Hollywood's cash cow, the DVD, is fast becoming deader than Michael Jackson as cash strapped punters turn to renting to save cash.

New data released Thursday by the Digital Entertainment Group, an industry trade organisation, showed that movie rental revenue rose 8 per cent in the first half of the year. This was the industry that many had written off because Hollywood said it had been killed off by P2P piracy.

At the same time, sales of DVDs have fallen by 13.5 per cent. DVDs have providing the biggest chunk of movie revenue. Sales started slipping last year, however, proving a serious threat to studios' bottom lines. Blu-ray disks and digital distribution over the Internet have grown but not enough to make up for the DVD slump.

Blu-ray sales rose a dramatic 91 per cent in the first half of the year, while Internet downloads and streaming combined with cable and satellite video-on-demand, which the trade group lumps together, grew 22 per cent. Overall the fall of the DVD has resulted in a total slump of 3.9 per cent. It follows on from a fall last year by 4.7 percent.

This is exactly what happened when people stopped buying VHS tapes because they knew they were going to buy a DVD player. However with the recession kicking in people have not been buying Blu-ray and are renting DVDs instead.