Survey says cable's VOD is the big winner in digital distribution

You have a hard time finding someone who believes that packaged media won't die some day, but there are plenty of theories as to what will replace it. Some believe it'll be some sort of internet delivery that'll free us from discs, but a recent survey from Centris tells a different story. First off discs are still king as almost 36 million rented a new release, and 31 million choose to buy 'em. Digital actually did pretty good by making up a third of the pie, but of those 32 million households, only 4 million did it via the internet, while the lion's share went to on demand at 18 million. All this is interesting stuff and while no one knows how it'll turn out, it is hard to see the cable companies loosing their grip on this one as well.

[Meekermoloko Posted Mar 31st 2010 10:46PM]

Renting a DVD is still cheaper than say ... Amazon On Demand or any other On-Demand service. I'd rather go to a RedBox and pay $1 than $3-5 just for the convenience of being able to stream using my internet.

As far as buying is concerned. We have it in our heads that buying will save us money in the long run since we'll watch a movie multiple times. For me, I have bought many DVDs, but I usually only watch them once or twice (with some exceptions) ... so that doesn't equate to simply renting the movies. It's just convenient knowing it's there.

For me, I'm not going to buy as many Blu-Ray titles as I did DVD ... especially if I own the movie already. 3D Blu-Rays will be even less. We're getting tired of having "stuff" on our shelves. We don't want movie discs, game discs, music discs, or books collecting dust. We want them all available in one location.

When a service like Netflix gets their streaming service up to 100,000 movie/TV titles ... and in Blu-Ray quality HD, you'll see many more people flocking over to that. We got to pump up our Broadband service first or it won't work.

[EatingPie Posted Mar 31st 2010 10:58PM]

If the title isn't on your shelf, then where is it? And how do you get to it?

We can talk all we want about being "free of discs," but for purchased movies, that is a myth. You still need to store your download somewhere. At this point in the game, that's on a disc; an HDD, but still a disc.

I already own more Blu-rays than DVDs, and am gladly duplicating them due to the incredible jump in quality. Since I am on Netflix, I don't do VOD very often, but there's no doubt instant access to a huge library is a pretty good reason to rent from your CableCo. And then there's ease of use. So it's no surprise VOD is the big winner in the streaming realm.

-Pie

[knewman Posted Apr 1st 2010 2:32AM]

VOD is winning because there is no setup involved. It's already in my parents living room, they've seen enough Comcast ads to know how to get what they want, and they don't need to create an account or enter a CC number. I believe that above all else ease of use is the deciding factor on the digital distrobution side of the pie.

[(Unverified) Posted Apr 1st 2010 12:47PM]

@knewman Yeah, I think so. People are just so freaking lazy. Are they counting VOD from DirecTV and Dish as internet or VOD? It's technically internet, but from a billing perspective, it's VOD.