Early takes in and out of adult Internet entertainment appear mixed as to whether Video-on-Demand (VoD), Web-based and elsewhere, will eventually overthrow DVD as a platform of choice for movie consumers.
Greencine content director Jonathan Marlow – a cinematographer whose company is a small outfit out to become the Netflix of the indie film world and whose resume includes a stint at e-tail giant Amazon.com – ignores mainstream Hollywood because its rapture with big DVD revenues won't let it take the VoD plunge until VoD is a proven moneymaker.
"DVD revenues are so out of proportion to every other aspect of this business," Marlow told CNET.com. "There has to be some proven revenue in the space before the big studios will even think about dismantling a model that has proven so lucrative for them."
VideoSecrets chief Greg Clayman said that the growth of the broadband population means that the Internet will grow greater and faster, and that the future is likely to be multiple content platforms – DVD, VoD, and others – without any one standing to make the other obsolete.
"I think there's going to be multiple options: You can watch DVD, VoOD, on planes, on telephones," Clayman said. "To make one obsolete I don't think would be realistic. There are always consumers who want to own certain productions, whether adult or mainstream. And when you're talking about [movie] content, you're talking about the consumer being the ultimate boss."
Distributed Computing Industry Association chief Marty Lafferty also believes multiple platforms will prove the enduring rule. "None of the newer technologies have supplanted the others as much as they've expanded the pie for others and given consumers more choices," Lafferty said.
He said "the existing and entrenched infrastructure" of content delivery tends to fight new technologies for fear of the new technologies "cannibalizing" existing revenue streams. But Lafferty also said that won't stop content consumers from getting content where it's the most convenient for them.
"The content will exist in little particles out there, and the consumer will be able, almost in real time, to get any piece of content previously recorded on whatever form they want," he said. "Whether you choose to watch on your cell phone or surround sound in a big home theater, you'll be able to have that content constituted on whatever device you want to watch it on."
Homegrown Video chief Spike Goldberg said VoD won't have a major impact upon DVD revenue for the time being, but changes are likely to come as VoD secures a stronger position over time.
"I think some [DVD revenue impact] goes on," Goldberg said, "and technology is getting more and more efficient in letting you move around with your [content]. And if someone is burying their head in the sand thinking it won't, then I would point them to Betamax or VHS or the cassette [audio] tape."
Goldberg didn't come right out and say VoD would make DVD obsolete just yet, but neither did he deny that new technologies have done just that to earlier ones in the past. "The history of technology improvements and old technologies becoming obsolete is a long-documented one," he said, "and not one that's going to end overnight."
VoD will not kill DVD now, Goldberg said, but he added the change has already begun—and those who keep their heads in the sand, as he put it, show a sign that they could be overrun.
"The studios online, every studio is doing something with VOD on the adult side," Goldberg said. "Somebody in Hollywood's going to be making some tough decisions down the road … and whether Hollywood wants to deal with it now or not, they will have to, at some point. Or they could cause their target audience to be out on the Web trading their stuff. And if the audience wants to have this and you're not providing it to them, the Internet will find it for them."
