No, not Disco, Disc. Disc is dead. The existing iTunes movies and video model may be flawed but digital distribution is the way of the future. If the rumor mill is right, tomorrow Apple will reinvent this space.
Blueray and HD-DVD are all stopgap measures for a medium whose time has come and gone. Just watch, I'll be entirely wrong on this one--but it seems to me that as we enter the age of ubiquitous over-the-air connectivity that digital distribution is the answer.
And I can even see this as a win for the studios--with on demand streaming they retain far more control over the product than they do with disc yet create a product channel that consumers don't mind paying for so long as both sides see this as a bargain. I know there are plenty of customers out there whose drawers and shelves are filled with DVDs that they've watched precisely once and who would be happy to buy a movie "ticket" for $2.99 or $3.99 for an experience they don't have to return to netflix or find somewhere to store.
So far many things have been a big disaster. Walmart is shutting down their movies site. Amazon Unbox has been a bit of a failure. NBC withdrew content from iTunes. And yet at the same time, Comcast has upped its on demand library and Apple looks like its got a vision of where things are going.
I remain hopeful that maybe digital media is coming into its own.
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Mac
Comments (1)
Read More Entries by Erica Sadun.
I want to believe this is true, but there's something that I really haven't seen discussed around this issue: bandwidth. I'm fortunate enough to have a DSL connection with unlimited bandwidth, but all of the higher-speed options (fiber optic, cable) in my city come with bandwidth limits. Some of them are fairly low, such as 10 gigs/month. I already use nearly that much and I don't download movies. For the disk to die, ISPs need to provide unlimited bandwidth or at least increase their limits to accommodate video downloading.