Blu-ray continues its European dominance.

[davygee]

Deneidez said:

bucknasty said:
Digital Media will replace DVD not Blu-Ray. Blu-Ray is the laser disc of this generation. Not to mention you can buy DVD players that upscale DVDs to 1080p.

Aren't DVD and Blu-Ray digital media? I think you ment downloadable content. You can easily stream VHS quality movies on the net and downloading those usually doesn't take longer than hour. And as you know bandwidth is improving all the time not downgrading so eventually we will be able to stream even 1080p movies. If customers are happy with DVD:s, they might be happy with DC too.

Heh, quatum leap... The one I hate more is when someone says that something is light years away/ahead of something. :D

Speaking from the UK, I reckon BluRay still has a good shout of becoming huge.

Firstly, downloadable content is still lightyears away from 1080p content.  Even HD TV is still a huge way away from becoming a standard.  Even the UK's broadcast bandwidth cannot cope with the supposed HD 1080p content coming it's way.  And with the UK going entirely Digital by 2012 (could be 2011), this digital content isn't even 720p it's good old 480p or the european PAL format digitised.  Even internet connections aren't up to it.  In my area we cannot get more than 2Mb and even at our work it's only a 1Mb dedicated line.  Yes it would be great to get 50Mb+, but it's not going to happen for a good number of years.

Secondly, BluRay players have now broken the £100 barrier.  Bush has a BR player on the market at £98, which is a huge step in the right direction.  Once the BR film prices start coming down to respectable levels, then we will see more sales as well.

Also, don't forget that DVD prices are now at a really cheap level.  In the UK, new films are generally £10 and can be picked up for £5-£7 after only a few months.  And the worldwide recession won't help sales, but it's defintely heading in the right direction.

IMHO, downloadable content is still a long way away, and realistically, BluRay is the only achievable method of seeing high definition movies at the moment.