HD/Video-On-Demand Investment Shows Growth

The future for video-on-demand looks particularly bright this week.  A recent study published by Infonetics Research has shown that spending for video-on-demand and content servers as well as other VOD infrastructure components and devices by cable and IPTV service providers to be steady at $625 million in 4Q09, though overall video infrastructure spending was down for 2009 due to the recession in North America and Europe.  Vigorous investment should continue well into 2014 as demand for high-definition streaming of movies and other video content grows with consumers becoming used to a new form of content delivery and HD presentation.  As Jeff Heynen, Infonetics Research’s directing analyst for broadband and video notes:

“In the ongoing battle between cable and telco IPTV operators, both continue to spend furiously to add video-on-demand and streaming content server capacity to support the rollout of on-demand HD content and provide start-over and remote storage-digital video recorder services, all of which require the delivery of unicast streams to set-top boxes. This aggressive move to full unicast models for video delivery is driving strong growth in video on-demand and streaming content servers.”

The report states that HD/VOD and edge QAM (multi-purpose stream) set-top boxes fueled growth over standard STB’s with the continued popularity of DVR’s in many households.  Furthermore, it’s not expected that service providers will spend more for 3D delivery devices though its anticipated that sports and movies may prove to be popular as more content is produced.  The entire report can be found HERE.  Suffice to say, it appears the growing preference for broadband video along with consumer choice for content delivery is having a major impact on the spending habits of cable, satellite and IP network providers.  This is a good thing.  Meanwhile, it’s still too early to tell if 3D will have any impact on content delivery save for certain programming choices.  As it stands, 3D may become the hallmark of event programming.  As the last week’s Master’s golf tournament proved, 3D has some ways to go before it achieves mainstream acceptance, but for some it is already beginning to achieve what the hype promises.