Study: IPTV Raising the Bit Rate for Encoder Market
By MCN Staff published
A new study by research firm Frost & Sullivan indicated that the drive toward digital multimedia -- including the active IPTV market -- is creating good business for the makers of digital encoders and expanding their role from processing just video to a wider range of multimedia.
The analyst firm projected that revenues for the encoder market will rise from just shy of $500 million in 2005 to nearly $2 billion in 2012. That growth is driven by the federal mandate to shift from analog- to digital-TV broadcasting and a growth in digital video for enterprise customers including universities, corporations and government agencies, according to analyst Vidya Nath.
That has further been boosted by entry of IPTV players seeking bandwidth-management systems and digital broadcast-quality video. And video-to-mobile services are also emerging to drive more encoder sales, according to Nath.
But it isn’t all rosy: The encoder market is also showing signs of commoditizing, with more than 20 vendors now competing worldwide. Frost & Sullivan predicted that competition will increasingly be based on price rather than encoder technology.
"Choosing appropriate equipment has become a challenge for telco service operators, as the video services they aim to deploy over IP networks require the right equipment to deliver broadcast-quality video at low bit rates," Nath noted. "In contrast, cable and satellite operators are burdened by incumbent systems that prevent them from adopting advanced-format encoders, thus dropping the unit shipment rate."
The smarter way to stay on top of the multichannel video marketplace. Sign up below.
Thank you for signing up to Multichannel News. You will receive a verification email shortly.
There was a problem. Please refresh the page and try again.