what follows is a short list of companies that are directors in the Blu-Ray consortium. Toshiba will need some major backers if what you say will succeed:

Apple Computer, Inc.
Dell Inc.
Hewlett Packard Company
Hitachi, Ltd.
LG Electronics Inc.
Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.
Mitsubishi Electric Corporation
Pioneer Corporation
Royal Philips Electronics
Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.
Sharp Corporation
Sony Corporation
Sun Microsystems, Inc.
TDK Corporation
Thomson Multimedia
Twentieth Century Fox
Walt Disney Pictures
Warner Bros. Entertainment

2009 is when BD is going to really kick off imo. we will see cheaper players, ps3 will also be cheaper, HD will be a near standard in every home. also i am willing to bet alot of tv shows/movies will be taking advantage of the 50gb and giving the consumer lots of extra's (like tv shows can put more than 1 season on a disk, disney can bundle 5 movies on a disk, etc)

2010 BD will have nearly 50% of the marketshare, by 2012 BD nearly 85%

This is what happens when you release a product that very few people really demanded. Blu-ray is destined never to be the market leader. It offers only a small, incremental increase over DVD that almost nobody cares about.

I have a very large DVD collection and I know that I have almost no incentive to replace them. Hence even if I bought a BR player I would buy very few discs.

This. Cable companies over here already offer new films and music videos on demand.

1) The majority of people replace their TV sets only when they break, so add about 5-7 years to your estimate.

2) This is unlikely to happen when a company can make more money by selling those things seperately on DVDs. Blu-Ray used as a means of offering consumers value. Absurd!

Ive said before Blu just doesnt look that much more clear to make it worth it. That IMO is due to DVDs looking pretty damn good as it is. I doubt blu will die but I think it will always be a niche market.

That ain't what I heard them claim.

I saw this coming even with the death of HD-DVD, the confusion of having 2 hd formats was too much for the general public. I personally would not pay more that a hundred dollars for any kind of movie playback device.

1.  He may be referring to the fact that a lot of people will be prompted to buy new sets soon because of the coming all-digital switch in the US.  Further, I bet the availability of color TV prompted people to buy those before their black and white set died.  Point is: generally people will replace when broken, but sometimes the allure of a new level of experience will spur new purchases.  Finally, prices will probably continue to drop from current HD set prices, which are historically on the high end for TVs (and they're STILL selling well...)

2. Would some consumers buy Little Mermaid 1-5 on Blu-Ray for $40 yet not get around to buying each of them for $15 on DVD?  If yes, then the profitable thing would be for Disney to offer the collection on BR as well.  It's not implausible, though the primary argument is that more extras can be included on a Blu-Ray disc containing one movie or one TV season.  And better picture and sound.

Mainly, though: studios will eventually drop some big, REALLY big hyped releases on Blu-Ray exclusively for 6 months (or perma-exclusive) knowing that "encouraging" a faster transition to Blu-Ray will profit them more in the end.  The most likely studio to start doing that is a little studio called Sony which had the highest gross sales of any studio last year (maybe it was the year before).

I'm pretty sure Sony claimed that their BRAND would make up 50% of the BluRay market share, they didn't claim that BluRay would become 50% of the entire market.

There's no reason for blu-ray disks to not be the same price as DVDs, Their own greed is doing them in.