Storage for Media and Entertainment Industry to Increase Ten Times Until 2015

The sixth annual report from Coughlin Associates on digital storage in media and entertainment, 2010 Digital Storage for Media and Entertainment ($7,000), provides 147 pages of in-depth analysis of the role of digital storage in all aspects of professional media and entertainment. Projections of digital storage demand for content capture, post production, content distribution and content archiving are provided in 54 tables and 66 figures out to 2015.

The report includes results from a survey of mostly SMPTE members on their digital storage needs in these target segments. The survey was used to refine the analysis from previous editions. The report benefited from input from many experts in the industry which, along with economic analysis and industry publications and announcements, was used to create the data including in the report.

Some highlights from the report:

Digital storage requirements are exploding due to use of higher resolution and stereoscopic content in the media and entertainment industry
New storage technology is changing the media and entertainment storage hierarchy
Between 2009 and 2015 we expect the media and entertainment industry will see about a 10X increase in the required digital storage capacity and about a 12X growth in storage capacity shipments per year (from 4,094 PB to 47,291 PB)
Total revenue for media and entertainment storage systems will increase about 2.1X from 2009 through 2015 ($3.0 B to $6.2 B)
About 93% of the total storage capacity will be used for content archiving and preservation in 2009. We believe that this will increase to 96% of total capacity by 2015 due to more efficient and cost effective conversion services, lower overall storage costs and a greater ROI on long tail content
In 2009 we estimate that about 86% of the total storage media shipped for all the digital entertainment content segments was tape with about 10% HDD, 4% optical and 0.3% flash memory (mostly in digital cameras and some media distribution servers)
By 2015 tape units will decline slightly to 83%, HDDs increase to about 14%, optical decline to 2% and flash doubling in percentage to 0.6%
Total revenue for storage media will increase about 4X from 2009 through 2015 ($415 M to $1,642 M)