HD Televison Penetration has Doubled This Year.

According to a recent report from the good folks over at Nielsen, the number of households with an HD television has doubled over the previous year, to 23.3%. They predict with now almost one quarter of TV’s in the USA as HD, the demand for HD content will continue to expand dramatically.

What does this mean for independent video producers? Well, if you’re still shooting in SD, you may want to be looking at upgrading your equipment, not just as a future proofing idea, but in a 25% of my viewers will want to watch this in HD today idea. Even if you’re already shooting in HD, the picture is not so rosy when it comes to distribution. Blu-ray disc penetration is still at a paltry 8-9% and a large majority of those are Playstation 3’s. Standard definition DVD’s still are found in 91% of all US households, so you end up with the awkward situation of having an beautiful HDTV connected to a plain old DVD player in many homes.

Perhaps the future of HD distribution is not to be found on shiny plastic discs, but delivered at home directly via the internet? Openfilm, Vimeo, and now even YouTube have gotten into the HD distribution  game, it will be interesting to see how the direct line into the home plays out.

One thing is for sure: twice as many people as last year are bringing HDTV’s into their homes, and they’re going to want to watch something pretty on it.