It will be the future but not anytime soon to be mainstream.

Most of the people do not have fast enough connection.

Many ISPs out there have bandwidth cap.

Stream media will not reach BD quality any time soon.

People still prefer physically own the media as of now.

and the product for millions of others.

See here is the difference I will not say that this isn't a product for millions of others just as much as I will not say it is. A lot of people will buy it for the newest and greatest but it has nothing to do with the highest video quality but as an upgrade. If it was only quality that mattered we would all be using tube amps and listening to records but that is not what drives electronic media it is market satuaration and hype. If all you cared about was resolution and image quality may I suggest the movie theater it blows blu ray out of the water.

BR is a succesful product but it is not a modern wonderfall of killer must own goodness. A lot of people  on this site play upscaled games and do not even know until someone analyzes the video game and posts pictures to prove it and still after that many still believe they are playing 1080P. If some one gave them a game that was actually 1080P some would recognize it most won't and the company would plaster it all over the place and people who couldn't actually tell the difference before would suddenly get a WOW factor even thogh they may be playing it on a 720P TV it doesn't matter.

I own a PS3 and I have seen BR I will not deny that it looks better than a DVD and I also will go as far to say that the difference is also noticeable on an SDTV in terms of color but shines more on an HDTV.

However i bet you if I were to run an experiment and go out and replace all BRs with upscaled DVDs and sold them less then a quarter of the peopel who bought it would notice the difference. Where if people went out and looked at DVD after VHS over 80% would notice.

The upgrasde is not even in the same league. The thing that allowed for VHS to hang around as long as it did was not price but instead the ability to record. Now people have collections of DVDs they may start getting players but they lke to lend out movies and share movies and as such it is a pain to rebuild your collection. BR does not have a clear path it just won't be laser disk......Oh btw LD was a great format that was very noticeable too people seem to have forg=etten them today and we still use Beta for production.

HD streaming with full transport control is available via cable with no concerns about bandwidth, and the infrastructure for this was around years before HD content was introduced. You don't even NEED an internet connection for this stuff.

Yup I mentioned this earlier OD doesn't require internet connections and it is growing every year and providing HD content.

Through in the On Demand on DirectTV although that requires internet it is still very effective. Then you have Netflix HD and Itunes looking into providing HD content and goes knows who will provide more services. BR is still in its infancy with over half of its sales depending on a gaming machine now that HD-DVD is out of the way it also has to compete with these.

The public liked DVD because:

1) It was smaller than VHS.

2) They were allowed to skip to any scene.

3) Freeze-frame pausing.

4) MOST OF ALL:  No more rewinding.   Rewinding was a huge pain, it would break vcrs (causing people to buy rewind machines) and if they forgot to rewind, Blockbuster would sometimes charge a penalty.

Oh, it also had a clearer picture.  So did Laser Disc.  So did Beta Max.  Clear pictures do not sell formats to anyone except ... well, us geeks.

I agree the difference from dvd to bd isn't as big as vhs to bd, but what do you want? to stay with dvd for ever? continually upscaling until you can notice it looks terrible? BD is just an advancement in technology, and it's going to be beaten by another advancement someday, why fight it so much. I like advancing technology. And about the movie theatre, i also agree it is a lot better, and i do see movies all the time but i can't spend $10 everytime i want to watch a movie again, and they don't stay there for ever so BD gives me the closest quality i can get to theatre at the moment.

As for your quality, i'm not sure about amp tubes, but records aren't the best sound you can get. I know people will argue to the death thinking that it is for some reason, so i don't like getting into it. Let's just say it's a matter of opionion to apease the masses.

Ok, for one, I don't believe Bluy-ray will ever achieve the success that DVD has for two main reasons; the first one being they are not a major upgrade from DVD. DVDs replaced VHS as the mainstream movie format because it was such a major change from the format. It was more convenient, had a completely new format, much more space, better picture quality, scene selection, extra content, no rewinding, etc. Blu-ray on the other hand is just a "better" DVD. Even when the price drops substantially, Sony is going to have an uphill battle in convincing people to rebuy all their old movies in Blu-ray. The mass consumer doesn't care as much about HD as Sony and its fans will have you believe.

Second is, despite the denial of the Sony fanboys, digital distribution is on the rise, and I'm willing to wager will become extremely popular within the next 5 -10 years, just like music has. And until that time, DVDs will still be the main choice by the mass consumer. Sure, Blu-ray will always have its niche of techies and Sony fans who absolutely need their hard copies of movies. However, I think the future belongs to DD, and DVD will fill the void between now and then.

So although I think Blu-ray will continue to be successful and gain popularity over the next decade, I believe unlike the VHS or DVD era that has been dominated by one format, the rise of DD will result in a schism in the market, where Blu-ray keeps about half the market who appeases the traditional movie audience who wants to stick to tangible movie disks, and DD gains the other half of the market. For that reason, blu-ray will never gain the success that DVD had, because there will simply be better, more convienient options available made possible by newer technologies.

Blu-Ray disc has all those advantages in addition to new ones (and players include backward compatibility for your whole legacy DVD library). So did Laser Disc offer many of these features, but was huge. And so did Video CD (a success in China and India), but usually required muliple discs with not so great quality improvements. There are many different factors, retail and rental service adoption IMO being crucial.

Blu-Ray content makes sense for HDTV owners.

My point was that greater picture quality has never sold a format.  Only greater functionality.

VHS was superior to 8MM for many reasons, one of them being picture quality.

DVD was superior to VHS for many reasons, one of them being picture quality.

If a format has nothing to offer except an upgrade in picture quality, history has shown it does not gain mass acceptance.