DVDs reign supreme over movie theaters, Blu-ray, downloads

Looks like the humble DVD isn't going away anytime soon. A new survey says that we're spending 80 percent of our movie and video dollars on the sturdy old format, with movie theaters (remember them?) and digital downloads bringing up the rear.

According to the NPD Group, U.S. consumers are spending about 52 percent of their movie and video dollars on disc purchases (that includes DVD and Blu-ray—more on that in a moment), with another 29 percent going toward disc rentals. After that, just 18 percent is left over for movie tickets, followed by a puny 0.5 percent for digital downloads (both rentals and purchases, and not including free services like YouTube and Hulu).

And while the analysts at NPD didn't break out Blu-ray discs in their latest survey (they will next time around, I'm told), consider this: The weekly numbers from Nielsen VideoScan regularly give DVDs about a 9-to-1 advantage over Blu-ray, while Netflix execs say Blu-ray rentals make up less than 10 percent of their overall business.

That's not to say that Blu-ray and digital downloads won't eventually assume the mantle from DVD—although if Blu-ray player prices remain stubbornly in the stratosphere, it might be digital downloads that ultimately rule the video roost.

But for those of you who've asked me whether your DVD players will soon be obsolete (that's pretty much the No. 1 question I get whenever I blog about Blu-ray), well, I wouldn't panic quite yet—well, maybe not for another 10 years or so.

Are you still spending most of your video dollars on DVDs (and remember to factor in your Netflix/Blockbuster membership) rather than Blu-rays and digital downloads?

Related:
DVD Sales Flattening, But Don't Blame Digital Downloading [NPD Group]