According to a new report from IHS Screen Digest, streamed videos will overtake physical discs for the first time ever, in 2012.
In the U.S., consumers will stream videos 3.4 billion times, compared to watching 2.4 billion physical discs.
It is the end of an era, notes Dan Cryan of IHS: "After more than 30 years of buying and renting movies on tapes and discs, this year marks the tipping point."
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How much did Netflix paid Cryan to write such big load of BS?! First of all the article is missleading and contradictory, since streaming hasn't overtaken physical discs, and admits discs are nowhere near from disappearing, rather a wishful thought than a realistic prediction. It's not the consumers, but movie and television studios, that don't accept premium content distributed first online, and they're the ones that dictade the manner in which we all consume their products. Streaming old catalog films and TV shows, any profit is welcome, most people won't spend big bucks on them anyway, but brand new films and TV shows is a whole different story.
A TV show biggest profit comes from advertising on TV channels, a film's biggest profits comes from selling tickets and discs, really don't need to be a genius to observe that, for the dollars you pay for 1 movie ticket or 1 DVD/Blu-ray, you could pay 1 monthly fee on Netflix, therefore streaming is less profitable, so don't insult our inteligence with such claims, no studio will withdraw their brand new premium content from being released first on DVD/Blu-ray, which gives them more profit on a 1 disc/client basis.
Who cares if they want to release their latest crapfests on disk first? I can wait a month or two...in fact, I probably won't watch most of it even when it is online! Really the only advantage disks have is quality...netflix still can't come close to bluray quality...but then, so few good movies have been released on bluray that it is almost a non-issue.
If you are making widgets and the only cost is R&D...with free production, what condition would you rather have?
1.) Selling 1,000,000 widgets at $20 each.
2.) Selling 100,000,000 widgets at $0.50 each.
Studio exec's are dumb (they green lit the Candy Land movie)...but sooner or later they will see reality. Actually, I hope to one day see both disks and theaters disappear...make a movie available worldwide on day one for $0.50 a view and you will rake in more profit by the end of the week than the biggest blockbuster makes over the course of 20 years.
@ematrix - I don't understand, certain movie companies put restrictions on Redbox and netflix not to rent their new releases for 30 days after they come out to profit on full-price streaming and disc purchases.
@Killerbug- What movie doesn't come out on BR & DVD nowadays?
@20tons - yes, I hope so. I hope this article is BS. It has been a long time fear of mine that movies will follow the way of the music cd. No more Hi-def. Lets face it, people would rather sacrifice quality to get their media in a more compact and easily accessible fashion. Hence MP3 technology, Itunes, Amazon MP3 downloading, and the mere vacancy of tangible music cds at Bestbuy. Not me. Long live the DISC!
