Comments on: Survey: Consumers prefer DVDs to downloads

Despite trend toward digital downloads, U.S. consumers still prefer to watch favorite TV shows and movies on DVD, says market researcher NPD.

[docster87]

Why deal with DVD's, the physical moving the disc, switching discs. I have about 250 movies on iTunes that I can pull up and switch with just a few clicks.
Problem I have is that (legal) downloads lack the bonus features, lack the cost of physical production, etc etc, AND hollywood insists that downloads should be inflated in price to match DVD. Why would someone pay $15 for a product that is worse quality and has to backup themselves when they can get the DVD for same price or even cheaper if on sell - likely due to overproduction. Hollywood is (IMO) really missing the boat. Slash download prices would increase sells and a ton of people would still buy DVDs.

[epross]

No kidding, your average 65 year-old, or 3 year old for that matter, can't be bothered, or figure out how to download, stream, etc. but they can all drop a disc in the tray and hit play on the remote. When they make downloads as convenient and easy as DVD you will see a shift. Right now the entry barriers are still too high to the novice (i.e. average) person to make them want to switch.

[jabuser]

"Discs are still and by far the dominant way Americans enjoy home video, but there is an increasing appetite for digital options"? Huh? Discs ARE digital (DVD, HD-DVD and Blu-Ray alike). Regardless of whether the inaccuracy is disingenuous or simply due to a poor understanding of the technologies being reviewed, the survey's credibility takes a big hit. Unless maybe it's a couple decades late in pointing out that digital media will supplant VHS.

[freemarket--2008]

I think it's clear to most people that one format is purely digital (a computer file) while the other is a digital format stored on a physical disk. Enough with the nitpicking.

[jabuser]

I must respectfully disagree. The assumption that everyone "gets it" when we use technical terms imprecisely leads to those terms being applied ambiguously or incorrectly in popular usage, which in turn leads to journalists and policy makers throwing around misleading jargon they may or may not understand, which in turn leads to bad decisions by manufacturers and politicians when they try to appease public sentiment.

[sodapop2k9]

The reason why we prefer DVDs is because we dont fully own movie downloads. We can't burn them to DVD...

[jmans1212]

I am one that I believe Downloads will be better in the near future. I agree with the DVR and satelite. You can expand your DVR with hard drives etc. I am not sure how long DVD's will be around. I know I may go the way of the DVR as a future plan especially if the movie industry wins the case with not allowing people to back up their DVD's to a hard drive.

[unknown unknown]

Not surprising, with more ISPs implementing anti-competitive caps to hinder streaming video.

[rucknrun]

My problem is I don't trust the companies providing the digital downloads. I want to see something in plain view stating what I can and can't do with the digital download. I am not paying for something I can only play on some proprietary player. They don't tell you these things for a reason DRM is still a huge problem with this stuff.

For instance, the digital copy that comes in some Blu Ray disks. There is nothing you can do with that if you don't use Itunes. It is a waste.

[Stormspace]

Not surprising a bit...
1) Legal downloads, while convenient do not provide a legal and easy way to transport videos from one location to another and be able to watch them on a TV screen anywhere you go. Not to mention the blackout periods that can still be attached to your purchased product should you need to download it again. Amazon is bad about this, buy a movie, delete it, and try to redownload it later only to find out the movie you purchased is in a blackout period and you cannot download your paid for product again until the blackout lapses.

2) Other downloads and DVD rips are still way too difficult to move about on devices due to varying codecs and portable device requirements. Most people don't or won't bother.

[Stammy12]

Does this take into account set-top boxes? I know they aren't in every home, but I definitely use my VUDU much more than any other system to watch movies. I don't like watching movies on my computer, but I would still consider it "downloading" when it is through my VUDU Box.

[ahypnoz1]

AppleTV
Are family use to buy Dvd's at Sam's Wholesale or Walmart all the time until we bought are AppleTV.
It is great, 30 sec wait to buffer for a TV show than watch it. The AppleTV automatically backs up to our computer wirelessly. Any extra shows that will not fit on the "small" hard disk (200 hours of video) on the AppleTV are rotated through to the main Apple computer. The computer automatically backs up all TV shows and Movies to a hard disk with Time Machine.
The best thing of course is that you can have it available to down load automatically to your iPhone.
1-2 movies and a couple of unwatched TV shows.
The question to ask is how many people with AppleTV still buy DVD's
In fact I used the same cables that my DVD was plugged into my TV and just put the Apple TV on it instead.
Really easy.

[azzuro2006]

The key is that this is the case NOW. Going forward I doubt it very much. I have an Apple TV, and I seldom BUY content on-line, but I often RENT it. It works well because I have a fast internet connection - after I rent a HD movie, I can start watching it in less than 3 minutes. I wouldn't BUY the content on-line for several reasons. 1) It has DRM, 2) It costs the same as buying the DVD which in principal is soo wrong...given that you are cutting out all the middle men. Then again, I think fewer people will Buy content and choose to Rent it instead. People do not realize that on average you watch a movie once or maybe twice. You would have to rent a movie more than 3 times before it makes more sense to purchase it. The cost of Blu Ray content is still too high for it to go truly mainstream. HD on Apple TV is better than DVD but not quite as good as Blu Ray. But it is much more convenient and cheaper over the long term to rent movies on-line than to buy them. I would only buy a handful of Blu Ray movies - my all time favourites that I like to watch over and over.

[Mombasa1969]

Truly portable media, stored on a disc is what most 'normal' people will always want, it's convenient, and above all totally independant from a HDD (that will always need to be replaced someday) what happens when your HDD fails, you've lost everything.

Downloading is just a novelty and always will be, normal people like to own movies, music on a tried and system, like they love their books.

The day civilization relies on down-streaming and downloads for everything is the day civilization fails.

Only nerds with huge HDD's love to download, Itunes is a big fail also, far too restricting, I've tried it and dumped it, I have access to VoD, downloads the lot, but it'll never replace my beloved DVD, CD, VHS collection.