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Digital media has been growing exponentially for years and isn't showing any sign of slowing down. As the world becomes better connected through high speed Internet and downloadable media, the days of Dvds and Cds may soon be obsolete.

Downloadable movies have shown a huge increase in the movie market over the past couple of years. The industry has grown so big that it was the primary cause in the recent America writer's strike (where the writer's demanded more money on digital media).

Downloading movies is taking the same turn music took a few years back, where the trend is growing so fast that it is taking away from sales of the traditional forms of the media. Services such as iTunes have made it tremendously easy for people to get movies instantly, without the hassles of going out to the store and buying a movie.

Not only that, but movie downloads are often cheaper in price due to the lack of packaging costs. If someone really likes cd art and covers those are available most of the time for download as well so that one can virtually make a replica of the real dvd if they wish to do so.

Downloading movies is a lot more versatile compared to ordinary methods of getting a movie. Portable players and mp3 players all boost digital movie sales due to ease of use. Buying dvds and putting them on mp3 players can be irritating due to problems with file format and converting files to the right format. It is much easier to just download the movie in the correct format and upload it onto a video player such as an ipod.

The iTunes program will even automatically upload the movie to a connected ipod once it is downloaded, so that the user doesn't even have to do anything. Some mp3 players such as the ipod (as well as the iphone) allow users to download movies and other digital media straight through the player so long as a wi-fi connection is available in the area.

Even video game systems such as the Playstation Portable (PSP) have led to the growth of digital movies. Due to the small size of the unit, the PSP has its own mini-disks for movies and games. It also supports Sony's memory stick for multimedia. From the user's perspective it is much more convenient to download a movie and put it on a memory stick to watch instead of buying a special PSP minidisk.

There are several reasons behind this. First of all, it is cheaper to download the movies. Also, the downloaded movie can also be watched elsewhere whereas the minidisk can only be viewed on the gaming system.

As the world looks to the horizon, it looks like digital media will become the norm; there aren't really many good arguments that can be made against it. Even renting movies is becoming digitized. Apple has come out with a new service called Apple TV where users can directly rent movies from their television by using a credit card.

This eliminates the need to go to the video rental store and/or the mailbox for a movie. On top of movie rentals, Apple TV also offers Youtube, music, and photos on the user's television, basically making it like a computer running iTunes.

Downloadable movies are just more convenient and flexible in their uses. Is it really surprising that the media market is becoming more and more digitized? If recent patterns continue, tangible media will be gone or very limited very soon.