Watching Video over the Web

A U.S. consumer watches TV for about five hours a day on average. While the majority of viewed content is still the broadcast TV programming, the share of the time‐shifted content has been ever increasing. One third of the U.S. consumers currently use a digital video recorder (DVR)‐like device for time‐shifting, however, the trends are showing that more and more consumers are going to the Web to watch their favorite shows and movies on a computer or mobile device. Increasingly, the Web is coming to the digital TV, which incorporates movie downloads and streaming using Web protocols. In this first part of a two‐part article, the authors describe both conventional and emerging streaming solutions using Web and non‐Web protocols and provide a detailed comparison.