The Future… is Video on the Web

Well it seems that reports of HD DVD’s death are far from premature, in fact it is expected that tomorrow Toshiba will announce that they have withdrawn from the race to win the hearts and minds of Hi-Def video audiences.

Sony, after losing out 30 years ago in the VHS versus Betamax wars has dealt a bitter blow to both Toshiba and Microsoft by cornering the market with their Blu Ray system.

As readers might know I am an “early adopter” of all manner of gadgets and yes I have a Blu Ray and an HD DVD Drive Combo. What I never understood about this war is why it mattered. With Combo drives so easily available and now for less the £100, why worry about which format your disc is.

I truly believed  that users would simply turn to combo drives and whether you played an HD DVD or Blu Ray Disc was neither here nor there. Clearly I was wrong.

I also thought that Microsoft might force PC manufacturers to release new PC’s with HD DVD and subsequently release all their new software on the format. Clearly I was wrong again.

I now know that HD DVD is on its way out. Surely I can’t be wrong on this one.

Well it seems there may be a final chapter or a first of new book as it were. The Chinese Hi Def Forum has backed HD DVD and is to release its modified versin CH DVD in March. If there is one thing the Chinese have a lot of its end users so HD DVD could well survive after all, just under a different name.

So the lesson…. It isn’t over til the fat lady sings. Watch this space

 Industry paper Screen Digest estimate that online downloads of video will reach 1.5 billion in the UK this year and this will be due in no small part to the succces of BBC Iplayer, which has dominated with a 38% market share in the last 6 months, within the free to air online TV marketplace.

“Screen Digest’s long-term financial outlook of the UK online TV sector will now be dependent on the future development of convincing platform strategies by UK commercial broadcasters ITV, Channel 4 and Five, as well as new entrants such as Bebo, MySpace, YouTube and Joost,” said the Screen Digest senior analyst, Arash Amel.

“It is expected that the success of the BBC’s iPlayer open web streaming model, and future ‘viral syndication’ strategies, will encourage UK commercial broadcasters to enter a long-term reassessment of how they deliver programming to users.”

Kelpie Media are keeping a close eye on this and are already roling out services for clients that will eventually lead to those customers launching niche TV channels of their own.