I do not think Digital Downloads will takeover. Streaming might. But it is not as simple as taking a disc out of its case and putting it in a player. The majority of people out there are not tech savvy.

Movies available for download actually have worse picture quality than DVD. To get that rather small file size the picture is compressed to about 2mb/s. Uncompressed 1920×1080 is about 3GB/s. On Blu-Ray it is compressed to something like 50MB/s. Keep in mind this is only 1080p/24. A disk with more space would probably benefit picture quality for current 1080p and hopefully up the picture to 1080p/60.

There are 2 experimental formats out there which offer way more capacity which we may or may not ever see depending on if everything goes download only. I cant remember what they are called but one is a disk with 50GB layers and can support 10 layers for 500GB. The other is a disk with 5GB layers and 200 layers a possible for 1TB. There is no noise from layer to layer either.

If we start downloading all our media instead of having a hard copy of it it is obvious that today’s storage devices are nowhere near big enough. We would need like a 20TB hard drive for this to be practical. On top of that this would mean we use our hard drive more and some people are probably capable of ruining one within 3 years. What do you do than?

Even Sony have launched not one but two downloading services.

One for PS3 owners and another for their Bravia HD TV owners.

The news is full every week of new downloading services – not forgetting HD TV services offering HD TV video on demand etc etc.

Blu-ray couldn’t become ‘the next DVD’ even if everything was going for it (which it clearly isn’t) cos the ‘DVD market’ as was has now fragmented so heavily and continues to do so at an accelerating rate.

Just as the music industry has had to tune in & wise up with selling music on-line and stop it so too will the movie industry with movie downloads, even if it is currently kicking & screaming.

Those who imagine everyone cares or even wants a full 50gb download are just throwing up ridiculous straw-men & barriers to ‘defend’ their desire to see Blu-ray prevail.

It won’t cos it can’t.

In future we’ll be offered a range of options, once you dump the completely unnecessary languages and that bloated waste that is uncompressed audio for something more sensible (Dolby Digital plus or DTS probably) then downloads of properly encoded and superb looking 8 – 12gb sized movies becomes a serious option.

You will probably even be able pick the 720p option if your HD TV doesn’t do 1080p & d/l about 5gbs.

We’re all seeing the connection infrastructure upgrade too.
Within 2 – 4yrs it’ll be complately different.

The Blu-ray fanclub just refuse to get it.

The PS3 was a smart move to win the extremely niche high def spat with HD DVD but it did nothing but drive them ever further up the game console niche as far as the true mass-market is concerned.

Blu-ray is still all but invisible as far as the mainstream are concerned, 2yrs and counting of ‘life’ or not.

The truth is that Blu-ray was always the dumb way to go.
Blu-ray & the expensive PS3 it relies so heavily upon, still, merely ensured that high def movies on disc never went mass-market – which is exactly what we have seen this year.

There’s no point hiding behind inventied claims about HD DVD, it’s long gone and Blu-ray has done nothing since then; despite periodic BDA lies & exaggeration, as the weekly Neilson numbers prove.

Blu-ray has simply taken a gamble (that PS3 would see it through until such time as it was genuinely ‘ready’ and finished with final spec players out around $100) and has found itself desperately unlucky to be up against the almighty DVD (which simply towers over the Blu-ray pygmy in total discs sold) and be trying to gain traction at a point where we in the west are all just about to go into a serious depression.

This is not the time anyone (outside the game console fanboy element) could care less about a very expensive new video format.
Especially not one that requires a load of very expensive kit to make the most of
(ie a great big 1080p HD TV and a set of expensive audio stuff).

The future is obvious.
Better DVD players and a growing cheaper downloaded sector.

Seriously tech geeks and nerds are so far out of kilt it’s not even funny