More than 20% of flat panel TVs shipped in Europe this year will be able to connect to the internet, says Futuresource Consulting.

By the end of 2010, the installed base of connected TVs will increase to 15 million devices, nearly 10% of the total number of flat panel TVs in use.

The next step for manufacturers, says Futuresource, will be to add more compelling video services, including paid-for movie streaming that will create revenue-sharing opportunities with content owners, aggregators and application developers.

Futuresource expects "sophisticated services", including major catch-up TV services and VoD services, to offer greater competition to the premium subscriptions offered by Pay TV operators.

"In Europe, four of the major brands have already launched connected TV products that go beyond basic home networking functionality and allow delivery of over-the-top web services," says David Watkins, research consultant at Futuresource.

"… Although initially limited to high-end and mid-range products, we're going to see web connectivity feature on an increasing number of products next year, becoming standard within two to three years...

"...We expect content to be the next battleground and a key driver for connection and usage, particularly through interaction with social networking sites and access to recently released movies."

Go Connected TV & Blu-ray Market: W.Europe

The Multimedia over Coax Alliance (MoCA) announces the results of a study into coaxial infrastructure in homes in the UK, France, Netherlands and Poland: there is a significant addressable market for coaxial cable-based home networking in these countries.

Results from the UK and France were very similar, with 56% and 55%, respectively, of respondents stating they had two or more coaxial outlets in their home, while more than a quarter of respondents in both countries indicated they have three or more.

In Poland, the results were even stronger, with 71% of respondents stating that they have two or more coaxial outlets and 36 per cent having three or more. The Netherlands recorded 45 per cent of households as having two or more outlets and 15 per cent having three or more. The four countries were chosen because of their competitive pay-TV environments, increasing penetration of HDTVs and DVRs, number of TVs per household and the high daily TV viewing hours.

"This survey helps us gain an understanding of the potential for MoCA," said Charles Cerino, President of MoCA. "The high percentage of homes having two or more coaxial outlets in these countries means that there is a significant addressable market opportunity for service providers wanting to offer advanced high bandwidth services with high reliability and without adding any new wires."

"The picture we get in the countries surveyed is that there are more outlets per home than had been presumed by the industry and that many consumers are willing to add extra coax drops as needed to enable a better TV experience throughout their home." says Stephen Froehlich, Senior Analyst, Consumer Electronics at IMS Research, who oversaw the research.

The online survey was carried out by IMS Research in February 2010 targeting respondents in the UK, France, The Netherlands and Poland. The sample size was statistically significant at 95% confidence level. These results cannot be extrapolated across other parts of Europe, and that additional research is needed.

MoCA is willing to work with operators in Europe that may be interested in replicating this study in their footprint.

Go Multimedia over Coax Alliance

Consumers who wanted to connect laptops and PCs to their large plasma and LCD monitors typically need either a direct video connection or the use of a media extender boxes (but have a nasty time with limited functionality and file format incompatibilities).

The 5GHz-band technology will be demonstrated at CES in January.

The Wireless Home Digital Interface (WHDI) consortium finalizes its WHDI 1.0 standard for streaming uncompressed 1080p video. (It's based on Amimon technology --other competing wireless technologies also offer multi-room capability but almost all use compression.)

The finalized standard would ensure interoperability among different-branded devices that license the technology and bear a WHDI logo (but watch out for interoperability of devices with pre-standard WHDI technology).

With WHDI 1.0, a video source could transmit a 1080p/60Hz Deep Color video stream more than 100 feet through walls to multiple TVs without running cables.

Go WHDI