A new BBC survey tells us that more users are finding something better to watch from the Internet instead of regular TV.

              
  YouTube has changed the way we watch video on the web

While much of the online video content from sites like Youtube is said to be commercial clips that are breaching copyright by being on video sharing websites, the video trend has followed that which music took a few years ago with Napster and the clones.

There’s more video online to watch than ever, with an increasing number of people deciding to log on, tune in to their favourite video website, and watch.

A survey of 2070 people on TV viewing habits in the UK, by British firm ICM for the UK’s national TV broadcaster, the BBC has uncovered some interesting statistics.

More information on the report can be found at the link earlier in this sentence, but the report does tell us that: “Some 43% of Britons who watch video from the internet or on a mobile device at least once a week said they watched less normal TV as a result, with three quarters of users said they now watched more than they did a year ago”.

The survey also tells us that only 9% of the population saying they watch online TV regularly, but  13% said they watched occasionally, with another 10% saying they expect to start watching online TV in the coming year.

This bodes well for online video sites jealous of the Youtube phenomenon, with plenty of sites out there offering all kinds of video for people to watch.

Besides websites that show live streams of TV stations from around the world, there are hundreds of channels and shows, letting any couch potato easily become an online TV mouse potato as desired.

The BBC has also published an interesting article called ‘What to watch on the web’ listing many of the places you can go to watch just about anything you can think of, and it’s definitely worthy of bookmarking for future reference.

Another factor that would be causing a drop off in regular TV viewing is the downloading of pirate TV shows from the Internet, rather than trying to find pirate content on sites like Youtube which are being heavily scrutinized for pirate content.

BitTorrent networks are known to offer a wide range of pirated content, from music, movies, TV shows, software, ebooks and more, with TV programs airing in the US or elsewhere in the world being available only hours after airing on TV for download by anyone around the world.

Moves by Apple with the iTunes store, and Microsoft with the Xbox 360 video download service, are trying to blunt the never ending advance of pirate TV and movie content by making them easy to access, easy to purchase, and easy to watch.

With iTunes, shows can be watched on a computer screen, or on an iPod, with Apple’s iTV device to make watching downloaded content easy on a regular TV set.

Microsoft’s Xbox 360 video download service doesn’t yet allow transfer of video content to the Zune or other portable media player, but could easily offer this service in the future. And as most Xbox 360s are already hooked up to a TV, and often an HDTV, watching downloaded video content from your Xbox 360 is a no-brainer.

The big problem with much of today’s online TV is the poor quality of the picture. While some video is recorded on mobile phones and then sent to Youtube or other sites, more and more semi-professional and professional works are appearing on some of these sites.

BitTorrent TV shows are said to often be recordings from HD broadcasts, with video quality much better than that experienced on most Youtube video clips.

The TV show downloads from online services that run on the iPod or on a computer often have either only adequate picture quality or can only be played on a computer screen (unless you plug your computer into a compatible large screen TV).

At least with the Xbox 360, the possibility of legally downloading a range of HDTV programming is available to US users.

Whichever way you look at it, there’s more video online than ever before, and the ever widening spread of broadband at ever faster speeds makes watching and enjoying online video content a far more rewarding experience.

What will you be watching tonight, something on TV, or something from the Internet?

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