Digital Media II - Analyzing the evolution and impact of digital media across multiple platforms

Digital Media II is a primary consumer survey measuring the adoption and use of existing platforms and gauges the market potential for future platforms including digital cameras, TVs, digital photo frames, and Blu-ray players.

Key Topics include the following:
- 3D TV
- The market potential for "slate" and tablet PCs
- Triggers for adoption, usage scenarios, and hardware configuration for emerging platforms
- Hardware configurations used for consuming Internet video on the TV
- Market interest in motion-controlled user interfaces
cloud media and digital locker services
- Prevailing digital media habits with PCs, MP3 players, mobile phones, game consoles, TVs, and other digital devices
- The demand for connected TVs and key video and non-video applications
- The digital media business models most likely to succeed
- The emerging websites and social networking destinations
- Online destinations for TV, PC, and mobile content
- New content sources and services

Parks Associates will survey over 2,000 U.S. broadband households. Additional countries will be added at client request.

Survey launches early March, click here for more information.

Will the iPad Kill the Digital Photo Frame Category?

With much fanfare, Steve Jobs unveiled his new darling today—a much-hyped iPad. It’s a big iPod Touch for sure. For now, the iPad appears to wow netbook and Kindle users, but intentionally or not, the iPad could lead to a sea change to the designs of a more established product category: digital photo frame.

With a dock and purportedly 10-hour battery life, the iPad can be used as a photo frame when owners are not actively using it. It won’t be the major function of the iPad, but photo frame vendors should not dismiss it simply because it is priced much higher than every frame on the market today. Reasons are:

1. It is multifunctional than most frames on the market
2. It has the built-in connectivity AND rich content that many frames lack today
3. Its design is more contemporary and elegant than most frames today
4. Don’t forget Apple is famous for dropping the price to drive adoption

Whether the iPad will have a runaway success with consumers is difficult to predict today, and it may not threaten digital photo frame sales in the near term. But the frame industry may take cues from iPad’s design to consider changes in the following ways:

1. Remove the traditional stand, replace it with a cradle or dock so the frame can be positioned as a portable device; make it thinner and lighter
2. Adopt the battery technology that iPad uses
3. Give the frame a more Internet-tablet look versus a plain frame appearance
4. Add more content choices and easy sync functions either over the air (which means adding wireless connectivity) or USB

The mainstream frame business is now a low price, low margin sector, and high-end products lack the content that consumers perceive as valuable. For those who try to differentiate, the iPad is the clear direction to go before it is too late.

Panasonic Debuts Multimedia Audio System Photo Frame

Panasonic announced the debut of its first audio system with iPod dock and photo frame. The MW-10 sounds as good as it looks, pumping out audiophile-quality sound from its built-in CD player, and its FM/AM radio tuner has 45-station (30-FM/15-AM) Preset Memory.

Boasting a 9-inch WVGA LCD, the MW-10 can display photos from a CD, SD Memory Card and internal memory. The 4 GB of internal memory stores image data for up to 6,000 photos. In addition to a full-screen photo slideshow, the advanced display has the following: clock and iPod track menu, calendar and photos, clock and photos, and audio and calendar.

The MW-10 is Energy Star qualified, and its UniPhier LSI integrates all video signal processing circuits onto a single chip, which lowers power consumption and reduces the number of components.

For the full press release, please click here.

Digital Photo Frames enter mass market with 25% penetration in U.S. broadband households

Product category hits new phase in lifecycle

Digital photo frames will transition from an emerging to mainstream product category in 2009, when it will exceed 25% penetration in U.S. broadband households this holiday season, according to Parks Associates.

The international research firm recently released Global Digital Photo Frame Market Update, part of its Digital Photo Frame Service, which reports that penetration in U.S. broadband households exceeded 20% in the first half of 2009, up from 7% in 2007.

Parks Associates states that in this new steady-growth stage, many early-growth drivers like expanded retail availability and price discounts and promotions will have less impact on the future growth of the product category.

Parks Associates started its Digital Photo Frame Service in 2007. Its latest report on this market summarizes sales data for the first half of 2009 by major regions, frame screen sizes, retail channels, and brand market share. It also provides industry growth forecasts through 2014.

For the full press release, click here.

Widgets-on-the-TV/CE: Hot News from CES

The customization of news, weather, traffic, and other information on the TV screen is one of the hot topics to come out of CES this year. I saw a couple of announcements that caught my eye.

Oregan Networks announced the results of an interesting study that they conducted on consumer receptivity to 'Net-enabled televisions. 71% of all respondents would prefer a default media browser to be installed, although they would like the option to be able to change it. Additionally, if their next TV did not come with a pre-installed media browser, 29% of respondents said that they "definitely would" download one, while a further 45% would be likely to download one. 69% of respondents would pay something to download a digital media browser to their next television, if this was supported. 87% of respondents would select a TV with a media browser because it would offer them more entertainment choices.

These type of findings are consistent with those from our recently-completed Digital Media Evolution study, where we found not only receptivity to new connectivity applications, but also a willingness by consumers to place a premium on devices with built-in networking capabilities.

Oregan also announced that it was working with Micronas to marry browser capabilities to silicon. The solution includes Micronas’ Pegasus IDTV platform running a software suite from Oregan Networks that includes a web browser to access TV channels and Internet content such as YouTube™, NetFlix® and Flickr®. A media client is included to display in-home content such as home videos, music and digital pictures in HD, via a DLNA network. 'Widgets' are also provided that pop up information such as sports news, stocks and weather reports.

I also saw a news release from Rallypoint announcing a partnership with Sharp to provide social networking features to AQUOS Net televisions. Rallypoint is also providing its fantasy football widget solution to Samsung’s 2009 flat-panel HDTV lines supporting the new TV Widget service, called “Internet@TV - Content Service.

You remember that cute little Widget device called Chumby? It's now partnering with consumer electronics companies to develop reference designs for widgets-on-devices applications. Chumby released news that it was working with Samsung in this regard, specifically for photo frames. The company announced that it was working with multiple partners in the connected photo frame market, including:

• Marvell
• Samsung
• SMK
• Wolfson Microelectronics

CES is over, so now what? Analyst predictions.

Huge TVs and digital photo frames. Smarter remotes and 3D games. Home controls, home networks and home monitoring. By now everyone knows the buzz from CES, but what's next?

Parks Associates analysts reveal the following consumer research data and forecasts:

• Consumers want videos & programs on demand more than anything when it comes to value-added TV features.
• Broadband video services pushing a movies-only format underperformed; movie rentals/downloads from the Internet were only $99 million in 2007.
• Consumers are buying more broadband video - 48% of broadband Internet users watch Web video on at least a monthly basis and 20% are downloading longer episodes.
• More people use iTunes to download videos longer than 10 minutes. Amazon.com's Unbox & BitTorrent services follow in second & third place.
• In 2008 and beyond, we'll see a greater emphasis placed on bringing broadband video to the television via media adapters, game consoles, and network-connected devices such as TVs, stand-alone set-tops, and DVD players. Broadband video revenues for content consumed at the television will total $1.5B by 2012.
• The connected home - More people want the ability to monitor webcams in their homes from any Internet-connected device, more so than to control a home's thermostat from an Internet-connected device or to control lights from an Internet-connected device.
• Mobile Internet will begin to see mass market adoption, and the form factors will diversify to include devices such as portable multimedia players (PMPs) and portable game consoles.
• There will be major investments in the cable MSO space. Switched digital and DOCSIS 3.0 will help to reclaim bandwidth and expand offerings.
• Place-shifting features (currently embodied through products such as Slingbox and Orb Networks) will move beyond after-market products with nearly 53M WW households using such features by 2012.
• Virtual worlds will ride the hype cycle, and we'll see a growing emphasis on these applications in corporate settings as a means to enhance collective collaboration.
• The 700 MHz auction will spur more innovation on the mobile phone handset and will reduce the influence of the mobile carriers.
• Home theater systems become the next "appliance" offered by home builders.
• Europe will be the decisive market for powerline networking.
• Tracking new payment methods (such as micro-transactions) for online consumers will be an interesting model to watch.
• The first major cracks will appear in the movie distribution widows, and video-on-demand services will be enhanced by the earlier availability of certain content.
• The in-car entertainment experience begins to reflect the living room.

For more information visit http://www.parksassociates.com/.