The Internet is now the method of choice to select and distribute stock footage, according to most North American suppliers, who have seen digital delivery replace tapes and discs over the past decade.

‘The web is already the primary delivery vehicle for footage that we license to our clients,’ says Laurie Near, sales and research director for Toronto’s First Light. ‘It is increasingly rare to receive a request for final element delivery on a tape.’

The trend is the same for U.S.-based suppliers.

‘Artbeats has seen a dramatic increase in the number of clients who wish to receive their footage via download,’ according to Phil Bates, president and founder of the Oregon-based company. ‘Currently, 75% of our business is done via electronic download, and we expect that number to continue to increase as 2009 progresses. We project that very soon our need to ship footage on DVD will cease entirely.’

A decade ago, everything was physically shipped. ‘That meant that our clients in Europe, Asia, Australia and Africa had to wait days and sometimes weeks to receive the footage and begin working on their projects,’ notes Bates. ‘Now, everything on our site is downloadable 24/7, so a client in Hong Kong or Germany can have access to thousands of stock footage clips to complete a project on his own schedule. Download delivery offers immediate resolution for our clients’ creative needs.’

Convenience and cost explain stock footage’s move to the web – a shift made possible by ever-increasing bandwidth and data speeds.

‘The biggest advantage of delivering footage over the web is speed,’ says Near. ‘Our clients can order a clip and download the final element literally seconds later. No more time spent waiting for that tape to be shipped out. And no more lab fees.’

Still, there are limits to what can be sent online. Even in today’s multi-megabyte world, ‘the biggest challenge is file size and speed,’ notes Bates. ‘Many of our clips are several gigabytes in size, so download time can be an issue if the client is working from a slow connection.’

In instances when files are too big to transmit, stock footage providers will resort to other means.

First Light will sometimes send out large collections of stock footage on a hard drive, says Near, especially if the client is ‘ordering a high volume of footage for one project – for example, corporate presentations [that] could require upwards of 100 clips at a time.’

Generally speaking, web-based stock footage can be delivered faster and cheaper than footage dubbed to any form of physical media. Nonetheless, having to digitize and then electronically store vast collections of footage is a major investment. But the advantages of going entirely digital far outweigh the costs.

‘Yes, the enormous storage needed to house a digital catalogue could be considered daunting,’ says Carol Martin, VP of L.A.-based FootageBank HD, ‘but it’s certainly better than dusting tape racks and film cans!’

Another upside to web delivery for producers is the convenience of doing a test run.

‘The advantage that clients have today that they didn’t have in years past,’ notes Jan Ross, SVP of BBC Motion Gallery stock footage archives, ‘is that they can download high-res clips and use them in their rough cuts to see how the clips work in the edit, before making the transaction.’

BBCMG both sells and delivers royalty-free clips over the web. Rights-managed clips are licensed offline, but all clips can be electronically delivered in any format, including HD, to the customer’s specifications.

Meanwhile, CBC’s activity is still a combo of Internet and physical delivery, according to its media library co-ordinator Roy Harris.

‘We are expecting to see a marked increase in the business we do over the web, to the point where, in the next few years, it will become the primary source for delivery of research and master material. We are at the early stage of developing strategies for dealing with this.’