Televisions overtake computers for online video streaming

[Shawn Knight]

There’s little doubt that connected televisions, streaming media boxes and even video game consoles have played a huge role in how we consume streaming media at home. According to new data from The NPD Group, the tides have turned as televisions are now the go-to device for watching online content in most homes. This marks the first time that TVs have overtaken the personal computer in this metric.

The company’s latest survey reveals 45 percent of consumers use their TV as the primary display when watching free or paid videos from the Internet, up from just 33 percent a year ago. On the opposite end of the spectrum, the percentage of users that viewed streaming content using a computer declined from 48 percent to just 31 percent in the same span of time. As you can see, the figures have almost been flipped completely in favor of television viewing.

Netflix is the clear winner in terms of web-to-TV video. 40 percent of people that reported watching online content from a television said they used Netflix Watch Instantly to do so. 12 percent of respondents accessed content from Hulu Plus and just four percent watched on Vudu.

Not surprisingly, the data indicates that one out of every five connected television owners no longer use peripherals like media players, video game consoles and Blu-ray players to consume digital content.

NPD’s quarterly survey includes data collected from approximately 1,200 broadband households in the US.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/50337-televisions-overtake-computers-for-online-video-streaming.html

 

[Guest]

Pretty miss-leading as its only a tv is the "go-to-device" out of 45% for those 1200 broadband households but compared to the world its actually around 70% computers... online streaming I prefer it to be free at-least try to count the people that aren't spending bucks to watch stuff then you get a better scope of who/what is really dominating plus those could just be 1200 old people.

 

[TorturedChaos]

From the small sampling of people I know I can agree with this. I use home built HTPC to record and stream media on my TV.
Several friends use either PS3, HTPC, or some other comercial streaming box to watch show on their TV.

Its been made fairly easy wit the number of Online capable TV's and boxes you can hook up to your TV. Plus its very easy to find HDMI out on a graphics cards and very easy to find HDMI in on newer TV's. One cord and you have good audio and video on your TV. Also many new TV's have a VGA or DVI port on them, coupled with a L/R audio in or a 3.5mm head phone jack in.

When I first started trying to stream from my laptop to my tv it was a pain. I had a S-Video out with no audio, that I needed a converter to go to standard RCA video. Then go from my headphone out to a spliter for L/R audio. Then half the time XP didn't wan to recognize a TV plugged into the S-Video port.

Now I have a home built HTPC with a $60 graphics card that has HDMI out that handles both audio and vidio and works EVERY time. Thats a lot of change in 10yrs .

 

[amstech]

The great thing about the new HDTV's is, without stream ability or 3D they can't pull a premium price.
And who needs that crap anyways.
Now I can get my 60" LG 600hz sub field drive/3M:1 60PA5500 for $900 shipped any day of the week!
God bless America.
And I am so glad I picked three 1TB F3's when I did for $60 a pop, HD prices are still holdin steady.

 

[ceh4702]

I think this may be misleading a bit. A lot of people buy devices like streaming boxes to stream content and also people are using game consoles to stream content. I just ues a computer I built to stream free content to my HDTV. Then there may even be people using a tablet or other device. A lot of this has to do with what you describe as a computer. Is a rasberry pie a computer or a TV add-on?

I think the lines are pretty blurred. The one thing I think is important is that Network TV is becoming almost non-existent. I think we should get rid of Network TV altogether. It is just a mass-media brainwashing device.