Content owners buying encoders to bypass traditional pay TV distributors

USA: Content owners, including HBO, Disney/ABC, and Fox are rapidly growing in importance as customers for video encoder and transcoders. Content owners have always purchased some video encoders for primary distribution – which feed into existing Pay TV systems; however, their investment is increasingly in multi-format transcoders that support direct to consumer distribution.

“Content owners will grow from 11 percent of the total encoder and transcoder market in 2012 to 17 percent in 2017, having already passed the importance of Telco operators for use in traditional IPTV platforms,” according to Sam Rosen, practice director at ABI Research. “Their role in distribution stems from both authenticated access offered as part of a retransmission agreement with a classical Pay TV operator, but will also increasingly include advertising supported free-to-wire services and some standalone content-owner bundles.”

The total encoder and transcoder markets grow to become over a $1.5 billion dollar market in 2017, a market led by the combined Arris/Motorola, with Cisco, Ericsson, Harmonic, and Thomson Video Networks all playing a strong role. Envivio leads the file-based multiscreen market while Elemental Technologies leads the live multiscreen market.