The shape of video sales by movie studios to consumers is likely to change substantially over the next four years due in part to emerging optical HD playback formats, video on demand services and pay TV, according to a recent report from In-Stat.
In “The Changing Face of Studio Video Sales: Grow New Markets, Push High Definition, Get Interactive,” the market research firm finds that sales of standard-definition DVDs are reaching their peak and that the future of content delivery is a bit unclear with various technologies competing.
According to In-Stat analyst Gerry Kaufhold, the migration to HD optical disc formats “is not going smoothly.” The PC industry wants to provide downloadable movies and pay TV providers want to deliver movies as part of their VOD services and add them to disk-based set-top boxes and to their HD services, he said. All of these factors raise question marks about what precise role optical-based HD home recording formats will have.
According to the survey:
- By 2009, the worldwide retail value of Hollywood video content sold at retail will be $50 billion annually;
- By 2009, 41 percent of U.S. television households will watch movies on HDTV displays;
- DVD players that support HDMI deliver high-definition quality today, so next-generation HD optical products will need to provide something more;
- More than 40 percent of Japanese households will have wide-screen HDTV sets by 2009, and Europe and other Asian markets are already seeing robust sales of HDTV displays.
For more information, visit www.instat.com.
