Yankee Group Says Microsoft And DivX Will Lead The Charge As Internet Video Over Home Networks Gains Momentum
A new Yankee Group research note, "Who Will Win the Format Battle for Internet Video Downloads?," analyzes the leading video formats across multiple criteria, and picked two clear winners--Microsoft and DivX.
"The time was ripe for this analysis; consumers are beginning to transfer content from their PCs to their televisions over home networks or on recordable media," says Ryan Jones, Yankee Group Media & Entertainment Strategies senior analyst. "However, for PC-to-TV content sharing to mature, device manufacturers and content owners must agree on video formats for encoding and content protection that allow seamless content access, management, and playback."
The research analyzed formats from Real, Microsoft and DivX along various dimensions including playback quality, security, cost, and industry momentum.
"DivX leads today because of support from the global file trading community and because chipset vendors have been quick to market with affordable decoding solutions. Yet content owners prefer the overall quality and security the Microsoft solution offers. Ultimately, device manufacturers will be able to integrate both formats into their designs," says Jones.
Jones predicts the retail industry soon will feel the impact of these format winners. "Expect 30 to 50 percent of DVD players to have either one or both of these formats by the end of 2004, as video chipset manufacturers refine and economize components, content owners become more comfortable with Internet content distribution, and consumers seek out new video content on the Web."
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