What if you were able to walk into Wal-Mart soon and copy some of your own footage or even TV shows onto a custom DVD or even an electronic device like a Sony PSP or Apple iPod with video? To fight slowing DVD sales and to give valuable shelf space to items with higher turnover, Hollywood Video appears to be in talks with Wal-Mart to place these "content kiosks" in some Wal-Mart stores.

The details are a little fuzzy, but it appears that Wal-Mart, by far the largest seller of DVDs with annual sales of $3.2 billion, could really be helping the DVD industry grow sales faster  by forcing it to take a step into the future. 

It never ceases to amaze me that some industries think they can sustain rapid growth for decades with little effort or innovation to show for it. Sure, DVD players and equipment have become much better in the last decade. But if DVD sales are not growing, shouldn't there be a better way to reach customers?

I think this content kiosk idea sounds intriguing -- where the content will come from is unknown: Will it be bought, rented or both? Sure, if the content that a customer wants can be almost instantly burned to a new DVD on request, that is a great idea -- shelf space savings alone would make it worth the effort. The content will reside in some data center possibly, and will be burned on customer request. That is innovation, and hopefully it's the path the DVD industry is embarking on.