Digital downloads of music and movies have changed the media industry. Once the newest albums were celebrated with midnight releases and were considered the only way to measure success, now most consumers just wait by their computers to download the music from their favorite artists – in whole or one song at a time. Movies have started to follow the same path, and many consumers would rather stream the latest movies through their computer than rent the physical disk at a brick and mortar establishment.
More and more technology is also moving to “the cloud” – a computing system that allows offsite storage of data and can even manage a lot of the processing tasks away from the local system. Even the most recent Amazon Kindle – the Kindle Fire – is being marketed on its new Web browsing architecture that is tightly integrated with Amazon’s cloud servers.
With so much data right at the users’ fingertips, is there still room for DVD duplication and manufacturing?
Despite this trend toward digital-based media, many companies still feel it is important to produce physical copies of their projects, whether it is a software application, movie, or data disk. There are a few possible reasons for holding onto this technology, and why DVD duplication companies still receive so much work.
One of the possible reasons that continue to make is the ease in which the product can be sold. While many people assume that there are no costs to selling things digitally, the fact is that there are many maintenance costs for the servers as well as the fees associated with the all the bandwidth the downloads require. There are some production costs behind a DVD, but once it is shipped, it does not have the same continual maintenance costs.
There is also the question of security. The cloud has been touted as a safe and reliable method to store information, but with the recent Dropbox issues and Microsoft BPOS outages, many people have started questioning the dependability of the system. Storing and retrieving information on the cloud is extremely convenient, and comparatively reliable, but companies who also store their own information on CDs and DVDs won’t have to rely on a third party’s resources to ensure uptime.
Despite the move to digital media, many consumers still prefer to feel like they have ownership of a product. Digital downloads do not provide that same feeling. So whether it is a major Hollywood movie or a more localized project, the industry still requires high quality DVD replication services.