Wait a moment?

How many households are in the USA? 150 million?

And they reckon 22% (33 million) of those households will have PS3's by 2012?

Epic, wondrous fail.

Two things need to happen before these can be realised:

* Price needs to be sub £99 mark because that is the price of a decent DVD player.
* Media needs the same as DVD new releases if it is to be choosen over DVD.

Reasons why this will not happen:
* People will be buying replacement DVD players so the price probably needs to be closer to £50 also they need to ensure that they know they are buying a DVD player that has this extra thing called Blu Ray. Can they get this message across and the price within 3 years?

* Digital content grows faster than is predicted above and that is more likely at least in the UK.

* Digital content equipment is more readily available than Blu Ray players

Also you've got to realise that with Blu Ray you're stuck with 1080P 24 as your specification. True video buffs will be interested in being able to get say 1440P and or 30 -> 60->120 FPS movies when available and they can do that with a download to a HDD whether over the internet or via a kiosk.

In 2 years other formats will be out, and will be better.. and BR will Not be 50% of DvD, think of how many people have a DvD player in EVERY Room of there home and how long it took them to get there..

It Will Not happen, it's not opinion, I mean think about it...

Right now, everyone that owns a PC has Digital On Demand, everyone that has Dircetv / Comcast (other country service here) has the option of Digital Service, and with the HIGH amounts of digital support wide spread phones and unites to the home whether it be apple / 360 / PS3 / ( that offer MDD) not to mention 108-p 36- service, and I'm SURE Sony will follow, I mean come on...

&

Look at CD's, remember those, "MP3 what? please, I will never download an MP3 thingy, I need the CD in my hand, I need to know I bought something..."

See... see what I did there?.. please tell me the last time you bought that thing they sold in the stores that had music on it?

You can look two years ahead if you want, but by the time a portable device will be out for BR, something else will be out before hand,(yes.. before two years) and will be better, regardless of backing of any company, I mean look at BR, and look at how companies are cutting cost at this time...

For the people that think Sony is the only owner of BR (They are not)

Look at the PS3 and Sony: see sony is trying to bring Blu-ray and at THE SAME TIME trying to bring Digital Download to the people with the PS3 and it will not work..

You can not bring a Movie in 1080p on a disc for $20.00 and then bring the same movie to watch for $5.00, (or what ever they charge for the movie, I know it's cheaper then the disc)..  if you own a Mortgage, Car payment, Insurance, kids, you know how cost can be everything, and we see that now, as people are actually starting to think at this point and time during a recession..

And I'm sorry, but... DD is not a "Ways off of mainstream popularity".. I mean come on, look at the numbers..

PS3, 360, Netflix, Apple, all have record or on the Up* downloads..

On-Demand is at a all time high..

it's not a fanboy thing, it's reality

If a New Format doesn't kill BR it will be DD..

Look at CD's <-------

Sega, are you saying that new disc formats (with more storage than BR) will come out in the next few years and pass BR in popularity?

I agree that DD is becoming more popular. I just don't understand what you're saying about other formats (maybe I read that too quickly.)

Well mainly the reason why digital music have become so popular (Won't say MP3's as I don't use 'em) is because it's so easy to share your music with your friends and the download doesn't take at all long, downloading an MP3 that is!

This is one reason also of why FLAC hasn't grown as fast as it could've... it's a larger file size which = to slower downloading and taking more space up.

This is also the main reason why DD hasn't taken off as fast as it could, plus with most of the DD'ers you only stream! your not actually getting the film so you can digitally transfer it to you PMP's.

What quality do the streams have? If it's not on par to blu ray on a even a 37" then it's not ready. Because to me DD at the moment only looks as an alternative for the less rich/lazy/ones with bad eye sight who care more about saving their money than experience a film more and more as it should be.

Probably around 80 million households. (Average household 4 persons?).

^ Most people couldn't tell the difference between a really good download and a Blu Ray disc. Since a lot of people have trouble with/don't care about the difference between BR and DVD there will be even fewer people who will care/tell between say a 5GB 1080P movie and BR.

a 5GB / 90 minute download is 7.4Mbit, a 10Mbit connection nets 6.75GB which are both better than DVD and is one of the most commonly available download speeds. So pretty much anyone with a decent/average connection could watch a high quality movie instantly and keep it as well.

Anyone with a 50MBit connection could stream at a higher quality than Blu Ray if the content were available, and those internet services are being rolled out right now.

DD is ready weather it is ready for you is another matter. The vast majority are actually happy with the output of a standard DVD and are certainly happy with upscaled DVD. So it is fair to say with improvements in delivery such as the HD smooth-streaming they will be happy with that as well.

Also it is probably worth asking whether we actually want to own movies if the price is $20 or whether we prefer to watch once. Currently I fall into the category of watch once but if I see a DVD that is cheap that I previously enjoyed I may also purchase that. Certainly I have some movies I would buy without watching once but it is not the majority and very much the minority.

It is a tough market but it is not going to get any easier for BR only more competitive. They need to make the format available simultanesously with the DVD but offer at the same price. If they did that it would make those at least with the option of buying A or B to go for B. What you then have to ask yourself is why would they do that as that does not drive up sales rather simply matches them.