Lastest Data Shows HD Video Not Growing As Fast As Some Suggest, Even On TV

While there is no question that HD quality video is growing online, the rate of growth is not as big as some want to suggest and not as dramatic as some vendors make it out to be. Delivering HD quality video online is not a technology problem nor an issue with the last mile, but rather a business problem due to the cost associated with the extra bits going from SD to HD.

Yesterday, Nielsen released numbers on the adoption of HD quality broadcast video to the TV and found that only 19% of viewing on broadcast television was actually in true HD, even though 56% of all U.S. households have an HD capable set. With 44% of U.S. homes not having HD service or an HDTV, these numbers also directly affect all of the streaming device manufactures who are bringing new devices to the living room. You hear a lot about HD quality video and how streaming media is suppose to be a replacement to TV, but rarely does anyone talk about the quality differences between the two.

If only 19% of all TV viewing is HD quality video, the number for online is even less. In 2008 we did a survey and found that of the 1,000+ content owners we surveyed, less than 2% were encoding video for 3Mbps or more. The same survey in 2009 found that of the 812 content owners we surveyed, only 3.8% were encoding video for 3Mbps or more. I'll be completing a survey for 2010 shortly, but based on the initial information I have collected so far, I would expect that less than 5% of all content owners today are encoding their content in HD quality video. HD quality video simply is not growing as fast as some folks think and it's important to keep that in perspective as I hear a lot of industry people talk about "the growth of HD video" as being one of the catalysts for this industry.

The Nielsen report is also a good reminder that it does not matter what the install rate of a device, technology or service is, but rather the adoption rate. That's all that matters.

Comments

[Kindmartin.wordpress.com]

No doubt Broadband TV will complement Broadcasting TV, ant will be stay that way for so long.
There is interesting presentation form David Belanger, Chief Scientist, AT&T regarding how many years left to reach mainstream HD video using Internet-.-

http://www4.gsb.columbia.edu/citi/events/summit2008

As he propose at least 9 nine years since 2008, it has passed 3 since then, so there is 6 more to transit... ;-)

http://www.elinoam.com/summit2008/presentations/belanger.pdf

[camille k]

3 Mbps doesn't match underlying bandwidth download rate for enough people. Figures from Cisco : http://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/2010/prod_101710.html

But you could pretend like most players in the Internet that 720p is HD (even if streamed at 550 Kbps).

Even if you ll ever receive it, you need to read it. So you need at least the material acceleration from the Flash Player and a good video card... No everyone got it either..