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DEG (The Digital Entertainment Group) has released figures for the home entertainment industry that points to a transition from physical media to digital.
While people generally spent less in 2011, movie lovers continued their love affair with Blu-ray, and seemed to have fully embraced digital distribution as a new way to get their movies.
Despite the quality of films on offer declining, at least in terms of financial value, by 8.6%, total spending on packaged media and digital distribution only declined by about 2%.
But delving deep inside the 2%, two different images start to appear. On one hand, spending on packaged media fell 13%, mostly due to declining DVD sales (Blu-ray spending rose 20%, and for the first time ever, exceeded the $2 billion mark), digital spending rose 51% to $3.42 billion.
Driving digital distribution was Video-On-Demand, accounting for more than half of the spending on digital media.
But that isn't to say that consumers will abandon discs anytime soon. As mentioned earlier, Blu-ray spending rose 20%, but the DEG also revealed that more than 40 million homes in the US now have a Blu-ray player, up 38% from last year. DEG also says that UltraViolet, the much maligned cloud based storage format launched last year, will actually help Blu-ray sales in 2012, with 100 titles to be released featuring support for the platform, helping to still keep physical media relevant in the age of digital.
While people generally spent less in 2011, movie lovers continued their love affair with Blu-ray, and seemed to have fully embraced digital distribution as a new way to get their movies.
Despite the quality of films on offer declining, at least in terms of financial value, by 8.6%, total spending on packaged media and digital distribution only declined by about 2%.
But delving deep inside the 2%, two different images start to appear. On one hand, spending on packaged media fell 13%, mostly due to declining DVD sales (Blu-ray spending rose 20%, and for the first time ever, exceeded the $2 billion mark), digital spending rose 51% to $3.42 billion.
Driving digital distribution was Video-On-Demand, accounting for more than half of the spending on digital media.
But that isn't to say that consumers will abandon discs anytime soon. As mentioned earlier, Blu-ray spending rose 20%, but the DEG also revealed that more than 40 million homes in the US now have a Blu-ray player, up 38% from last year. DEG also says that UltraViolet, the much maligned cloud based storage format launched last year, will actually help Blu-ray sales in 2012, with 100 titles to be released featuring support for the platform, helping to still keep physical media relevant in the age of digital.