Roku, Chromecast, Amazon Fire TV and Apple TV dominate streaming media device market in the U.S. with 86% of sales, according to a new report by Parks Associates. The analysts believe that “this market concentration will force new entrants to develop unique solutions in order to have an impact in this expanding ecosystem” and we’re sure we’re going to see such a “unique solution” on Sept. 9th.

“Roku continues to lead streaming media device sales in the U.S. with 34% of units sold in 2014. Google is second with 23%, and new entrant Amazon overtook Apple for third place,” said Barbara Kraus, Director of Research, Parks Associates.

The Streaming Media Device Landscape reports that nearly 20% of U.S. broadband households own at least one streaming media player, such as a Roku 3, Amazon Fire TV, or Apple TV. Eight percent own at least one streaming stick, such as a Google Chromecast, Amazon Fire TV Stick, or Roku’s HDMI Streaming Stick, while 2% own both form factors.

Roku devices are the most used among U.S. broadband households that own a streaming media device at 37%, followed by Google Chromecast at 19%, Apple TV at 17%, and Amazon Fire TV devices at 14%

The report estimates that 86 million streaming media devices will be sold globally in 2019.

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Amazon has finally released their home TV set-top device, the Fire TV. With the same price and a similar form factor to the Apple TV, Amazon has joined Roku in their fight for the living room. But how does their offering stack up, and should Apple be worried?

The Specs

Apple’s current offering uses the A5 processor, the same chip in the iPhone 4S, a single-core processor with 512MB RAM. Amazon’s entry is built around a quad-core chip with 2GB of RAM. Clearly, the age of the Apple TV is showing, so from a capabilities and performance perspective, Amazon has the clear edge here. In practice, however, there are minimal expected differences is audio/video content performance, as both devices support 1080p and surround-sound audio. Amazon has raised the stakes a bit with their direct support of on-device games, where the additional CPU and GPU performance can be a major benefit.

A remote is included that stylistically, and thankfully, borrows heavily much more from Apple TV or Roku than the earlier Google TV offerings (remember the Sony remote?). It is much more substantial than the Apple remote, which may help keep it from getting lost in the sofa cushions on a daily basis (a real issue I have with the Apple TV remote). The remote has one additional very interesting feature…

Voice Search

By holding a button on the remote, you can activate Fire TV’s voice search function. Rather than having a remote with a full keyboard, making text entry easy but everything else difficult. Apple’s approach has as many tradeoffs, with general usage easy for a child to do but text entry frustratingly difficult. By integrating voice search directly into the remote, the Amazon approach has another clear leg up on the competition.

Games

Home gaming is in a very interesting state right now. With Sony and Microsoft releasing their fourth-generation home gaming consoles, the high end has never had the level of performance and capability as is available today. Nintendo has fumbled with their Wii-U product, and is struggling to find their feet. And now Amazon has entered the fray by providing a set-top box for a price the fraction of the Sony and Microsoft offerings, with a dedicated gaming controller available for under $40.

The hardware capabilities of the Fire TV, while significant for a streaming device, pale in comparison to the high-end offerings from MS and Sony. And with 8GB of storage on the Fire TV, it is unlikely that a truly immersive gaming experience is in the cards for this device. The ability to play Android games is the true unknown here, and could make the Fire TV a very compelling platform for low-end home gaming. Amazon is also creating their own games, starting with “Sev Zero,” from Amazon Game Studios.

Again, Amazon has a lead over Apple with their current offerings. The ability to play games natively on the device, and to provide an App Store for the games, is not something that Apple has done yet (however, the Apple TV 4 is rumored to come with its own App Store). We don’t yet know how the games or platform will be received, but for the Android gaming community, this has the potential to open up a new market for their enjoyment.

The Real Key: Content

Here is what the whole device market comes down to at its core: content. There are three different models being used for content today.

Roku has taken the most agnostic approach, by primarily relying on third-party content providers. While Roku does offer “M-Go” for direct movies, their primary focus is on providing as many different sources of content as possible, and they currently have over 1,000 “channels” available.

Apple has, unsurprisingly, focused on iTunes as their primary content delivery mechanism. As more and more content types moved to the cloud, the Apple TV became a more capable device, allowing any past purchases of movies, TV shows, and music, to be available at any time without requiring a local computer or copy of iTunes running. Apple has been slowly adding support for additional “channels,” but are nowhere near the 1,000 mark of Roku.

Apple has also opened up the Apple TV to some competitors in the content space, allowing Netflix and Hulu on the device, but Amazon Prime Instant Video is still absent. It is unknown if the absence of Amazon Prime is due to Apple, Amazon, or neither pushing for support.

Amazon is clearly positioning the Fire TV as an Amazon-service preferred device. While their current website and promotional materials list “Netflix” before “Prime Instant Video” in their list of content providers, this is likely due to the current marketshare of Netflix rather than an indication of Amazon’s future plans.

Both Netflix and Amazon have been heavily fighting for both exclusive content deals and original content over the past several months. With the success of Netflix’s “Hose of Cards” and “Orange is the New Black”, they have matured from a replacement for syndicated reruns to a potential legitimate competitor for HBO or Showtime. Likewise, Amazon’s recent success with “Alpha House” has encouraged them to make further investments in original content.

By owning the end-user device responsible for delivering their new content, Amazon has something that has never existed before in the video entertainment space – a true end-to-end experience. In the past, the content providers were reliant on the cable company for the set-top box, and Netflix has relied on third-party devices for the TV interface as well. This certainly has advantages for Amazon over Netflix.

Where Next?

The danger here is one of a new generation of incompatible formats and choices that hinder the end-user experience rather than foster it. Apple’s “walled garden” approach to content and applications means that long-term iTunes customers need to purchase their hardware to access their content, a story that has been consistent from the original iPod. Apple has been opening up access since the introduction of the iPhone SDK in February of 2008, allowing competing content providers to support Apple devices, but never allowing competing devices to access Apple/iTunes content.

Amazon has provide Prime streaming support on Roku, and will obviously provide it on Fire TV, but they have not made it available (or not been allowed to make it available) on the Apple TV. This only hurts the customer, and hopefully will be a short-term problem. With the technology available today, there is no reason the TV devices from every vendor shouldn’t support the top streaming services.

Apple certainly has a vested interest in not opening up their content libraries to other hardware providers, but hopefully Apple and Amazon can come to an agreement that is in the best interest of their mutual customers regarding streaming services.

Amazon has raised the bar in several areas, and are showing some real advancement in terms of the “living room experience.” Apple TV is sorely overdue for an update, and it will be interesting to see Apple’s response.

Also read: 

• Will Apple TV 4 come with Comcast subscriptions?
• Opinion: How Apple can improve the TV experience without the “TV”
• Opinion: Where is Apple taking the TV in 2014?

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Its been a long time since Amazon started cooking its next big thing in video entertainment and after months of rumors and hiccups, they will finally shed the curtain of their very own set-top box.

Amazon has sent out media invitations for a New York event on April 2nd, to witness an update to their video business. And based on the cover photo (shown below) depicting a couch and spilled popcorns, it is safe to guess that we’re looking at Amazon’s move in the living room tech battle.

Obviously, the set-top box will be a streaming device which can be connected to your HDTV to view video content from Amazon Prime Instant Video and will be in direct competition with Apple TV, Roku and Google Chromecast.

It is speculated to be Android-based and to come with support for games and other apps too, controlled by a hardware remote or a mobile app. And guessing from one of their previous trademark filings, the device will be named Amazon FireTube matching their fire tablet lineup.

On the other hand, Apple is rumored to be making some significant changes to the Apple TV in the next update with a brand new interface, support for apps, games and controllers. The set-top box industry is surely heating up quickly and only time will tell who’ll crack the code first.

Read more about Apple TV 4.

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After the release of iPad Air people began re-imagining iPhones to match the “Air” aesthetics. But what about the possibility of an Apple TV Air? Well, nobody was expecting that. Curved is behind this one too, after the wirelessly rechargeable touch-enabled Apple TV remote concept and the remote slash gamepad concepts, showed off in the last couple of weeks.

Unlike what you might think, the Apple TV Air is not an extremely slimmed down version of the current set-top box, instead, it is a whole new category of device. Similar to Google’s Chromecast and Roku Stick, the Apple TV Air is a HDMI dongle, which plugs directly into your HDTV and streams content from your iPhone or iPad.

According to Curved, the device could be just half the size of the current remote and will work over Bluetooth rather than IR (since it would always be hidden behind your TV). This reduction in size and the plastic used would cut down the price to about $49, which would be the cheapest way ever to AirPlay.

It consists of two parts: the HDMI ‘dongle’ (the actual Apple TV) and a small remote control, both sold together in one box for aprox. 49 $/EUR.

Cult Of Mac’s Buster Heine speculates that if Apple TV Air ever comes to life, it’ll not be an Apple TV replacement, instead a low cost alternative to the costly future powerhouse Apple TVs. Well, that makes some sense.

I know, it is a long shot to speculate based on just a concept, but do let us know what you guys think.

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I woke up this morning to the news of two major content additions to Apple TV. This has been a routine lately but the difference here is that neither of these adds a new channel icon to the home screen, but instead streams within existing apps. Thank God they do!

First and the more exiting one is that The Oscars will be available for live stream first time ever. Yep! ABC is bringing live telecast of the Academy Awards night and the ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live: After the Oscars‘ show to the Watch ABC channel on Apple TV and the corresponding iOS app. But apparently not everyone is entitled to the privilege as they’ve laid down a pretty complex and long list of restrictions on who can access the stream.

The show’s livestream will be available to Watch ABC authenticated users through eight providers: Comcast, Cablevision, Cox Communications, Charter Communications, Midcontinent Communications, Verizon FiOS, Google Fiber and AT&T U-verse. The service is available only in ABC’s eight owned-station markets: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Houston, Raleigh-Durham, N.C., and Fresno, Calif.

To know whether you can watch the content or what you need to do the get access, visit this link. However if you can’t get it, a special highlights show ‘Oscars Backstage‘ will be released soon after the event for all users.

Coming to the other half, ESPN has added about 15 Collegiate Sports Conference channels to its WatchESPN channels on Apple TV. Thankfully, these are much less complicated than the former as anyone can follow their favourite College conferences with just a click.

The included channels are America East, Atlantic Sun, Big South, Big West, MEAC, SWAC, CIA, Horizon, MAC, MAAC, Missouri Valley, Northeast, Ohio Valley, Southern, Sun Belt and Southland.

However analysts are confused to see the ACC Network among these new channels ‘coz this sports streaming giant was rumoured to be in talks with ESPN for a full-fledged dedicated network. Anyway, these channels are planned to cover more than 2000 men’s and women’s events starting with the Basketball tournament.

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People’s love for AirPlay continues unabated as recent report by a market research outfit shows that Apple TV worldwide sales are over half of all dedicated streaming boxes. A report by Frost & Sullivan dubbed the Consumer Video Devices Market report indicates that Apple TV devices global sales account for 56.1 percent, with Roku coming in second at 21.5 percent and TiVo third with a mere 6.5 percent.

By the end of the first quarter 2013, Apple TV device sales were more than 13 million. Roku announced it had made 5 million sales by April, but in the US market. Other vendors are yet to release their sales numbers but according to Frost & Sullivan’s estimations, none exceeds one million device sales per year.

Analyst Dan Rayburn of Frost & Sullivan accords the Apple TV device’s success to the popularity of iPhones and iPads. In an executive summary of the report, he says the simplicity that the AirPlay feature brings to the process of transferring tablet and laptop displays to a TV screen without streaming is the primary reason why people purchase Apple TV devices.

This sales data does not include game consoles, which comprise the lion share of the online video streaming marketplace. The all-time most popular Netflix streaming device in terms of bandwidth consumption has been PS3 from Sony, followed by Xbox 360 from Microsoft.

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