Death of DVD Sales in South Korea, Greener Solution – Movie Bits in the Cloud

GigaOm posts on the Death of DVD sales in South Korea as users download movies.

The Death of DVD Sales in Korea a Trailer for U.S. Coming Attraction?

Hollywood take note: Sony Pictures is the sixth (and final) major movie studio to pull up stakes in South Korea, where blazing fast, ubiquitous broadband has sucker-punched the market for DVD sales and rentals, NewTeeVee reports today.

But here’s the real zinger: In the face of ubiquitous broadband, DVDs won’t be replaced by other physical formats or even VOD services, but by the cloud. At the center of the Korean downloading craze are web-based storage solutions — so-called “webhard” services — originally popularized by LG. Today, there are dozens of vendors, with some offering up to 1 Terabyte of storage space for free. The services are monetized through priority access points that guarantee higher speeds. Rather than fighting the trend, Korean film studios are joining the cloud and starting a webhard-based movie download service by the end of the year.

What is the environmental impact of replacing DVD production, distribution with cloud storage?

The complete Death of DVD story is here.