I would agree, but we're in the era where people are still using dial-up and not broadband. And people who are getting broadband are getting DSL, and not Cable. And since Fiber-optic isn't avialable everywhere, people are not getting the fastest internet connection out there. so downloading movies especially in HD is going to take hours. I don't see digital downloads becoming huge until internet speeds overall rise greatly.

Either he's reading it wrong, or he's lying about what he's read, since this thread is about downloads vs blu-ray, not HD-DVD vs blu-ray.

I'd say he's lying, since he's indicated he likes to set people off, ego, a troll. 

I dont know why people think digital downloads will take over. Music is different, you go online and pick and choose which music you want. You get music early, and you take it on the road.

Movies are a family thing, where its alot easier to take a disc, and put it inside a player than go online, find the movie, wait for the download etc. Mainstream wont accept that for awhile.

As far as DVD goes, once there is one definite format you can put Blu-ray right next to DVD in stores. It will be THE next format, and if you could pick between a $100 DVD player or a $150 Blu-Ray player, you most likely would pick the Blu-Ray player.

HDTV's and Blu-Ray players will go hand in hand. Also, as PS3 picks up more steam this year, people will pay those extra dollars for the higher format. It will work now, just a matter of time.

I do agree digital downloads are iffy, but not for the reason you think. It's that most consumers aren't tech savvy enough to utilize those. Yet it's also the lack of tech savvy that blu-ray does not go hand-in-hand with HDTV, no matter how much you all insist.

 well there is a point where any collection gets stupid. Seriously do you watch half those movies? couldnt you go trade like 100 of them in to Blockbuster or GameStop?

Also, If you have ever watched MTV cribs you would have notice that celebrates have tons of movies like you. They jsut have the space for all the movies. Normal people like us dont have a room thats 400 sq ft. But in that same area there are also the videophiles, who have similar houses as us, that would say your 400 movies is a pitiful amount and you should buy another 800 movies. They find ways to store their massive collections.

Digital media will be a nice way for you to keep the movies you rarely watch or dont watch yet keep the movies you watch a ton of in secure media ie hard copies.

The one thing I like is with the switch to Blu-ray is that the packaging is thinner then DVD so you can fit more on a shelf. 

There are so many bitter tears flowing in this thread, it's really funny.
People are so transparents too in this thread, it's hilarious.
HD-DVD death blow has been given, now we're waiting for it to fall dead.
HD-DVD was backed by MS, so all the MS fanboys and Sony haters (I never liked Sony for their poor quality products, but I see I was an angel compared to the haters) now hail the next MS backed thing : VOD downloads.
I see no other rationale behind people suddenly discovering that downloads will now break Blu-Ray (wishful thinking).

People here talk about downloads crushing Blu-Ray. This doesn't make any sense at all.
Before downloads crush Blu-Ray, which is the best quality you'll get, and whose purpose is better quality, they will first have to crush DVD. Good luck with that !
Seriously, people illegally download movies compressed to the size of a CD. Something that some keep on a CD afterwards, for convenience.
There's no way these people will download gigas to have a high quality h264 movie. Besides, this requires all kind of complicated things that people won't cope with : broadband, RAID, computer, ...
They could make an appliance : that's another expensive thing they'll have to buy : won't happen.
MS already tried to do downloads on its XB360, and for now, the cable operator just won't follow.
They'd better not, as for now, my rule of thumb, on which I base all my predictions regarding MS since 2001, that any MS partner is doomed to fail (fail gaining acceptance, go bankrupt, screwed by MS, ...) is still very true. To a point it's almost scary (IBM, Sega, Orange, Toshiba, ...), and this no visionary thing, but deduced only by looking at History.

After 15 years passed observing the HT world, if downloads were to take off, I would be the first one surprised, I would not even believe it without lots of proof. That would mean suddenly a huge amount of people have wisen up. That just won't happen.

Someone was talking about LD (laser disc), but incorrectly said that only early adopters jumped in.
Actually, that's not true at all, as LD was also pretty popular in Japan. Download taking off would be the equivalent of LD having gained mainstream appeal.
Besides, to me, Blu-Ray has the same appeal as LD had : higher quality.
I just don't see people vying for quality, so DVD is here to stay.
Higher quality (LD) didn't crush VHS, only convenience (DVD) did.
So I doubt Blu-Ray will do anything, unless they phase out DVD, which won't happen before Blu-Ray players are the price of DVD players. So I also say not before 2012, and perhaps way after that.

IMVHO optical storage won't die.
First, a large part of world population hasn't access to broadband and even actual and near future solutions to alleviate the problem are OK for surfing and small to medium downloads, but are far too slow to download files greater than 1GB, not to say HD contents greater than 10GB.
Second, optical discs with large capacity are good for PC backups and home video recording, people is waiting for the heir to VHS to become cheaper and more widespread: DVD+-Rs are just a little small and force to have more costly DVD recorders with hard disc to allow lots of recordings during long absences, then, once returned one has to free disc space copying what he won't watch immediately to DVD-R, wasting time, so a 50GB BD, once recorders and blank media are cheaper, would be a welcome alternative.

OTOH, here I agree with FinalEvangelion and others, I don't think unlikely the coexistence of downloaded contents and optical disks and also I don't think unreasonable that BD could not become the heir to DVD if it doesn't take off before a newer and better optical disc or whatever else comes.

Laser Disc may have been better than VHS except the fact I could record TV programs with VHS. Back then this was a huge plus for VHS. LD are is some ways early form of DVD's, DVD of course are smaller.

 I still own a VHS player for this reason only.

And it's transparent you care less about blu-ray than gloating over this blow to HD-DVD, so you have to twist this thread to that so you can gloat.

Why else would you lie not only that they are discussing just VOD, when they are discussing digital downloads in general, and lie that they are doing this just now, when they have been discussing these overtaking both HD formats for months already?

I'm kind of questioning a service for downloading videos at this time. Now, I don't know how well Microsoft's current renting thing is for movies on Xbox Live. However, if movies take up a lot of space, I'm not really sure if my internet can handle it. The good internet at my parents house is well... good... but I can't imagine using it as a complete movie experience and it'd be better than hopping in the car and just going down the street to a brick and motor outlet. Hell, I think I'd laugh at the thought of even trying the same thing on the internet service at my apartment, which has crummy DSL (but good enough for games, so I can't complain as much as I should).

I'm not saying that it wont happen (that'd be stupid to say that), but I don't see the great advantage of it until you can either download it VERY fast, within 30 minutes to an hour (30 minutes would be roughly the time it would take to go to the actual store) and never have it stop to download if you're streaming. Now if you're not renting but actually downloading for keeps, download speed might not matter as much, but it'd still tie up the internet for quite a while based on indications of downloading on my parent's computer and their connection.

Still, the format war here is between HD-DVD and Blu-Ray and I'm not really sure how Blu-Ray would lose the war if it beats out HD-DVD.