[PatK]

IT World asks Is the end near for physical media?PricewaterhouseCoopers, predicts that electronic home video, which includes subscription video-on-demand services and cable on-demand offerings, will overtake the box office by 2017 and bring in $17 billion by 2018, double the $8.5 billion now.

Slash has a good conversation on this subject, makes for interesting reading.

I'm wondering what impact this will have on home theatre and specifically XBMC if any?

[DJ_Izumi]

On the front of streaming services, if XBMC doesn't get access to various streaming services such as Hulu, Netflix, iTunes or Amazon, nothing there will likely change.

On the 'Other front of which we dare not speak', a lot more files will just say 'WEB-DL' instead of 'BluRay'.

[teeedubb]

I'm thinking the same as dj-izumi... If they make it hard to watch the content on what ever device you want (like they currently do with the digital copies that are bundled with dvds) I think there will be a rise in piracy as there will be no easy way to rip your purchased content. But hopefully they will use the music industry as a example and make their content DRM free from the get go.

Also the clients for streaming services need to be truly multiplatform, unlike Netflix, iTunes etc.

And another thing is internet speeds, which is completely out of the control of the content providers. Streaming services will lose their appeal if there is constant buffering or low quality media or possible fees for going over download limits. And with 4k TVs commonplace in shops even more bandwidth will be needed to stream content in the future.

I do see sales of physical media declining, but I think it will be here for quite a few more years.

[GAMER101]

Physical media will take a long time to die. I say after our lifetime. You just can't stream full 1080 movies over the internet without the ISP complaining about it. And what do the people who have satellite do?

I personally don't rust digital media only. There's licensing issues. If they don't renew the content it is gone. Every now and then you'll notice a show or a movie disappearing on iTunes. And I wouldn't want to go through the hassle of converting all my DRM protected movies to get rid of the protection.

[calev]

@gamer I agree. The usa still has pretty bad internet in most places. We just can't stream as well as Europe, unless you have google fiber. It will be at-least ten years before we see consistent bandwidth high enough to stream bluray quality movies. By then every movie is going to have a 4k 3d option. People like physical disc. Its what makes redbox so popular. Its a dollar fifty to rent a block buster quality movie from redbox that netflix wont have for two years or ever. Vs all the crap netflix has that I will never watch. I think they should come out with a streaming service that only has the last 20 top new releases. Then mabye people wouldn't turn to nefarious plugins since neither redbox nor netflix usually has movies the first month they come out. Few people want to spend 30$ on a movie and no one in there right mind would spend that on a drm ridden Itunes copy with a low bit-rate.

[Mottsen]

Unless they remove DRM from digital media, I for one will continue to buy physical discs.

[crackers]

DRM will continue to be used by the content providers because:

1) provides "lock-in" of customers
2) the vast majority of people simply <i>don't care</i> as long as it plays when they want it

Currently there are content producers (the people who make the stuff), content providers (the people who "sell" it) and, with the advent of Netflix and Amazon, content packagers. And everyone wants as big a slice of the pie as they can possibly get. Which implies control of the content.

The "music industry" made about $16.5 billion in the US in 2012.
The "movie industry" made $480 billion, same time/place.

Do the math.