Crystal Ball Time

What does the future hold for movie downloads? According to one study, global downloads of films and TV shows are expected to be ten times as popular by 2012. That may prove reasonable, if we make a few assumptions.

One, the number of hard-drive equipped, Internet-enabled devices connected to TV sets grows. If you consider both set-top boxes and next-gen game consoles, it’s a believable scenario.

Two, our appetite for high-def content exceeds cable, satellite, and packaged media’s ability to deliver.

Again, pretty credible—streaming HD content requires fat broadband pipes beyond the reach of most consumers, while storing HD content for watching later requires fat hard drives, which are amaz¬ingly inexpensive today.

And there’s no theoretical limit to the variety of content that could be sent over the Internet—everything from box-office blockbusters to indie movies only the filmmaker’s family cares about are simple enough to digitize and serve online.

And finally, copyright holders need to get excited about digital delivery. Right now they have a tentative toe in the water, leery of upsetting the disc-based status quo.

Given the music business experience, though, where legal downloads are grow¬ing and CD sales are falling quickly, it’s only a matter of time before the Internet multiplex is fully stocked. TPV

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