At LAT, "Hollywood downloads a post-DVD future."
Across Hollywood, a quiet revolution is brewing that's about to transform living rooms around the world.More at the link.
After desperate attempts to prop up the industry's once-thriving DVD business, studio executives now believe the only hope of turning around a 40% decline in home entertainment revenue lies in rapidly accelerating the delivery of movies over the Internet.
In the next few years, the growing number of consumers with Internet-connected televisions, tablets and smartphones will face a dizzying array of options designed to make digital movie consumption a lot more convenient and to entice users to spend more money.
With films that can be accessed on any digital device, downloaded as iPhone apps or shared on Facebook as easily as a photo, it may be the biggest shift in Hollywood's business model since the explosion of the DVD in the late 1990s.
"The days of baby steps on the Internet are over," said David Bishop, president of Sony Pictures' home entertainment unit. "It's now critical that we experiment as much as possible and determine how to build a vibrant market for collecting digital movies."
The Times previewed the Sunday paper yesterday, and I mentioned the end of the DVD to my oldest son. He's been watching movies and TV shows online for years. But when I asked him about it he said, "Oh, that's lame. DVDs are cool." I agree. They're fun to have around, as a physical object. That said, I can't seem to find any of my old 8-track tapes anywhere. So what can you do?
