Over the past 12 months, we’ve seen a lot of new content offerings announced by companies like Netflix, Amazon and YouTube as they look to directly target the living room via entertainment devices. Indeed, the adoption rate of hardware devices like the Xbox 360, PS3, TiVo, Roku, VUDU, Apple TV and broadband-enabled Blu-ray players and TV sets will be crucial in determining if content owners can make money delivering video to the TV.

But despite all these new offerings, that content still only reaches a few million customers, a number largely unchanged from this time last year. Such low adoption rates in the face of so much effort leads me to think that while the market of delivering content to the TV will grow, it is unlikely to do so at the rate that many in this industry would like to believe. In fact I don’t think we’ll see these devices having a combined impact in any measurable way for at least another 3-4 years.

Here is a breakdown on the number of devices on the market and some data on the volume of content being consumed on them:

Xbox 360: To date, Microsoft has sold 15.95 million Xbox 360 consoles in North America, according to NPD. Since the Xbox LIVE Video Marketplace launched in November 2006, there have been more than 42 million downloads of entertainment content, which includes movies, TV shows, music videos and featured trailers, while Xbox 360 owners have downloaded nearly 12.3 million hours of video content from the Xbox LIVE Video Store. (Source: Microsoft)

Xbox/Netflix: As of February, 1 million Xbox LIVE Gold members had downloaded and activated the application for streaming Netflix movies to the Xbox 360 console. Meanwhile, users had watched more than 1.5 billion minutes of movies and TV episodes from the Netflix Watch Instantly library. (Asked Netflix for an updated number. Will update if they provide one.)

PS3: To date, Sony has sold 8.26 million PS3 consoles in North America, according to NPD. I don't have any details or estimates on what percentage are connected via broadband.

TiVo: While TiVo doesn’t break out how many Series 1, 2 or 3 units have been sold individually, at the end of June, it had 1.6 million standalone TiVo subscribers. I estimate that 65 percent of those are Series 1 or 2, which means that there are roughly 525,000 Series 3 TiVos today. The company has said that 85 percent of its HD TiVos are connected via broadband, which puts the number of units capable of getting content via Amazon or Netflix at around 445,000. For DVRs that can get YouTube content the number is likely higher, since YouTube only requires a Series 2 DVR. TiVo also said that to date, about 50M downloads have taken place to TiVo units. They didn’t say that was "paid content" but rather total downloads. They also said that “millions and millions of streams to date” have taken place for Netflix and YouTube content.

Roku: Roku won’t say how many units it’s sold to date, other than to say "high six figures". If we estimate that 6 percent of Netflix’s 10.6 million subscribers at the end of the second quarter bought the $99 unit, that would mean a total of about 650,000 Roku units have been sold.

VUDU: VUDU told me it’s sold “five figures” worth of devices, which I believe is less than 50,000 units.

Apple TV: Published reports put the number of Apple TVs sold at less than 500,000. Notably, of course, Apple has, on multiple occasions, acknowledged that the device hasn’t been nearly as successful as the company had hoped it would be.

Blockbuster Mediapoint Player: The company has never offered up numbers as to how many of these have been sold, nor has anyone really bothered to hazard a guess. Bottom line: Blockbuster has no online video strategy of any kind and while the Mediapoint player was first unveiled some five months ago, when you visit the Blockbuster.com web site, it’s nowhere to be found.

Broadband-enabled TVs: There are more than 50 broadband-enabled TV models due out in 2009, but analysts estimate that only about 3 million total sets will be sold in the next two years combined.

Broadband-enabled Blu-ray Players: To date, 9.6 million Blu-ray players have been sold, but less than 2 million of them don’t include the PS3, according to DEG. While new broadband-enabled players continue to be released into the market, the total number of sales to date has to be less than 50,000.

Even with all these numbers, they don’t truly give us an idea of the growth, as there are a lot of unanswered questions. For starters, Microsoft won’t say how many of the 15.1 million Xbox 360 consoles are connected to a broadband connection, although I estimate about 80% of them probably are. And while Netflix says that a million Xbox LIVE members have downloaded and installed the Netflix app for their Xbox 360, since Netflix offers free 48-hour streaming trials to Xbox 360 owners, we don’t know how many paying Netflix subscribers are using the service today. With Netflix spending about 5 cents to stream every movie to the Xbox 360, clearly content offerings such as this are not yet making any money due to the small number of devices in the market.

While some may suggest that the Wii gaming console is missing from this list, so far the Wii doesn’t really offer up any content. Whether or not set-top boxes should be included in these numbers is debatable. It’s my belief that the cable companies are the ones that should be winning in the market when it comes to delivering Internet-based content to the TV or premium content with all-you-can-eat models. But so far, I don’t see the cable companies doing a very good job at this. Also, while some want to suggest that the PC should be include in this list since you can hook up your computer to a TV set, the computer is not a broadband enabled device that was specifically made to connect to the TV, like the devices mentioned above.

On the surface, some of these numbers look really big. But once you break down how many of these devices are being used via a broadband connection and how many consumers have more than one of these devices in their living room, the actual number of individual consumers content owners are reaching via these devices is still very, very small. That will change over time, but realistically it will be a few years before the number of broadband enabled devices makes a real impact in the market.

Note: An older version of this article originally appeared on the GigaOm.com website in May. This one has some updated numbers since that time.

While many are already aware of the CDN pricing I publish every quarter at cdnpricing.com, I am regularly asked by content owners what I charge to review their contract terms, look at their pricing and advise them on what they should be paying. For those that's don't know, this service I provide is completely free and always has been. This is something I have been doing for years and anyone can call me anytime, seven days a week at 917-523-4562 with any questions about their CDN pricing.

So why do I do this and what's in it for me? Very simply, it helps me collect industry data and more importantly, it's my job to help educate the market and try and help content owners adopt and use more CDN services. Being available to content owners 24×7 allows me to speak to and collect CDN data from hundreds of customers a year, of all shapes and sizes. So for those that come across the CDN pricing data on my blog or might have been wondering what it costs to have me review your CDN contract, call anytime, it's free.

Slowly but surely, the NFL continues to make more games both live and on-demand available online, although the vast majority of their offerings still require some sort of paid subscription. While last night NBC kicked off their "Sunday Night Football Extra" offering, (I'll have my review of that up shortly), there are quite a few other ways to get in on the action. He's a quick rundown of all the offerings I know of in the market:

• "Sunday Night Football Extra" is done in conjunction with NBC, NFL and Microsoft. Akamai is doing the delivery and seventeen games are being streamed live for free this season on NFL.com and NBCSports.com

• "Game Rewind" is an on-demand service that allows access to all games, commercial free, within 24 hours after the game are completed. The service cost $39.99 for the season and Move Networks is the video platform, with Level 3 doing most, if not all of the delivery. You can read my review of that service here.

• "Game Pass HD" is a live NFL based subscription offering that is only available to users outside the U.S. and Canada. The service costs $279.99 for the season and Like "Game Rewind", they are using the Move Networks platform and Level 3. More on the service here.

• "SuperFan" is a another live option in the market, which is basically an upgrade to DirecTV's "NFL Sunday Ticket" offering. "SuperFan" is only available to DirectTV subscribers who have the "NFL Sunday Ticket Offering" and costs an additional $89.99 for the year. Level 3 was streaming the DirecTV games last year, which you can read about here, but I haven't yet confirmed if they are doing it again this year.

The NFL offers a live audio only streaming service as well that is subscription based call "Field Pass" for $39.99 for the season and offers a mobile solution with Sprint called "NFL Mobile Live" that's free for Sprint customers that already have a data plan that costs more than $69.99. Sprint customers without a data plan can add one for the NFL service starting at $15 a month.

With the NFL getting more aggressive in their video offerings, one has to wonder how much longer before they start testing video to other devices

Tonight at 8pm ET, NBC will once again kick off the start of the NFL season by streaming 17 games this year on NBCSports.com and the NFL.com website. The service which will be powered by Silverlight and Microsoft's Smooth Streaming technology will offer a total of five different camera feeds, 720p HD quality, picture-in-picture functionality and the ability to pause the video and watch it in slow motion.

The player includes tabs for the ability to chat and ask questions to announcers, get details on stats, see video on demand clips and will enable users to scroll back to highlights in the game that are noted by a small symbol above the scroll bar. The player gives uses the ability to see real-time details on the quality of the video being delivered by showing the current bitrate being streamed as well as the maximum bitrate the video is encoded for and has the ability to go full-screen. Akamai is the exclusive delivery provider for these games and I expect we'll see NBC put out some details on viewer numbers once the season gets under way. NBC has a pretty good track history of giving out details on consumption from their online video offerings so I expect we'll hear more about it.

While NBC has a dedicated sales team that is selling ads for the games along with other online properties and has said they will do well with their ad sales, they aren't yet willing to project what this might bring in revenue wise other than to say "seven figures". Whether or not that pays for the service itself is not known, but with 17 games over the course of the year, one would have to imagine NBC is making money from streaming. But since Microsoft and NBC are both sharing in the revenue and not knowing if they have to give the NFL or anyone else a cut of the ad sales, it will be interesting to see what details they are willing to give out during the season.

With the Streaming Media West show only two months away, we're looking at hosting a big networking event on the first night of the show, Tuesday November 17th. We have a couple of great spaces in the San Jose McEnery Convention Center and want to use it to foster some good industry networking. We're currently looking for any other blogs, associations or news sites who want to co-host the event with us, help promote it, get branding on-site and simply work with us to bring the industry together. The event will be free for everyone and we're not looking to make money from this but rather provide a good networking forum.

If you're interested in helping out, please contact me and we can share ideas. We have the space already, would be a shame not to put it to good use. Also, if your company wants some great exposure and branding and is willing to cover the cost of some drinks, we'd be interested in that as well.

Now that the holiday is over, I am hard at work to secure the remaining open speaking spots at the Streaming Media West show in San Jose in November. We have 113 speaking spots in total and about 70% are already spoken for.  We have confirmed speakers from Xbox, MTV Networks, Sling Media, Roku, PBS, Adobe, Motorola, Turner Broadcasting, Revision3, Boxee, Move Networks, All Things Digital, NBC, NHL, GigaOm, Microsoft, Lockheed Martin, TiVo, ZillionTV, EPIX, Amazon Web Services, AP, MobiTV, CNN, Comcast, Verizon, Conde Nast Digital and many others.

While I still have many submissions to sort through, there are a bunch of open spots where I am looking for very specific speakers. Here is what's open and please make sure to read the details about each opportunity before you email me.

Tuesday Nov. 17th, 2009

Panel Session: The Evolution of Over-the-Top Video
Looking for content companies offering over-the-top video, MSO's or analysts and bloggers who write about and cover this subject in depth.

Panel Session: Monetization And Video Advertising Formats
Looking for a moderator for this session who has a lot of expertise with the different ad formats on the market and someone who is willing to take this session and re-focus it to talk about a facet of the online video advertising business.

Wednesday Nov. 18th, 2009

Panel Session: Monetizing Long-Form Video
Looking for a moderator for this session who can talk about how sites like Hulu are starting to get some traction with long-form video in addition to some of the content owners speaking on this session who will showcase a few examples of their own.

Thursday Nov. 19th, 2009

Panel Session: Live Broadcasts And HD Video: Can Web Video Ever Scale To TV-Sized Audiences?
This was a session I moderated myself at East and may do again for West, but am open to moderator suggestions as well as speaker suggestions. The focus on this panel will be about whether or not live events can make money, what the business model is, how it relates to TV distribution and whether or not the Internet can truly handle HD quality live events.

Panel Session: How Old Media Is Embracing Online Video and New Media
Looking for a moderator for this session, which contains a nice mix of old and new school media companies on the panel.

If you are interested in any of these speaking opportunities, please contact me ASAP and don't just send me an email saying, I want the spot. Please send me some details on your background, your bio, what prior speaking/moderating experience you have and how you are a fit for that particular topic.

Over on the StreamingMedia.com discussion lists, a big debate has been raging over whether or not HTTP based streaming and services like Smooth Streaming are cheaper for content delivery networks to deploy. Earlier in the week I wrote a post saying that today, it's not cheaper to deploy and for content owners, doesn't cost them any less than other forms of delivery. With both Microsoft and Apple making a strong push for HTTP based streaming and Adobe hinting since the beginning of the year that they will provide support for it before too long, there's no question that HTTP based streaming will play a big
role in the future of video delivery.

While I spoke to a couple of CDNs about their HTTP deployments for both Apple and Microsoft's platforms, Level 3 was willing to give out some additional details for the blog and I did a quick Q&A with Mark Taylor, the Head of Media Product and Strategy at Level 3. Here are his thoughts on HTTP based streaming and some of the positive signs Level 3 is seeing with their deployments.

Question: Is HTTP based streaming cheaper for Level 3 to deploy and manage today when compared to FMS and WMS services?

Yes. There are three areas where it is more cost effective for a CDN.

Firstly, we have no software integration on any of our edge servers with the new HTTP streaming solutions. For significant new versions of proprietary streaming protocols, that do not use HTTP, this integration is a significant amount of work for our development teams. We effectively have to fold the new technology into our own ecosystem. There are a lot of things we have to build to turn the streaming vendor's code, a framework really, into a functional service. And even when we have the code built we have to go through rigorous regression testing before we can roll it out onto the thousands of servers throughout our network – we clearly have to be completely satisfied that no existing customers will be impacted negatively. Contrast that with the new HTTP-based streaming technologies where we need do almost nothing; maybe a few tweaks to our existing caching code in order to improve efficiency. And of course nearly every time there is a new feature or a code upgrade we need to go through the same cycle again.

Secondly, it is simpler and more efficient for our operational teams to manage. There is less complexity and we don't need to build any new management tools. Managing one technology is clearly easier than managing many technologies that all essentially do the same thing.

Thirdly, CDNs do not pay any traffic/bandwidth/volume related fees to the HTTP streaming software vendors.

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