Tuesday June 24, 2008

Electronic distribution may be the way of the future, but physical optical discs are still shipping at strong rates. About 5.5 billion pre-recorded video optical discs will ship in 2008. North America dominates both the DVD and Hi-def video optical disc markets, claiming about 47% of all video optical discs shipping in 2008.

Even after DVD discs hits saturation around 2009, the shipment numbers will far outweigh those of the other optical disc formats, such as Hi-def and UMD. Advanced Optical Disc (AOD) shipments will never achieve the mammoth numbers that DVD achieved in its heyday. As the chart shows, by the end of the forecast the two different optical disc types, DVD and AOD, barely get close to meeting up in the middle, with billions of disc shipments separating them.

Electronic distributors are making huge strides with content sales on the PC, but the content rarely leaves the PC itself. So until electronic content is more easily available on the television set, video optical discs still have the run of the household TV set.