Digital Lifescapes

Some traditional pay-TV service providers have already supported their customer's expectations for better apps on smart TVs, which enable service subscribers to overcome the limitations of their provider's set-top box and limited on-demand video programs. Moreover, the leading online video subscription services -- such as Netflix, Amazon Prime and Hulu -- enable millions of American smart TV owners to independently access video entertainment (without traditional pay-TV). Internet-Connected TV Market Development According to new research from The Diffusion Group (TDG), the penetration of Internet-connected TVs among U.S. broadband households has increased nearly 50 percent since 2013 -- from 50 percent market penetration to 74 percent at the end of 2016. Connected-TV market penetration grew by 22 percent between 2013 and 2014, and another 15 percent between 2014 and 2015. However, new growth has slowed to only 4 percent, indicating that the market has matured, which is...

According to the findings from a recent study, Connected TV devices are now in nearly two-thirds of all television households within the U.S. market. There are already more connected TV devices in U.S. households than there are pay-TV set-top boxes. Leichtman Research Group (LRG) finds that 65 percent of American TV households have at least one television set connected to the Internet via a video game system, a smart TV set, a Blu-ray player, and/or a stand-alone device -- that's up from 44 percent in 2013, and 24 percent in 2010. Connected TV Market Development Results Among those with any connected TV devices, 74 percent have more than one device, with a mean of 3.3 per connected TV household. Those with a connected TV generally find them to be easy to use: 70 percent of all with a connected TV agree (8-10 on a 1-10 scale) that streaming services like Netflix are easy to access via connected TV devices, while 12 percent disagree (1-3). The LRG study also found that 7...

Video entertainment in the typical American home has changed dramatically during the last few years. Streaming subscription video content to a TV set is now commonplace. There are several market drivers that are apparent, as a result of the consumer transition to over-the-top (OTT) video. The incumbent service providers had initially ignored the trend. Pay-TV providers had hoped that the baby-boomers would continue to tolerate perpetual price increases. Television broadcasters assumed that millennials would simply learn to accept the twenty minutes of commercial advertising that interrupts every hour of TV entertainment. In hindsight, both of these scenarios actually helped to fuel the introduction, market development and ongoing adoption of alternative -- often much lower-cost and more appealing -- video entertainment offerings. "Ownership of connected televisions and streaming media players is accelerating while the availability of streaming content is simultaneously expan...

Digital entertainment now encompasses the inclusive aspect of services found on many smartphones, media tablets and connected TV sets. According to the latest market study by Juniper Research , the mobile and online entertainment industry will reach revenues in excess of $300 billion annually by 2019 -- that's up from $195 billion this year. The research observed that growth in the market would be driven by increased adoption of online television and video entertainment services, with the industry accounting for more than 60 percent of the net increase in market value over the next 5 years. The new study also found that Over-the-Top (OTT) video service providers -- such as Netflix and Hulu -- offer an attractive combination of third-party and home-grown content, with a subscription-based model that is supplanting the legacy on-demand pay-per-view approach. The research also found that while video game revenue will capture the lion's share of the digital entertainment m...

Worldwide ownership of Connected TV Devices -- including smart TVs, smart blu-ray players, IP-enabled game consoles and digital media streamers -- grew 7 percent quarter-on-quarter in Q2 2014 and 34 percent versus the same period in 2013 to reach 500 million units. The growing demand for devices that facilitate the streaming of online video to the large screen TV is creating a highly competitive environment with no fewer than 16 major technology brands accounting for 90 percent of devices in use, according to the latest global market study by Strategy Analytics. Connected TV Devices fulfill a growing consumer desire to access over-the-top (OTT) video content on the big screen within the home. While Game Console vendors and the major TV brands have the largest footprint of such devices, other companies -- such as Apple, Google and Amazon -- are starting to build up a significant base of lower cost media streaming boxes and dongles from which they can tap into the online TV audienc...

Here in the United States, when high-definition television sets were first introduced in the marketplace there was a very limited supply of HD video content available. Moreover, even today, most American pay-TV service providers still offer a modest amount of HD-quality live broadcast or archived video content. Ironically, if you're interested in access to an abundance of better quality high resolution video content, streaming it from the Internet (as an example, via HBO GO) or using a Blu-ray disc player is still the best approach for HDTV owners. So, what's the overall market outlook? According to the latest market study by ABI Research, 4K or Ultra HD is the future -- but it's going to be a market development marathon, not a sprint to higher resolutions. And, while 1080p TV screens are the norm and mobile screen resolutions continue to climb, plenty of streamed HD content is still distributed in 720p or lower. Over-the-top (OTT) video entertainment services such ...

The video entertainment industry status-quo has been disrupted by emerging service providers -- such as Netflix and Amazon -- that don't play by the old rules. The new market realities are forcing a much needed transformation in the distribution chain dynamics. The self-inflicted constraints of a bygone era are being swept aside. Content owners -- including HBO, Disney, and Fox -- are rapidly growing in importance as customers for video encoder and transcoders, which are used in online service delivery. Previously, content owners have always purchased some video encoders for primary distribution -- which feed into existing pay-TV systems. However, now their investment is increasingly in multi-format transcoders -- that support direct-to-consumer distribution. HBO Go is just one example of this phenomenon in action. "Content owners will grow from 11 percent of the total encoder and transcoder market in 2012 to 17 percent in 2017, having already passed the importance o...

  As the CES 2013 event in Las Vegas approaches, let's consider the evolution of video entertainment in the home. Specifically, what are the known market drivers for connecting a television set to the internet? Moreover, what are the usage characteristics for those people that have adopted this practice. Clearly, market adoption has gained momentum in the last year. eMarketer now estimates that usage of connected TVs in American households was up by more than 25 percent in 2012, and will continue to be adopted by more Americans at double-digit rates through at least 2016. By the end of 2013, eMarketer expects 35.1 million U.S. households will have at least one television set connected to the internet, and at least one person in the household will be actively accessing the internet through that TV set on a monthly basis. The current definition of connected TV includes any television set that's connected to the internet -- whether it’s an internet-enabled Smart TV or a ...