Digital Lifescapes

Worldwide video on demand (VOD) rentals from over the top (OTT) and pay TV operators, electronic sell-through (EST), and DVD or Blu-ray disc sales are expected to increase by 40 percent from 2013 to 2019 -- growing from $30.6 billion in 2013 to over $43 billion by 2019. Physical media sales will continue its decline, while OTT VOD services and ad-based viewing take significant market share from combined physical purchases and EST, according to the latest market study by ABI Research. "New content windowing strategies, such as early VOD and EST release dates, will continue to push consumers to these distribution channels. In addition as pay-TV operators increasingly pursue OTT initiatives the consumers will further migrate to digital distribution," said Michael Inouye, senior analyst at ABI Research . Despite this trend, physical media will continue to play a significant role for many consumers, particularly for those who have extensive DVD or Blu-ray libraries, purchase...

While streaming video from the cloud is gaining momentum, when it comes to consumers managing and storing their own home video libraries, downloading and viewing digital video on their PC is still the preferred method. According to the latest market study by In-Stat , nearly 50 percent of U.S. broadband households report that they store their digital video home library on their desktop PC. A full 30 percent use their notebook PCs. Smaller percentages store digital video on their gaming devices, portable media players, Flash devices, and mobile handsets. "The digital entertainment industry is pushing U.S. consumers to shift to electronic sell-through (EST) and to build home video libraries." says Keith Nissen, Principal Analyst at In-Sat. However, digital video usage models are now a mix of physical discs, free content, video on demand, streaming and rental models, in addition to outright purchases. Nevertheless, downloading and storing video is a growing and import...