Rumor has it that Netflix is debuting a set top box in partnership with LG at CES. Cable companies are interested in deliver movies and ip tv by the same means. Apple may unveil some serious plans for the Apple TV at mac world.

If this all ends up with HD downloads/rentals at a decent cost then that could put a dent in the HD formats. However, I think the convenience factor of downloads will win out. Being able to pull up a list of 1000s of movies on your tv, see recommendations based on what films you like, critic and user reviews and trailers, then choose a film and start watching immediately would be quite the experience. It would also be amazing if they offered lot of independent and foreign films, the sorts of things that are impossible to find in store.

Basically, a "good enough" 720p and a "good enough" 5.1 movie at a decent price delivered through a set top box as described above could very well spell the doom of physical formats.

I agree. The only chance of either of the two formats being adopted by mass market was healthy competition. Competition is the reason that the prices of the players have dropped so much so fast and is why there are the 5 free movie deals. If there was never any competition, i'm sure Blu Ray would still be way too expensive and would have no free movie offers. When will people realize that this is bad for the consumers. Good Competition = Good for consumers

I seriously doubt that since I doubt it cheap to have that much upload. Blu-ray movies run at 20-30 MB per sec compare to a dvd 3-5 MB.

A hard drive is a form of storage. Plenty of people seem to be okay with it when used on their tivo.  

Exactly. One of the arguments against digital distribution I've never understood is the claim that broadband penetration isn't high enough. It's true that high speed internet is not as common as it should be, but the sort of people who have and HD set and are looking at Bluray are almost certain to be in the percentage of high speed internet.

First of all, good post.

Secondly, i agree.

Thirdly, everyone who is just complaining about the title, -shut up-. If you dont have anything useful to add to the discussion then dont post at all.

 I was meaning a form of media that they can remove, and store for safe keeping. hard-drives are way to faulty anyways. They break way to easy. Once Solid State Drives become more norm it will be better for downloadable media. Still people will still want removable media so people can walk in and look at your movie/game/music collections. Its kind of a pride thing. Thats why I'm slowly trying to switchmy VHS and DVDs to blu-ray movies as they are released on the format. It looks better.

ok 3 reasons why any sorta download format wont work : must have some super copy protection, which as a dl is much harder to do. even disc are having trouble dowloads can be copied with the a simple click. same reason games are not put on memory cards (they wouldbe mass copied).

Secondly, i am not going to wait a month to dl hd movies. they are bigger than dvds some get up in the 40gb's. And until t1/2 is cheap no one will wait that long. i get about 300kbs. theres no way.

Thirdly, all ur doing is swapping 1 HDD for another HDD! High-Definition Disc - for Hard Disc Drive! it will cost the same ...more even considering ull have to buy a new hdd for every 3 movies. with a disc u get 1 movie 1 disc at 20-30$ and going down! (faster when all companys adopt 1) its called supply and demand; it only takes 1 company to make all the other companys drop their price. This is evident in Walmart(always low prices) and Sony's (puting the best blue ray player out at the cheapest price) tactics. So no, disc format is not dead and will not die until internet speeds are way faster and easy to pay for.

 Dowloads are a thing of the past ...not the future.

I totally agree with games because consoles break and it's a pain when they're all on the hard drive. For music and film it's different. All mine are stored on external hard drives and I can view them wherever I like. If my pc dies they'll work fine with the next one and it saves so much space.

This is a common misconception when talking about the current format war. DVD standalone players were already under $150 and were selling by the millions before the PS2 released. I'm not saying that Blu-ray will fail but the circumstances are much different this time around.

I forsee one of two things happening:

- Blu-ray penetrates the market and by 2012 or so, starts rivaling DVD in media sales. 

- Blu-ray fails to gain enough steam before a new, improved physical media releases and ultimately succumbs to this new format.

Either way, physical media will always exist, though not to the extent we've seen with DVD. DLC will take a portion of the market, the real question is how much it will take. 

Did you actually read the article?

The "pride thing" would take second stage in most peoples minds when compared to the advantages digital distribution offers. The number of people who really care about hard copies is small, and was something addressed in the article.

Also addressed in the article was the issue of safe keeping, namely that its irrelevant since the business model favored by the movie studios is one of rental. I'm just assuming that you're criticizing this without having read the article.