Increasing Popularity of OTT Services among Individuals Across the Globe to Drive Streaming Media Devices Market Growth
Streaming media devices are consumer electronics that are designed for storage, playback, or viewing digital media content. These devices can be seamlessly integrated into home theatre system and attached to a television or AV receiver. Streaming media devices is often described as a small computer dedicated to streaming content through television and can be connected to the TV via HDMI cable and leverages internet connection through Ethernet or Wi-Fi. Podcasts, movies, TV shows, and music videos are some common forms of streaming content. Streaming media devices connect to TV through TV service provider or app. Dedicated streaming media devices such as Apple TV provider a wide range of options for viewing content on the TV. These devices are often pre-loaded with dozens of popular streaming channels and apps and users can add more when they want to.
Several Blu-ray players and newer video game consoles often act as streaming devices albeit with certain limitations. Streaming device is a hardware that enables users to stream audio and video on smart TV and are often small cube boxes and process data that come from the streaming services. Streaming devices are standalone gadgets that can be directly connected to streaming services. To use them, individuals must subscribe to streaming services — some of which are available with monthly subscription while some are free. Once connected to the streaming device, users can stream videos non-stop. Numerous advantages of streaming devices include it loads content faster as their processors are fast enough to cater to the demands and requirements of streaming services, has more available streaming services, and is safer in terms of privacy of users as the streaming devices come with robust privacy policies.
In April 2022, Amazon Fire TV announced the launch of Audio Streaming for Hearing Aids (ASHA) on Fire TV Cube fir compatible Bluetooth hearing aids from Starkey, making it the first-ever streaming media device in the United States to offer support for ASHA. According to the e-commerce giant, improving TV sound quality was among the most common requested features by the users of hearing aids. Customers can now directly connect their compatible hearing aids to Fire TV Cube for private listening. This will give then the ability to enjoy audio from streaming services, apps, games, and even Alexa. ASHA on Fire TV Cube leverages data that encodes the sound directly to the tiny antenna in the hearing aid in the digital format. Hearing aids compatible with Fire TV Cube in the United States include Starkey that manufactures Audibel, NuEar, Audigy, and MicroTech brands.
Major companies in the market include VCA Technology, Amazon.com, Inc., Apple, Inc. Google LLC, HUMAX, Philips Electronics, Nvidia Corporation, Sony Corporation, Samsung Electronics, and Roku, Inc. in May 2022, Laminar, which is a start-up that provides video streaming infrastructure to media and entertainment companies, announced that it had raised USD 5.1 million in seed funding. This investment comes at a time when there is a rapid adoption of cloud-based software solutions in the media companies as the consumption of video content is rapidly increasing across the globe.
