US consumers are still using DVDs and Blu-ray Discs to watch movies more than all digital-video options combined, according to The NPD Group. Over the past three months, 77% of consumers reported watching a movie on a DVD or BD, which is unchanged from last year.

Those who viewed movies from physical discs reported watching an average of four hours per week, which is also unchanged from the prior year. By comparison 68% watched a movie on a TV or cable network channel, 49% at a theater, and 21% used paid video on demand through their TVs.

When asked about their recent spending on home video, consumers reported that 78% of their home video budgets went to the purchase and rental of DVD and BD, including online and in-store retail purchases and rentals, while 15% was spent on video subscription services like Netflix that offer a mix of physical and streaming rentals. Digital video downloads, paid streaming, paid transactional video on demand (VOD), and pay per view (PPV) comprised the remaining 8%. Overall per-capita spending on home video fell by 2%.

In addition to video store closures, many consumers have already built DVD collections of their favorite catalog video titles and are becoming more comfortable using various digital video options, says the analysts. Year-over-year physical disc purchases and rentals fell 9% (not including rental subscriptions).

These data were derived from an online consumer tracking study conducted in March 2011. It is based on 9,636 completed responses from US consumers, and final survey data was weighted to represent US web users age 13 and older.

Story filed 20.04.11