With todays launch of Hulu open to the public and recent additions to Apples iTunes store carrying movie rentals, how far are we away from primarily receiving our TV shows and movies via the internet? According to some of the top Hollywood studio executives, we are not close at all.
At a recent Content Delivery and Storage Association conference, a few people spoke out about this. The vice president of content development for Fox, Sven Davidson, stated "Demand for downloading is very small and the satisfaction is smaller." Benn Carr, the vice president of new technology for Disney, said "I don"t think we have to be worried about the replacement of physical media for some time, [...] Downloading sales are not going to "hockey-stick" soon. Every time I access a site and download, it"s not necessarily seamless". They also say that hi-def movies can take several hours to download.
What are your opinions? Do you prefer a physical disk or purchasing to download? On one hand, you have HD content that cannot be backed up (according to the DMCA), so if you lose or scratch it, it is gone. On the other, most downloadable content has DRM protection. While you can back it up, if the company supplying the rights management goes under or the company licensing the content changes their DRM, you chance having your whole collection as wasted space.