How long until video hardware is obsolete?

VHS has gone the way of the dinosaur. DVD is on its way out. Blu-ray is the flavor of the month, but how long will that month last?

Netflix and iTunes already offer streaming movie rentals to computers and game consoles, and more and more DVD and Blu-ray players are coming equipped with the ability to stream video from online services. Today, Best Buy announced that it’s adding CinemaNow’s DVD streaming service to “every Web-connected device” the retail chain sells.

So I have to ask the inevitable question: How long will it be until physical media goes away forever, in favor of entirely digital media?

There’s a report going around that Apple has been courting major TV networks to create a $30-a-month subscription service within iTunes that could replace monthly cable bills in consumers’ homes. Everyone pundit out there seems to agree that in the near future, no longer will we buy physical DVDs or Blu-ray discs or anything else to be held in our hands. “Cloud computing” will be brought to the masses for all of our entertainment needs, with movies and TV shows available for instant, on-demand viewing via the Internet or some kind of intranet service.

All this digital media will still come at a price, of course, but the videos already available on services like  iTunes and Netflix demonstrate that the lack of disc production equates to reduced prices for the consumer. Put simply: digital media costs less to produce than its physical counterpart, because nothing tangible has to be made.

We’ve been following the ebook trend a lot lately, and this digital media revolution strikes me as something very similar. Instead of physical books or magazines or newspapers made of paper, we’re starting to buy electronic books to be read on special devices, and we’re reading our magazines and newspapers on the Internet. And soon, instead of buying discs or tapes or anything else, we’ll purchase electronic videos that will be stored on a hard drive or streamed to a special media device and pumped straight to our high-def television sets.

And there are signs that other forms of entertainment media are shifting in this same direction. Video game download/subscription services already exist, though haven’t widely caught on beyond simpler games like those found on Xbox Live Arcade. The music industry is already feeling the crunch of the digital revolution, thanks largely to iTunes — it’s growing increasingly rare that consumers buy actual CDs anymore, preferring the cheaper and easier-to-manipulate digital tracks. Heck, even comic books have started migrating to the digital realm.

What do you think of this trending digitalization of media, across all mediums? Will you miss owning physical media you can touch with your hands? Or will be the near-infinite choices offered by cloud computing make it all worthwhile?

DVD image: Wikimedia Commons. Apple TV image: Apple, Inc.