rteeter writes “A new study predicts audio and video on demand will kill CDs and DVDs.”
The study predicts that in five years, CDs and DVDs will start to go the way of the vinyl LP as 33% of music sales and 19% of home video revenue shifts to streaming and downloading.
“The idea that anyone who has video-on-demand access to any movie they are interested in would get up and go to Blockbuster just doesn’t make any sense,” Bernoff said. “(The decline) begins with rentals, but eventually I think sales of these pieces of plastic are going to start going away because people will have access to whatever they want right there at their television set.”
Death of the discs?
Ya gotta love “studies” by “industry analysts,” which are pretty consistently “I’ll tell you what you paid me to tell you, and get it in the press as well.”
“Freeing entertainment from the shackles of the disc” means “making sure that studios and publishers can lock things down so they get paid every time any use is made.”
If physical media did go away–which seems unlikely as long as people like having collections–libraries would be one big loser: There is no role for libraries in a pure pay-per-view future. Fortunately, such a future is unlikely.
(For just a sample of the knowledge represented by this report, note that Berman seems to view “driving to Blockbuster” and video-on-demand as the only alternatives for getting the movies you want. Netflix and competitors? I guess they don’t actually exist.)
Heck, I pretty much stopped making fun of Forrester and its ilk because it’s like shooting fish in a barrel. And if you were to go back four or five years and track their predictions (before the constant “fine tuning” that goes on), it would be howlingly funny. Unless, of course, you’re paying big bucks for those reports.
Re:Death of the discs?
Thank you, Walt. I’m glad I posted this article. If the prediction were true, it would have implications for libraries. If the report failed to consider some aspects of the subject, someone (most likely Walt) would point that out.
Re:Death of the discs?
I’m glad you posted it too. Thanks.
These guys are idiots
Only thing that’s a threat to DVDs/CDs are Flash drives. You’re gonna want your own data, and you’re gonna want it portable. Not everytyhing is net capable. And you’re not gonna want to pay for everything over and over and over again. Unless we get real subscription services – ie: a $20 yearly media fee, for any movie/music, any time you want it, we’re not gonna see the death of ownership. And even if that were to occur, people like me would still archive. It’s interesting to watch people revise history.
— Ender, Duke_of_URL