Online video overtakes physical media
 

Thanks for the interesting post. :)

However, I removed the link, because it's not that site's story. This was a press release issued by the research firm IHS.

Generally research like this should be viewed skeptically. It doesn't appear than any legitimate news site picked this up -- only some blogs and small tech journals. That in itself should raise an eyebrow.

One problem with this research is that appears to be fully quantitative, and not qualitative. For example, I watch a lot of streaming because it's there. If I were going to buy it piecemeal as physical media, I'd buy less. If I even had to buy the audio/video piecemeal as streaming media, I'd buy less.

Quite often, I'll only "consume" a movie for about 15 minutes, before deciding I don't want to see the whole thing. So it's really not a fair comparison -- I'm essentially channel surfing, and I see a lot of that going on.

I agree, that's the first thing I thought of when I saw the vauge term "interactions", it sounds to me like surfing. If checking out movies is anything like checking out search results, you can see there could be quite a number of "interactions". But who's to say people don't finish movies on disc as well? I think it's a fundamentally apples and oranges comparison. You buy or rent movies, but how do you count stream subscriptions? Same with DVR use.

I think there's probably a fair assumption that people finish discs, since they've gone to the effort of buying or renting them. Unlike channels (streamed or traditional), disc purchases/rentals tend to be more carefully chosen in advance, and not simply happened upon.

What I always find suspect is the sources for this information. A lot of things are "externally measured" which is a hidden way of saying "we guessed". Website traffic (which would including streaming traffic) is rarely accurate from non-direct measuring, which I doubt most of these companies shared. And even if they did share it, it was likely done under the condition that the info be used to make streaming look good against other traditional media viewing outlets. That happens often -- always be wary of who the research group is.