Economist has a little article about sales of DVD's. It seems that DVD's will be able to boost the income of the Movie Industry, because of it's superior quality and extra options.
Next year there will be more DVD's sold then videocasettes.
Next year, for the first time, sales of movies in DVD format are forecast to outsell those on video cassette in America (see chart), reaching a total of $9.5 billion, according to Morgan Stanley, an investment bank. Already, some 24m American households have DVD players, 80% more than a year ago. With a DVD recorder now in the shops as well, something that can record from the TV as well as play the discs, Christmas sales are expected to be strong. A technology considered a flop when it was launched in 1997 is now the basis for the fastest-growing consumer appliance ever. |
Some in the film business grumble that people are simply buying DVDs instead of video cassettes: there is no net gain. Yet DVDs can do things that the cassette cannot, such as offer a choice of language in which to watch a movie, not to mention a crisper picture. And the studios have cleverly stuffed DVDs full of zappy extra features, such as new clips or interviews with the director.
Moreover, people appear to want to build up collections of DVDs, rather as they do of recorded music. The DVD is steadily gaining shelf space, even in the movie-rental store, and it should overtake the cassette even there within three years. And shops like DVDs, not least because they take up less space. The DVD could well boost the size of the overall home-video market.
It's not strange that DVD will beat the videocassette soon, a DVD is so much better, but this is probably the first 'format' the DVD will beat, next will probably the CD(-R), but how long this will take...
Source: Economist.com
