ah the war of ownership, see here is where it gets murky because copyright law says i can have copies, to keep a backup, and even use that back up if I want as the primary copy even if its in a difrent format as long as i dont reditriute it. they try and cricumvent this by encoding it, and the only way we can make copies (which we have a right to do) now is by breaking an a corprate law about reverse engineering.  catch 22.  

I am against pircay too, I buy all my movies, regardless of format. 

edit more no the way we make copies, there was a loop hole in dvd, if you got it from the player to the tv, you could make a legal copy without breaking any laws. however with the advent of blueray, special technology was developed to keep this from happening now you must reverse engineer it to get the copy which is illegal. they went so far as to convince MS to happer fx card output to make sure that there was no way someone could get a copy by ripping straight video...... they failed but they crippled performance of an OS

Yep.  I saw the original source and the studios were optimistic about BD despite the economy.  Then we had these "journalists" that are trying to steer people away from BD spin the original source to even say the exact opposite.  BD is now averaging about 10% of market share.  Big budget releases like Iron Man do closer to 20% (ones that appeal to the 25-50 male).  This is for North America.  Here in Japan, BD is exploding in popularity (but I won't talk too much about that because many people say "Japan doesn't count").  For those that compare it to LD, it's already passed that point a long time ago that LD got to in 20 years.

BD will be around for a long time.  It may or may not have the same success as DVD, but it's definitely not going anywhere.

I can think of very few legal digital download services that allow you to transfer the movie from device to device.  The DRM restrictions usually require the downloaded content to be played on the device it was purchased (except for the Playstation Store with the PSP).  Tranferability is not the only issue because these downloaded movies aren't really yours so there is really no reason to organize them.  The movies typically expire after a short legal viewing window.

Actually, moving to Blu-ray is a better argument for your assumptions.  Bringing Blu-ray into your life is not a fork lift upgrade.  You will still be able to enjoy your DVD library.  In fact, all Blu-ray players will upscale your library providing you with forward compatibility.  The upgrade from VHS to DVD was much more painful because you still needed a vcr to play your VHS library.  Once you upgrade to Blu-ray you will no longer need your DVD player.

Attached is a video quality reference table.  Please note the last column is the bit rate.  The bit rate directly effects your ability to upscale video.

Video quality reference table from best to worst:
(Some data might be outdated, missing, or approximate but I will update)
Source/service CODEC Resolution Bit-rate
Blu-ray H.264 or MPEG2 1920×1080 1080i/p 40
HD DVD H.264 or VC-1 1920×1080 1080i/p 28
ATSC HDTV MPEG2 1920×1080 1080i/p 19.39
Digital cable MPEG2 1920×1080 1080i/p ~ 16
Verizon FiOS
Video on demand MPEG2 1920×1080 1080i 15
DISH HD MPEG2/MPEG4 1440×1080 < 10
DIRECTV HD MPEG2/MPEG4 1280×1080 < 10
IPTV H.264 ? < 10
Xbox Live Video VC-1 1280×720 720p 6.8
DVD MPEG2 720×480 480i * 8
Apple iTunes QuickTime/H.264 1280×720 720p 4
Web “HD” downloads H.264 1280×720 720p 1.5

link -> http://forums.highdefdigest.com/high-definition-smackdown/68614-here-s-what-fake-hd-video-looks-like.html

@dbot
Dish already allows storage of downloaded he movies to USB attached drives, so they seem to be moving in in the direction of greater media flexibility.
The music and movie industry would love to force everyone to buy content on optical drives, but as transfer bandwidth and storage capacities rise, consumers and distribution vendors (such as dish) will push harder and harder for greater content playback flexibility. Case in point: iPod and iTunes.
Movie studios fought tooth and nail to stop the advent of vidio recorders, but the market shoved them into a corner.

The older models of content distribution keep evolving. The challenge for the content producers is to adapt to consumer demand.

@dbot
Forgot to mention... Only dish ppv movies expire. DVD recordings of hd network programs never expire. I have some he content from the spring.

the industry really seems to hate home made dvr, they have tamed tivo so they can get shows to expire, the main reason i use eyetv

@crumas - I don't think we are discussing the capabilities of DVRs or your ability to record over the air broadcasts. These capabilities have been around since VHS. The discussion is regarding the market that includes pay per view, VOD, digital distribution, DVD, and Blu-ray. At least that is the focus of my comments. Are you suggesting that Dish allows you to record and transfer the 1080p VOD or Pay Per view?

Yeah, some studios have loopholes to prevent you from even making a copy without expressed written authorization (this is mostly sports leagues and infamously the NFL, oh and PBS requires this.  PBS even requires authorization for you to show any of their productions to a group of people, i.e. students, and often times there is a $ contribution to do so).  Those are relatively extreme examples however.  The whole problem with how they are fighting piracy is they are just now tackling the asian piracy market with their encoding method in blurays.  Sad thing is this issue of pirated movies on hard copy(dvd) is mostly history as DD is the preferred method of pirated films and such.

Isn't this entire subject tiring.  This whole format war goes way deeper than 95% of individuals understand, or even want to understand.  I again, see both sides of the argument but neither one seems more clear.

Yeah, and digital distribution is much better because only countries like the usa will have it. I mean, you cant expect people all over the world to have internet connection that fast, you will download an HD movie and you will only be able to watch like one a month, and maybe you wont be able to keep them because lack of storage space.
Digital distribution is the future, but a more distant future.

i cant understand what the big fuss is about.

its as if some people are claiming that sony are not going to do digital distribution of hd movies, when in fact they are.

bluray and hd-dvd for that matter are far far superior than a DL or a STREAM title.

theres simply no collectablity on digital distribution at all, but on bluray there is.

bluray and hd-dvd have a better quality picture, better sound and better features

for thse who have very fast connections then the DL rental scheme will work best for them for those who just want to watch a movie. i on the other hand have no intention of paying extra to upgrade my net speed solely for digital distributed movies.

theres no way a studio will release thier film on digital 1st, they will release it on dvd and bluray

digital dist. imo, is a kind of add on, it will be there for ppl who want to take advantage of it. when the time comes and it wont be anytime soon, you will find digital as the norm, but i will always pick a bluray to keep rather than shell out for a digital version.