Fo some reason it seems the few who shout there mouths about digital downloads, are exactly that, “the few”
What you need to realise is that half the world dosent have the infrastructure or capabilities to download Movies, let alone HD movies, let alone even know about digital downloads.
Add that to the fact that people in general still infact prefer to have something pysical and permenant.

I have no doubt that one day, digital media will take hold, but that day is along way away.
There are many years of profit to be made before that day comes.

The biggest downside of blu-ray winning at such an early stage is that competition is all but vanished.
In the future we are likely to see hardware prices continue to fall, but not as rapidly, and offers on the discs are likely to be significantly smaller as will price cuts.

The BDA nows has its eye firmly focused on DVD, its a battle that I dont see them winning unless they force it upon the public, which is a really bad idea and will work againt the industry, not fuel it.

All I wont now is the superdupa blu-ray LOTR trilogy boxset to be released along with Pirates blu-ray boxset, so I can put my newly converted home cinema/gaming room to proper use.

I realise we here talk about the movie industry, but to be honest, if we’d took a step back at the beginning of all this, and looked at the overall current and future capabilities of blu-ray in all media and data areas, we would have seen the superior product alot earlier, and realised blu-ray was always the better and deserves to win.

Blu-ray isnt a stepping stone, its the future for disc storage and the deserved winner.

This is why I’ll always prefer physical media over direct downloads. Direct downloads may also have DRM leading up to the point where I could only watch the episode 3 times. I sometimes watch Seinfeld or South Park episodes over 10 times each and with DRM, I lose that ability to watch something over and over and over.

And maybe it’s just me, but the jump between VHS to DVD included massive picture quality differences as well as 5.1 sound, special features and consistent quality.

The change to any HD format just isn’t that big for most people to see it. So what, the blacks are really dark. Not a big enough difference from the high quality 1080p up conversion on my TV. I have no idea what the actual stat is, but out most the people I know only about 20 per cent of them actually have the High-Def hardware to make any difference.

I think the real questions is, the war is over but other than the handful PS3 owners, who cares?

Like John, most of the people I know have already said that they won’t upgrade to HD unless the studios stop producing Standard def all together(there simply isn’t a large enough jump in quality from SD to HD). I seriously doubt standard def is going away any time soon.

At this point people want to own something (physical), and current and upcoming download services (including XBox Live) are all rental services which remove the movie after 24 hours. Not to mention the movies are “only” 720p and have low bitrates/audio. Thats fine for rentals, but for movies you wish to own consumers want the best (1080p + bonus features, physical disc).

We are still many years away from having the infrastructure, storage, speeds, and consumer mindset to have mass downloading become mainstream. MP3s have been around for over 10 years and they still haven’t killed CDs. Downloadable movies won’t kill Blu-ray either, at least not in the next 5 years.

One day, you won’t be able to tell the difference between a downloadable movie and a Blu-ray movie, and the download movie will play isntantly. But that day is many years off.

Ehhh… Standard Def is fine for the time being. Most dvd players these days come with HDMI up conversion anyway.

It’s sad really. BR may end up being the more quality product(once all the bugs get worked out), but HD-DVD was waaaaay more consumer friendly.

Does any one really believe the middle or low income family is going to invest in that hardware. Or put in the time to learn how to do all this. Because even if they could. There is still isn’t enough trust in computer operating systems.

Just because we are on the net and some of us are downloading movies, doesn’t mean everyone is.

I am working on my computer now. My wife is in the same room watching a movie. In order to do what everyone is describing, I would need a computer and TV for her to watch her movie, and a separate computer and TV for what I am doing. When my son comes home, he may want to watch something in his room. So then I would need a third computer and TV.

It’s all about convenience and the lowest common denominator. That individual wants to buy a movie for $5 while shopping for groceries. Come home put it in their $30 DVD player. Walk into the next room and finish watching it while in bed. Maybe some one else will want to come home and watch it in the other room. If it’s really good, let a friend bower it.

Not to mention. With a digital download, I won’t get a decorative packaging or tin. A poster, booklet, or animation cel reprints.

Until I can digitize my whole life like Tron, I don’t see the download only age happening in my life time.