The first HDTVs were sold in the mid 1990s and since then there has been a steady belief that widespread HDTV adoption was only a couple of years away. For well over a decade adoption of HDTVs failed to meet even pessimistic projections. In the past 5 (or so) years HDTV adoption increased dramatically because it was a feature that was included in the very large flat screen TVs that people were buying; and the main selling feature of these TVs was that they were very large and were thin (so you could fit them into any room) and not necessarily that they were HDTV compatible.
Today we’re getting pretty close to (or may have passed) the point where 50% of households will have HDTVs in them, but we’re still many years away from 50% of households having HDTVs that are regularly displaying HD content. By the time HD becomes enough of a selling feature so that Blu-Ray will become the ubiquitous format that DVD was it is likely that another format (quite possibly digital download) will be cutting into the sales of Blu-Ray.
Or to put it another way, Blu-Ray is a videophile format that will likely never fully catch on with the mainstream movie viewer; and will likely never be a dominant format.
