Irvine-based smart TV maker Vizio Inc. is joining an industry move to make sure you can watch movies and TV shows at home the way the director intended.
The company said it will start integrating “Filmmaker Mode” in its 2020 Smart TV lineup. Its stated goal is to provide users a more “cinematic experience.”
The initiative’s backers said the new mode will disable “all post-processing—motion smoothing, etc.—so the movie or television show is displayed as it was intended by the filmmaker, preserving the correct aspect ratios, colors and frame rates.”
Vizio said the move is being done in coordination with the Ultra High Definition Alliance, a working group of more than 30 industry brands, plus Hollywood studios, members of the filmmaking community, and other consumer electronics companies. The standard will be consistent across the television industry.
“After hearing the desire from some of the industry’s most revered directors to extend the cinematic experience to the home, it immediately aligned with our focus and we knew it was something that would benefit Vizio customers,” John Hwang, vice president of product management, told the Business Journal on Aug. 28.
“We are proud to be among the early supporters of this consumer-focused technology.”
Other backers of the initiative include Panasonic, Amazon Prime Video, LG Electronics, Warner Bros., and director Martin Scorsese.
Vizio, which has more than 400 employees and is the world’s No. 2 maker of flat-panel televisions, will consider implementing Filmmaker Mode into 2019 UHD models as a software update, Hwang said.
Further details will be released closer to the launch of the 2020 Smart TV collection.
Project OAR
The Ultra High Definition Alliance isn’t the only notable industry group that Vizio’s been working with of late.
Vizio in March spearheaded the formation of a new consortium called Project OAR—short for Open Addressable Ready—to create and implement a new standard for delivering targeted ads to people with internet-connected TVs.
The group’s founding members include Disney Media Networks, AT&T’s Xandr and WarnerMedia’s Turner, Comcast’s FreeWheel and NBCUniversal, CBS, Discovery, Hearst Television, and AMC Networks.
Vizio ranks No. 8 on the Business Journal’s list of largest private companies in Orange County.
The company was founded by William Wang in 2002 to compete with pricier TV products and reported $2.2 billion in revenue and a $44 million profit during the first nine months of 2015, the last time it reported earnings as part of a now-shelved IPO process. Sales are now estimated at closer to $2.5 billion.
