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.

How did that quote from President Herbert Hoover go: A Chicken in Every Pot and a Car in Every Garage… something like that. It was a campaign promise to raise American living standards during the Industrial Revolution in the 1920s. Americans have always embraced new industry and technology with gusto and reverence, and new predictions that Blu-ray technology will be in nearly half the American homes in about 2 years seems to want to follow that trend. You can rent or purchase most any new movie right now on Blu-ray, but the players and burners are still considered a bit pricey for the average home theater.

CE Pro reports that Blu-ray sales were down by 7% in October, which has become the “new” beginning of the Holiday Shopping Season, given the plethora of Christmas decorations in the stores and Holiday music emanating from the Muzak speakers during the month of October. (Honestly, am I the only one that thinks there should be a ban on any Christmas music until at least AFTER Halloween… remember when you didn’t even hear any “Caroling Caroling Caroling” until Thanksgiving?)

According to the report, Singulas, a German technology company, expects about 50% of households to own Blu-ray by 2010, but other reports say that technology in households which allow users to easily gather video over the internet, cable and satellite will prevent Blu-ray from going very far.

Perhaps the Blu-ray HDDVD wars hurt the technology, due to the long-dragged out battle, and other technology moved to the forefront. What do you think? Is this the beginning of the end of separate machines in your home theater? Will we have a One Source to Rule Them All?

Time will tell, stay tuned.