latitude 7320 2-in-1
  • Latitude 5420 
  • Precision 3560
  • Modular Desktop PCs- OptiPlex 3090 Ultra, OptiPlex 7090 Ultra
• Monitors – Dell UltraSharp 40 Curved WUHD Monitor, 24, 27, 34-inch Video Conferencing Monitors

JBL

JBL, a brand owned by Samsung’s Harman International, also announced a slew of Audio Products as mentioned below:

• JBL Tour ONE noise-canceling headphones and JBL Tour Pro Plus TWS
• JBL Live Pro Plus TWS, JBL Live 660NC, JBL Live 460NC headphones
• JBL Charge 5 portable Bluetooth speaker
• JBL Bar 5.0 MultiBeam soundbar
• Harman L.I.V.E- Live Interactive Virtual Experience, Personal Audio Headrest platform
• JBL SA750 AirPlay 2 Amplifier
• JBL L100 Classic 75 Limited Edition Speakers

Others

• Panasonic JZ2000 4K OLED TV
• HiSense VIDAA U5 OS, HiSense 8K ULED TVs
• Motorola Smartphones 
  • One 5G ACE
  • MOTO G STYLUS (2021)
  • MOTO G POWER (2021)
  • MOTO G PLAY (2021)
• Roku TV Ready expansion to other OEMs.
• Mercedes Benz Hyperscreen
• Kohler voice-activated bathtub

Expected Products/Announcements

• Amazfit & Zepp- Amazfit & its affiliate Zepp will hold conferences on January 12 around 12 AM ET(UTC+05:00). It is expected to announce the GTS2e, GTR2e for Global markets from China. We might also see other new GT-branded products.
• AMD- AMD will hold a keynote address on January 12 at 11 AM ET(UTC+05:00). It is expected to unveil Ryzen 5000 mobile CPUs based on Zen-3 architecture. We can also expect other updates on its console, PC, and mobile platforms. 
• Intel- Intel has a conference scheduled for January 11 at 4 PM ET. It says it will unveil “process technology and packaging architecture” for consumer and business use. It is expected to unveil the 11th-gen Rocket Lake Desktop CPUs, Xe discrete GPUs, 11th-gen Intel Core vPro CPUs.
• LG- QNED miniLED 4K, 8K TVs; 10 TVs are coming with 86-inch as max size
• TCL- On January 11 at 11 AM ET(UTC+05:00), we can expect the next-gen miniLED TVs, soundbars, and home appliances.
• Asus- Asus has already teased a new Duo-branded lineup(could be Laptop/screen with secondary display), ROG- New laptops in ROG STRIX, ZEPHYRUS, X13(likely new) on January 13.
• DELL- Apart from the already announced products, Dell is expected to unveil new Alienware gaming laptops and accessories at the CES event. We might also get a retail price for last year’s Alienware UFO concept PC Prototype but don’t count on it.
• Nvidia- On January 12, Nvidia has planned a Geforce RTX: Game On event where it is expected to unveil the Mobile versions of RTX 30 series- 3070, 3080, 3080Ti that will likely feature up to 16GB DDR6x vRAM. It might also unveil the long-rumored sub-$200 budget 3050,3060 GPUs.

That’s it for the announced/expected products for CES 2021. If you want to catch up on all the official information on the live stream, you can visit the CES page to know more. 

Stay tuned to our social media handles from January 11 as we will be covering the important launches as and when they release!

UP NEXT: Samsung Galaxy A51, A71 receive price cuts in India; Time for successors?

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Streaming has become the most popular way to consume content. Smart TVs and streaming devices play an important role in the rising popularity of OTT platforms. A recent report on TV and video streaming devices across 27 major countries by Strategy Analytics reveals that Samsung not only leads in streaming device market share in these regions but its operating system Tizen, a gateway to streaming services also top the chart.

Though this report was published on September 2, it is worth noting that it is for Q1 2020.

Streaming Devices

According to Strategy Analytics, Samsung was the leading streaming device brand in the first quarter of 2020 in 27 major countries with 14% of devices in use. Whereas, second and third positions were held by Sony and LG with 12% and 8% market share respectively.

Further, Hisense, TCL, and Amazon tied at fourth position with 5% market share each, followed by Nintendo and Microsoft at fifth position with 4%.

Interestingly, in sixth place with 3%, there were a total of seven brands such as Skyworth, Google, Vizio, Sharp, Roku, Philips, and Xiaomi. Also, with 2% in seventh place, there were four brands like Apple, Changhong, Panasonic, and Konka.

Whereas, the ninth position was captured by Haier, Toshiba, and Insignia with a 1% share. The remaining 9% was held by others category, which includes brands with negligible market share.

EDITOR’S PICK: Samsung to raise smartphone shipments to 300 million units in 2021, as Huawei shipments decline

Streaming Platforms

Talking about streaming platforms, once again, Samsung lead in these 27 markets with 11% share with its Tizen OS. But the second position was held by platforms of both LG and Sony namely WebOS and Sony Playstation with 7% share each.

Roku TV OS and Fire OS tied at third position with 5% market share, followed by Android TV and Microsoft Xbox in the fourth place with 4% share.

Google Chromecast came at fifth position with 3% share while Apple tvOS and Firefox OS clashed with each other in the sixth place with 2% market share. The remaining 49% was occupied by platforms in the others category.

Takeaways

One thing is obvious from this report that the leading streaming device manufacturers also top the chart in streaming platforms if they have any. Also, a plethora of TV manufacturers gained some share in the devices category. Most of them use Android TV but still, Google’s streaming platform only accounted for 4%.

Anyway, this report only includes data from 27 major countries. Even though, the number of active devices in these regions is an astonishing figure at 1.14 billion.

UP NEXT: Samsung to maintain Global Smartphone Market lead in 2020: Report

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