Online video services, such as Youtube, have become very popular in the recent years, mostly thanks to user generated content as well as because of music videos. However, recently major Hollywood studios started to offer watching their movies via the Internet as well. This trend is expected to continue and in about four years time revenue from Web-to-TV services will increase dramatically.

“Once Web-to-TV video becomes simple and convenient, mass consumer adoption will follow quite rapidly. Our primary research shows that users want a variety of their consumer devices to enable a web-to-TV video experience,” said Keith Nissen, an In-Stat analyst.

The under-35 adult population in the U.S. has already adopted Web-to-TV video capability, reports In-Stat. Over 40% of young adult U.S. households view Internet video on the TV at least once per month. According to the market research firm, the rapid growth of Internet-based services in general as well as Web-to-TV services in particular will drive revenue from Web-to-TV streaming services to $2.9 billion in 2013.

According to In-Stat, within five years, the number of U.S. broadband households viewing Web-to-TV content will grow to 24 million. Moreover, in five years, there will be 7.4 million USA broadband households that use media center PCs for streaming Web-to-TV content, which reflects growing popularity of personal computers in the living rooms.

In fact, 29% of U.S. 25 to 34 year olds with game consoles use the devices to watch streaming video off the Internet. Meanwhile, TV networks and pay TV operators currently view online TV as additive to pay TV services, but Web-to-TV will ultimately force a complete restructuring of today’s video services.

In-Stat also believes that video content will be optimized for broadcast or Web-to-TV based on content type.

Tags: HDTV