Report: Broadband’s growing impact on broadcast industry
March 31, 2022
Findings in a report from media processing and delivery technology specialist Appear reveal that broadband will take a centre stage in the broadcast industry in 2022, enabled by a renewed focus on content contribution, streaming codecs, and processing.
The report is the first in a series, looking at the major industry trends impacting the broadcast industry, based on a survey of industry professionals,
Technological developments such as 5G, artificial intelligence and machine learning have long been hyped as the transformative technologies for the industry. However, insights from the report reveals that these may not materialise as quickly as we think. Instead, most players within the industry are concerned exclusively with the impact of broadband-related developments, including:
- The ‘broadband’ effect’: IP has sparked a revolution across the entire content production and broadcasting value chain, enabling new ways of creating, contributing, and distributing content, and we are seeing how attitudes to IP are being viewed in contrast to traditional TV services. 66 per cent of respondents believe that streaming services will grow, and traditional pay TV services will decline—a lot or somewhat.
- Growth in OTT services: Broadband has changed OTT and consumer expectations. OTT has shifted from a niche content distribution method to one of the primary distribution methods that broadcasters use today. 80 per cent of respondents believe investments in broadband to bring greater capacity for OTT will have a moderate to high impact this year. The ability to use 5G for live transmission, however, seems to be some way off, with 55 per cent of respondents saying it will have a low impact in 2022, and no respondents saying it will have a high impact.
- Cloud-based production: With cloud production inherently reliant on bandwidth, codecs are going to play an important role to maximise quality and reduce latency. Ninety per cent of respondents believe improvements in video processing technology to deliver more high-quality video with less impact will have a moderate to high impact this year. In addition, 55 per cent of respondents believe JPEG XS will have a moderate impact this year, where a further 65 per cent believe we will start to see JPEG XS replace J2K.
In addition, over a third (35 per cent) of respondents believe the success of environmentally aware companies will have a high impact this year.
Download the full report by clicking here.