Right on the heels of our post about LG Electronics adding Netflix Watch Instantly capability to its HDTV ranges, comes brand-new research commissioned by Internet TV software company Oregan Networks and semiconductor company Micronas, about consumer expectations of HDTV purchase drivers.

The study was carried out by Strategy Analytics, home of occasional Connected TV blogger David Mercer, so it’s worth taking note of its findings, which relate to the issue of ‘TV media browsing’ via the Internet.

Bearing out what we suggested in our LG/Netflix post, it turns out that the ability to access Video on Demand services without the need for a PC or any other equipment was considered to be the most valuable feature of a TV media browser, for all user segments. The second most valuable feature was considered to be the ability to search the home network for media and content stored on other devices. Ability to access user-generated content such as YouTube videos was ranked third on average overall.

In addition, 87% of respondents said they would select a TV with a media browser (if the option were available) because it would offer them more entertainment choices, while 71% of all respondents said they would prefer a default media browser to be installed.

Another interesting finding (which relates to our post on online video advertising) is that 51% of all respondents would prefer to watch movies for free with advertising. Of the remaining 49%, half (25%) would only pay to watch movies if they were still in theatres (this is pretty much a deal-breaker at present, it should be said – the studios are nowhere near releasing movies for VOD, on the Internet or otherwise, while they’re still showing in cinemas!). The other half (24%) were prepared to pay for movies with no ads.

Finally, the study also investigated key consumer concerns about browsing Internet media on TV, and found that the largest proportion of comments related to the perceived ability to download or stream media at a sufficiently high speed to provide an acceptable quality of audiovisual experience. 17% of respondents also had concerns about how user-friendly the browser would be, while 12% had concerns about the TV being more expensive to fix if it were to break. Only 6% of respondents were concerned how much the television would cost to buy – which is just as well considering LG’s reported $200-300 premium!

Implicit in the use of a term ‘browser’ is the ability to access different services, although the research did find that gated services such as Netflix were amongst those perceived as “adding most value to the regular TV feature set” (others included You Tube and Hulu). Nevertheless, insofar as the study provides evidence about consumer willingness to use their TVs to access Internet media material, it is clear that their enthusiasm relates to an open Internet model, rather than a walled garden. The jury is out on how much adding, say, only Netflix ‘browsing’ capability, would depress these findings.

Back to that perennial source of interest, mobile video.

Nielsen has just published a consumer insight piece about its growth prospects, itself extracted from a new white paper by its telecoms practice (here, note large PDF file).

The overall message is, as we have reported before, that consumer take-up of mobile video remains low, even where lots of handsets have access to it (note that Nielsen is not talking here about mobile broadcast TV, but the one-to-one 3G variety).Nielsen found that in 2008, the overall use of mobile video in the US stood at just 5% of all subscribers – low compared to other mobile media such as Internet access, ringtones and games. In fact, this is high by international standards, Nielsen reckons, with the UK on only 3%, for instance (see table below).

Figure 1: International Mobile Video Penetration (Q3 2008)

Source: The Nielsen CompanyNB Sweden estimate is Q1 2008, US figure is for subs aged 13+, all other markets 15+

Other notable findings:

• 42% of mobile users in the US access video via a subscription
• The top occasion for mobile video use is ‘while waiting for someone or something’ (59% of mobile video users); followed by ‘while travelling away from home’ (51%); and ‘while at home’ (37%) – a result which has been widely replicated in studies of mobile broadcast TV usage
• Comedy is most popular form of mobile video content today
• In Q3 2008, 54% of mobile video viewers reported average session lengths of 15 minutes-plus
• The typical mobile video viewers tunes into their phone for an average of 3hrs 37mins per month

Note that the last figure equates to just 13 minutes or so per day – given the small user base, not really the basis for a mass-market advertising proposition, as yet, particularly given its fragmentation across different mobile video platforms.Nielsen, while realistic about mobile video’s prospects, believes (like Videonuze) that mobile video could take off in 2009, but only on three conditions:

1. The expanded use of mobile Web and mobile Web video (e.g. You Tube)
2. The rollout of mobile broadcast TV
3. An improved advertising subsidization of subscription-based streaming mobile video services

While agreeing on the first point, Connected TV does not see many indications at present that conditions 2) and 3) are likely to be satisfied to the extent that they will lead to a turnaround any time soon. Mobile broadcast TV seems to be moribund, at least in Europe (but see here re analogue variants), and we have a chicken-and-egg situation with the advertisers. They won’t take it seriously as a medium until it becomes much bigger, but it seems it can’t become much bigger without advertising.