Death of Physical Media

Remember when everyone walked around with a CD player? If not then ask someone from an older generation, and they will tell you that CD players were like MP3 players today. But when was the last time you went out and bought a CD? Yes they are still sold at places like Best Buy, and F.Y.E., but when the iPod which was announced by Apple back on October 23, 2001, then later released on November 10, 2001, the way we listen to music began to change.

It must be mentioned however that even though companies like Archos, and Creative, had released their versions of MP3 players first, the fire really caught on with Apple‘s iPod. At first, people were a little unsure as to how this new form of music exchange would work. Up to this point, any music you owned, came in the form of physical media, like tapes, or CD’s.

Apple, along with other companies were suggesting that you could now listen to music, by downloading it from your computer directly onto your MP3 device, and only have to carry the device around with you, no extra tapes or CD’s. Downloading music was already something that people did, and were used to, since burning CD’s was a very popular way of limiting the amount of CD’s you carried around with you, but now with the emergence of the MP3 player, the way we carried around our music was about to be streamlined even further.

The Apple iPod really caught on like a wild fire, and soon after, buying CD’s were a thing of the past. Now if we want an album, all we have to do is just get it on-line and download it onto our iPods, which can hold countless songs these days.  The same thing is set to happen to the physical movie format. According to Bloomberg, in a study done by I.H.S Screen Digest, “Legal on-line viewings of films will more than double to 3.4 billion this year from 1.4 billion in 2011.”

According to a statement released by I.H.S. Bloomberg also reports that, “Physical viewings of DVDs and Blu-ray discs will shrink to 2.4 billion from 2.6 billion according to the forecast.” As more people start signing up for services like Hulu, and Netflix, and Amazon Instant Video, DVD and blu-ray sales will fall more and more. People like to know that whatever movie they want, they can get with little hassle, and that’s just what services like Hulu, Netflix, and Amazon offer, hassle free movie viewing.

When you buy a DVD/blu-ray, you had to have somewhere to store it, and the more DVD/blu-rays you buy, the bigger the space in your house you have to dedicate to storing them, and should you need to move, it really can be a nightmare. That problem is solved with Internet streaming, no lost movies, no forgetting to either return or get the movie back from a friend or family member, just watch and go, and with HD steaming options from places like Amazon, which also allows you to stream the latest releases of movies and TV show episodes, for buying or renting purposes, buying physical media is going to go the way of the CD.

However there are those of us who like the look of 100 movies on our shelves, it’s like books in a library to some of us. But eventually even the strongest of us have to abide by one principle, limited funds, and we will run out of room, and our movies will start piling up in boxes. Then the day will come when we need to move them for some reason, and that streaming thing will look better and better.