Streaming video has come a long way in the last 10 years. The amount of time that you had to wait to listen or watch anything downloaded was, most of the time, longer than the actual program you were going to watch. The dreaded buffering circle on your screen or the buffering percentage stuck on 66% for 15 minutes would drive views insane to the point where they would just leave and forget about the program. Now, streaming video has taken over the TV, movie, and radio business. With websites such as Youtube, Hulu, Metacafe, and Vimeo, you can pretty much watch any TV show ever made instantly on your computer with little to no waiting time. With the technology today, you can stream video to your smart phone, or even watch live broadcasts of SportsCenter or Monday Night Football straight from your phone. The increase in popularity of streaming video has changed how the public watches video, which in turn is changing the business of how it is distributed.What is Streaming Video?
Streaming video came into effect after the hassle of dialup’s slow internet connections. Downloading videos could take hours at a time to finish and became an annoyance to deal with. People wanted a faster way to view video’s from their computers to watch, TV shows, movies, and simple videos uploaded from individuals all over the world. Streaming video works by compressing a video file on the internet. Instead of having to download a whole file to watch something, video data is continuously being sent to your computer as you watch it. This enables you to watch your video right away. Once the compressed video is sent to your computer, a special program on your computer (software usually in your browser) uncompresses that file to be able to watch. This enables you to watch video instantly at your convenience. Whether you missed the latest episode of Lost, or a movie you do not want to go out and rent, streaming video enables you to access that show or movie instantly on your computer.Streaming Video is Destroying the DVD Business.
With the strong improvements of streaming video over the last couple of years, going out to rent a movie has become almost nonexistent. The hassle of leaving your home to go find a movie has become too much for the average consumer. The convenience of being able to go online and accessing your favorite show or move instantly is so appealing to the consumer that DVD rental businesses are struggling to stay afloat. In an article written by Jacqui Cheng on arstechnica.com, she states that “outside of Netflix and the online video niche, the trend can only mean bad things for physical media like traditional DVD and Blue-ray”. She goes on to say that customers are willing to settle for less quality video such as standard-definition on Netflix, or VOD instead of “walking to the corner Blockbuster or even waiting for a DVD in the mail from Netflix”. Customers want their product the fastest and most efficient way possible which is why streaming video from your TV or internet is the growing trend today. This trend has put many DVD rental businesses out of business and has opened up a new market for online businesses to thrive. With this trend, companies have had to make drastic changes. Netflix, a company who used to be a DVD business who mailed DVD’s to their consumer has had to change their business model to fit their consumer. Enabling consumers to rent their DVD’s online, they have seen a “26 percent increase in subscribers year-over-year and a 19 percent year-over-year growth in revenue” (Cheng). This has expanded into partnering with XBOX live as well as cable providers to enable customers to access movies not only from the internet, but directly to their TV, letting them view their desired content from whatever medium they wish. Streaming video has changed the way the public watches their video content. Moving away from physical DVD’s and other means of watching their favorite video content, online streaming makes it simple and instant for the consumer. With this exploding trend, it would not be surprising to see a complete end to the movie rental business, and see an expanding market in the online movie rental business.
Cheng, Jacqui. "ArsTechnica." Ars Technica. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Oct. 2012.
<http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2009/01/streaming-video-cannibalizing-dvd-rentals-says-netflix/>.
I agree with Kevin that streaming videos has really changed the way people access video content, especially movies. These streaming services have become so popular that 1/3 of Americans have streamed a movie or TV show on Netflix, Hulu, Vudu, Crackle or another Net-based video service, according to Nielsen. Also companies are reaching out not only to people who stream from their TV, but also people who stream from their phones, by creating smartphone apps that allow for streaming of shows and movies. These kind of capabilities have lead to more than 2.65 million subscribers (mostly cable subscribers) dropping their pay-TV service entirely in favor of streaming video options, according to The Convergence Consulting Group. In order to prevent this, cable companies are offering on demand options which is helping the rate of people dropping their cable slow down. This is just one other example in addition to the ways you mentioned that shows how streaming is affecting the way we get our media and the way companies deliver it.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading Kevin’s post, it made me reflect in the past of how we all used to watch movies and online videos. For movies, people had to either purchase or rent videocassettes (way back then) and DVDs. As he said, in the past it was a struggle to watch and download something online. The buffering of the media took longer than the actual media itself. Now today, everything on the internet is within reach whether it’s on one’s laptop or smart phone. The ease of access along with the improvements in technology allows us to enjoy whatever we want to listen or watch at our leisure time. This is a reason why I witnessed my local blockbuster going out of business; all their business is going to their competition: on demand internet streaming videos such as Netflix. With the help of online video streaming, some aspiring music artists become famous, some people become an internet sensation, and messages are heard. Last spring, the stopping KONY 2012 video campaign was on YouTube and it spread to billions informing them on the terrible things he did. The power of streaming videos is not only convenient, but it can benefit people as well when they use it to their advantage.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading Kevin's blog post it got me thinking about how I used to watch movies and how I do it now. I remember when I had to go to the local blockbuster and rent a dvd. I would stand in long lines and wait to rent these movies. I also remember the movies would only be available on either a two day rental for the more popular movies or a week long rental for the not as popular ones. Half the time they never even had the movie I wanted because everyone was already renting it. Contrastingly now all I have to do is go online and either find the movie for free or pay a small fee to stream it from my laptop which I can then connect to my television to watch it on the big screen. I couldn't even tell you where the closest movie rental place is because of how rare they have become. I obviously agree with Kevin when he discusses the physical movie rental places being non existent now a days. Now that streaming videos is possible the social network system has benefited. They benefit by being able to make videos that declare important information that can be easily spread. It is also seen to be beneficial for everyday human questions. When someone wants to learn how to cook something specific or how to fix something on their computer, all they have to do is stream a 2 min video and they can find out the answer within minutes.
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