Report: The State of HD Video Viewing in America

Aug 31 2012

You might have seen the broadband deployment map released by the FCC:

We like this map and think it has good information to offer, but it's all based on speeds reported by providers -- speeds that are pretty much hypothetical, not delving into the reality of what users actually experience while trying to stream video content. We were curious to see how these broadband speeds compared to the values we record when viewers access Wistia-hosted videos. So, we compiled a comprehensive report on how download speeds actually play out across the U.S. from our data.. We're happy to offer a download of the full .PDF report here. A few highlights:

Download speed isn't a fixed value determined by your connection; other factors like shared connections, usage, and throttling come into play
20% of viewers in the U.S. are not capable of seamlessly streaming HD content.
When someone's connection is incapable of streaming HD, the video buffers -- and when the video buffers, 80% of people stop watching.
It's not just people in remote or rural locations who might have issues streaming HD content. People in business, in government, and at large organizations have trouble, too.

Download the Full Report

Wistia Has Your Back

For those intimidated by all of this or if it seems like a lot to deal with, that's why we're around - we think about these things so you don't have to! To see how we've handled this problem, learn more about how Wistia Auto HD works.

Alyce (122 Posts)

Content Strategist

Tags: auto hd, web video

This entry was posted on Friday, August 31st, 2012 at 9:46 am and is filed under Managing Video. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

John

That’s a great point, adding HD is adding more risk of drop off. From a product standpoint does YouTube have a disadvantage on this vrs Wistia?
Lenny

So, I basically clicked away the moment it started buffering… hence, you’ve proven your point.
Dan

That is why YouTube has several quality options to choose from on any HD video. And usually starts with a lower quality … I like that part of it.
Stu Stenema

Correct. BUT, from what I understand…Wistia does this automatically for you and the viewer. I like this feature even better because you know that your video is being served at the highest quality it can based on that user’s internet speed. If they have a fast connection, they are going to be shown the highest quality transcode possible. If they have a slower connection, they’ll be shown a lower quality version (that still looks great) of your video to avoid any issues with buffering. Go Wistia!
B.F.

If I couldn’t steam HD content i’d have to move….
Wistia is fantastic for our use of HD content….even from my iphone to apple tv.
So when are you supporting 4K?
Lenny Ferreira

Funny, I watched the whole thing.
Ezra Fishman

Exactly Stu. YouTube by default serves video at 360p but allows a user to increase quality (if they can find the button) regardless of whether their connection speed can handle it. We instead first measure connection speed and then serve higher quality when appropriate. That way users who can stream HD automatically get the best quality while those who can’t get a smaller file.
http://www.facebook.com/bbonomo Bernard Dino Bonomo

with videos this small, true HD is hardly noticeable, so players can get away with clear pictures that aren’t full quality.. Wistia has the Auto resolution game figured out
http://twitter.com/joshtheorange joshtheorange

Good timing for this article, we were just discussing this stuff over here. Can you guys actually see us through your player? I’m getting a little weirded out.
And so you know, us hillbillies sometimes use the term “HD” when we talk about “hot dogs,” – i.e. “mama get that HD outa tha nukerator ‘for it pops” – so you might want to clarify that. For the first couple of minutes I thought you were talking about hot dog content, which made no sense to me whatsoever.
http://brendanschwartz.com/ Brendan Schwartz

Hah, that’s the downside to the ol’ buffer gag!
http://brendanschwartz.com/ Brendan Schwartz

YouTube does a good job with providing different quality encodes and letting the user select which one they want. However, how many people actually know what “360p” and “720p” mean? I once surveyed a bunch of my friends who are pretty tech savvy and asked them if they’ve ever changed the quality while watching a YouTube video. Everyone had the same response: “You can change the quality?”

When we redesigned our player, there was a serious internal debate about whether to add an HD button (vs. adding the auto-HD feature). Having an HD button is great in that it communicates to our customers or prospective customers that we offer high quality video. But after many long heated conversations we decided that while adding an HD button would be great for us, it wouldn’t be in our customers best interests. The video content is what matters. If viewers are fiddling with our HD button instead of paying attention to your content, then we’ve failed. So by doing some smart bandwidth detection, we can make sure video looks great and plays back smoothly without the viewer having to do anything.
http://twitter.com/RobertMarkEnger Robert M. Enger

2Mbps will not provide high quality HD video for use in a lean-back entertainment experience.

As flawed as Bluray is, it does serve as a reference for acceptable data rates for quasi-high-quality 1080p24 video. Even with high efficiency compact encoding, such as VC1 or H.264, quality encoding runs 20+Mbps sustained with peaks to 40+ (during high entropy content). That’s what we need to support if OTT is to be successful. Anything less is just crap schlepper-HD for advertising or cellphones.
What does the future hold? Movies are now being produced (or post-produced) in 4k. Some content is being prepared at 48 frame per second. They’re showing 4k (and even 8K) playback equipment at CES. The data rates needed to provide good fidelity at those standards are even higher.
As dismal as your survey results are, setting the bar at 2Mbps obscures how really awful our nation’s last-mile networks are. Imagine if you set the HD threshold at 25Mbps (or 45, so a BluRay would not have to be transcoded down).