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As everyone on the Web knows by now, Steve Jobs does not think too highly of Flash and therefore you cannot watch Flash videos on the the iPad (or the iPhone). Apple’s position has stirred a lot of debate about how much video on the Web is iPad-friendly. It turns out that about two thirds of new videos are currently being encoded in the H.264 format, which is playable on the iPad, but media sites still need to either package that video in an app or in an HTML5 video player viewable in the iPad’s browser. Streaming Media decided to shed more light on the issue by surveying 1,147 online media professionals about their iPad and HTML5 video plans in a report available here. According to the survey, 49 percent plan to support HTML5 video on their media sites by the end of next year, and 36 percent plan to support video on the iPad either through dedicated apps or an iPad compatible Website.

According to recent research from the Pew Internet Project, 52% of the American population is watching videos online — that’s 69% of all Internet-connected American adults. If online video watching continues at its current rate of growth, in just under 5 years, almost every American with an Internet (Internet) connection (i.e., the vast majority of Americans, period) will be watching video online. This includes video streamed from the web and downloaded video and encompasses sites such as YouTube (YouTube), Vimeo (Vimeo), Hulu (Hulu), DailyMotion and others. In the current survey, Pew researchers found that the majority (61%) of American, adult Internet users watch short clips, television shows and movies on video-sharing sites such as YouTube. These sites have exploded in popularity over the past several years and are on a trajectory to dominate the space. By contrast, just 33% of Internet users in 2006 had watched a video on a vid-sharing site.

Cisco Systems has predicted that Internet networking traffic will have quadrupled between 2009 and 2014 in its Annual Visual Networking Index Forecast. It also predicted that online video will be the primary driver of that growth. Cisco’s report says that 767 exabytes of data (one exabyte is the equivalent of one billion gigabytes) will be transferred online in 2014, and that 91% of consumer traffic will be online video, which will include both traditional web video and video-on-demand provided by television providers.

Online video viewers are tuning in to more broadcast content, driving increases in the number of views and the amount of time spent watching traditional TV fare through the web, according to new data from Brightcove and TubeMogul. The Online Video & the Media Industry quarterly research report looks at video data from different segments of Brightcove customers, including broadcasters, newspaper publishers, music labels and magazine publishers.

For years, online video has been viewed primarily as a time-wasting activity that happens during work hours or when people aren’t near a TV or other forms of entertainment. But that could be changing, as new data from Scanscout suggests that online video is sneaking into the living room during primetime hours.