Worldwide Blu-Ray will (probably) represent 33% of the Disc based movie market in 2011 (with DVD remaining at 66%), and I expect (legitimate) movie downloads to represent 20% of the total movie market in 2011. After 2011 I expect people will move towards digital downloads at a faster rate than they adopt Blu-Ray, and by 2016 digital downloads will represent over 60% of the market.

Realistically, digital downloads offer the convienience features that drive rapid adoption of a new format; the limitations of bandwith, and trust in download services currently limit people from jumping to these services but these become less of a problem every day.

human beings as a rule are collectors... books, records, 8 tracks, tapes, vhs, cds, dvds, bodies in their backyard, and now bds. hell, the only mp3s i have are generally off cds i already own. plus, with the new BD+ content enabled and starting to be utilized more, the "special features" will become more and more connected as it is, and you will ONLY get this DLC with the BD in the drive to begin with. also, as now blu-ray is the victor I beleive what you might end up seeing are "blu-ray" DLs, like a name brand(which you know they will capitalize on)

Also, check out amazon, you can now get MANY BDs for ~$10 - $15, which the list will only keep growing. oh yeah, and not to mention studios want to keep an iron hand on their HD content, and the more downloadable it becomes, the more pirated their movies will be.

For me it will be:

rent=>download
puchase=>blu-ray

I think whatever is cheaper will do better. I am a proponent of physical media but sadly I feel that things will go the way of the IPOD. Realistically I would say more people I know own 80% of their music digitally. As the speed of cheap fast internet goes up so does the dd(legally and illegally) movie format.

Well,what i meant by "long term" is like 10 or 15 yrs from now unless a new technology comes about. I do think physical blu-ray discs will sell more because you can take it anywhere with you (like going out of town,going over a friends house,etc.) Cause not everybody has the internent or a portable laptop,but i guess we'll see.

I will stick with Blu ray for a number of reasons.

1. I prefer to have control of the movies I purchase meaning I can lend it to friends and vice versa with no issues.
2. Saves time and space meaning no downloading and it taking up harddrive space.
3. The so called hi def downloaded movies are compressed so they are inherently inferior to their disc counterparts.
4. Heaps more extra features on discs

Those are just a few reasons that I can think of quickly at the top of my head but yeah as it stands I will not be purchasing movies which I have to download and ultimately have no control over.

Just to add to my post I think that in the future people will predominantly be downloading rentals and then purchasing the movie on disc if they like it. So in my opinion downloaded movies will never replace physical media when it comes to owning movies, however it will likely replace movie rentals.

@ Username2324 It'll still be more convenient to have a blu-ray disc because everybody won't have the same movie,so if you bring your discs with you then you can watch them out or let them borrow it.Downloaded content will have to be seen on your laptop,burnt to a cd,then played on a dvd player so everyone can see it. The download then transfer will take to long.