Remember when all the fanboys (HD-DVD ones mainly) were saying that your average joe doesn't know or need Blu-ray, so what makes you all think that digtial downloads will be any different? If anything it'll be more complicated seeing that they would need to know how much space will be needed to download films and when you run out of HDD space are you supposed to delete older films?

Seems like BS to me.

Everyone has been saying this for years. Do you know how easy and fast it is to download music? It's blazingly fast, but physical albums are still being purchased by the masses. Why? Because most people like to actually own what they spend their money on. I know I do. That plus I like the art it comes with.

Also, what's going to happen when you really want to watch a movie but your internet is down? Yeah, that's what I thought.

I will never switch to movie or music downloads.

i dont want to download. i want to buy bluray films.

What if you forgotten to backup your films you've downloaded and paid for? Suddenly console crashes and erases everything off your HDD.

Every customer will prefer Blu-Ray over Download
why? simple answer people want to touch it, to feel it,
its the Human mentality.

Hah, instead of giving congrats for winning, they try to jump ship to something they weren't really backing to begin with. MS has always been pushing it though which is why I only respect them when it comes to that argument. I'm not jumping to DD's for movies anytime soon, I like having discs and I don't have to worry about some screwed up DRM that'll somehow prevent me from porting my stuff over to other devices.

Why are these articles discussing possible events that may occur 10 years down the road. Focus on the now people! ;)

This yet down the road. Never the less CD's vs MP3's.

the 10-year countdown has started

see you then

oke.

Disgusting HD-DVD fanboys wont quit!

Yeah it will in maybe 20 years. And no matter how big digital distribution gets there's going to be a market for people who want a real hard copy of it.

Actually I am already downloading HD footage/movies on an external USB 2.0 HDD, attached to my 360 formatted in HFS+ it runs better then any HD player BluRay/HD-DVD whatever!

So which future with digital downloads? It's now

People have been using digital downloads for years. They're called bittorrent and p2p programs. Did torrents or p2p programs stop DVD's momentum, NO.

So with HD DVD out of the way, I don't see how in the world they think it will stop Blu ray.

There are things that would have to be addressed:

1- Faster download speeds

2- MUCH bigger hard drives.

3- Find a way of easing people's fear of data loss. Because lets face it, if you have a whole bunch of movies on your hard drive and your pc gets fried, that's a WHOLE library of movies/shows down the tube. This is a factor as to why physical media will last a lot longer than this guy is saying. It has a safety factor that digital downloads might never have.

4- Companies will want some sort of copy protection from their movies being pirated. Now THIS is a major problem. Companies have been trying to stop bit torrent and p2p programs for years with this one. And to be honest, if you can't stop dvd/ hd dvd/ blu ray pirates, how the HELL are they gonna stop digital downloading pirating?

5- The Majority of people hardly even know how to use the pc as it is. So getting society to move to digital downloads will be a MAJOR task in itself. Think about it, how many of you have to CONSTANTLY help your parents with the TINIEST of pc issues? Some parents can hardly even operate their own dvd players without some kind of help from their kids.

I know someone will disagree. But that is just my view of things. WHEN those 5 things are addressed, MAYBE digital downloads will be a major reality. But those are all a LONG way from being addressed. So Blu ray WILL enjoy an extended victory despite what this article claims.

I still buy CDs, and as far as Blu-Ray is concerned, It will enjoy more than 10 years for these reasons.

- Its always nice to have a hard copy incase your hard drive gets corrupted.
- you can't take a download over to a friends house whether it be a game or a movie.
- you can't go to EB Games and trade in a download.
- You will need to have a massive hard drive to fit all the games and movies that you want.
- when games are up in the 20-40 Gig range, it will take forever to download them onto your hard drive.

I think that there will be alot more downloads in the future, but only for things that we currently download, like Movie trailers, game trailers, small games, game add-ons and music.

Digital Distrubition will be BR downfall when people feel comfortable about purchasing movies.... And that is like 10 years down the road.

It will take 10 more years until the internet connection speeds can support HD downloads. I have a 10MB connection and the download speed is different every time i download something. The larger the file the longer it takes. I would always like to have it on a disc rather to have an e-file.
I something is on a disc you can take it where ever you want. If it is downloaded is is only on your computer unless you put it on memory stick or something similar. But again the quality will not be even close to the quality of the content on a disc because downloads are always compressed.
Just my opinion.

Mart, you are full of S$%T. You probably do not have an HD TV that is why you can not tell the difference in quality!

will never be as big as dvd fact.. d.d. (digital downloads) are the future!

This is just simply HD-DVD talking from the great beyond. Had HD-DVD won there would be tons of articles similarly titled "HD-DVD enjoys long reign while Digital Downloads ease into Homes many years from now" Hey I have an idea lets all get Japan's new 1.2gb/sec satellite service! because I'm sure they're gonna charge $30/month because you know these speeds are so common nowadays and oh let's all download a few Terabytes a month because I'm sure they won't put a cap on bandwidth! /sarcasm

Makes me laugh, ask yourself guys, just because Itunes is available does that mean people will stop buying cds in the next two years? Not everyone owns a ipod do they? Has the downloadble music business stopped people buying cds? It hasnt has it? How are companys going to mainstream profits by totally putting their efforts into downloadable content , what is going to happen to the stores themselves? There will always be people without the best broadband service aswell and you will need that I suspect.

I would also like to say I do not like the Xbox Live Video Marketplace, the console for a start is too noisy to enjoy films , the quality on some of them is woeful (anyone seen the fugitive in hd especially) and people like to have cases as collectors items, the movie buffs especially.

I honestly dont see downloading movies taking over going into a shop and buying a blu-ray disc, it will only be an alternative, that will probably take years to be fully recognisable to the normal guy/gal who isnt a game/tech nerd.

digital downloads aren´t the future, just look at most of us who post on this site, only those ignorant enough to think that microsoft is doing gods work believe that digital downloads are the future and because of that they wan´t to pay just to get to pay another time to watch something in a time period. Me and MANY others don´t want to support it, and the average joe won´t support it so they won´t even make a dent in the sales of blu-ray.

So what happens when blu ray starts including a copy of the program in a digital format, like Apple is beginning to do.
The fact is there is a market for high definition on hard copy format. We are coming into a time of complete digital convergence and it is short sighted to say that blu will fail just because there is an alternative. Maybe blu will survive because of that alternative.
I have purchased (as im sure many others will too) movies in both formats, and I actually enjoy having something physical better.

Every since HD-dvd STARTED falling we started seeing more and more articles about DD...... get real .... DD is Niche market

1) its a fomrat in itself and we can all see its not picking up speed like blu-ray
2) I is not as convenient as ppl say it is to download
3) blu-ray currently is better quality
4) Internet infrastructure is simply not there to handle this sortuv thing on a mass scale.

Sorry but have fun downloading your movies at optimal speed

When M$ actually let's you own the movies you download then we'll talk. Their should be a option to buy or rent. But this is so far from becoming mainstream. People like physical media.

until they can make every country in the world to have a 100 Mb service with an unlimited download bandwidth for a dirt cheap price, digital download will fail.

so it was always blu-ray vs. hd-dvd in the media. hd-dvd lost, so the media brings out this bs digital downloading. digital downloading won't become mainstream. the future of disk drives will be Blu-Ray disk drives because of the advanced security and space. people will end up buying blu-ray disks, which means more blu-ray customers. My computer is upstairs and is used for surfing the web, not watching movies off a 15 in monitor. I would rather watch my blu-ray movie disks on my 56 in dlp hdtv with 5.1 surround sound and in my comfortable family room. technology companies will not let this go. they make money from retail that sell hardware and "hard copies" How will blockbuster and such work out? the only people that'll buy these digital downloads are those tech-savy people and not the typical movie viewer. there are 10.5 million ps3's with built in blu-ray players along with standalone blu-ray player users.

our parent's generation dislike technology like computers because their lives are established and they don't need to really know anything beyond DVD's. I can see digital downloads being a factor in 10+ years.

Whoever wrote this article is a moron and really has no common sense. Everyday consumers are not going to download something for days, while having to upgrade their hard-drives, etc. and yet still pay a price. There will always be a market for a hard copy.

People won't even think about downloading movies this huge until our internet gets a massive speed boost.

DD won't be the norm until the piracy issue is resolved anyways. It's funny how Blu-ray has prevail and the other camp never admits defeat.

Why would 5 dollar rentals and 19 dollar rights to buy movies kill DVD or Blu-ray? The best thing is, games will STILL need bluray, and Bluray will still sell regardless if there are on demand fantards like theMart or not.

The idiot theMart expect the casual consumer to get this: "I am already downloading HD footage/movies on an external USB 2.0 HDD, attached to my 360 formatted in HFS+"

Yeah, I-m sure that sounds easier that "Blu-ray", you moron!

Hmm... this article appeared after this one did... http://www.n4g.com/ps3/News...

DD will be the end of BluRay, maybe. Only if internet speeds are over at least 25gbps >.>.. Some day.... also, people like a physical copy of the item they bought, so do I. DD will occur, but it will never permanently rid of a hard copy. Also, what about hard drive space? I have about 10 movies on BluRay so far... lets assume each movie is 50 gb(most will be soon) 500gb for 10 movies. 15 dollars per download, plus the computer/reciever.. say 250gb. My current DVR only allows 30 hours of HD movies....

DD will be a long time, there ya go.

Ok if DL movies online for free didnt kill DVD.. THERE IS NO WAY THAT DL HUGE FILES TO A HDD will KILL BLU RAY.. People like have Movies.. The concrete in there face stuff.. Stuff they can touch.. And Digital DL on a BIG Scale is YEARSSSSSSSSSSSSSS off.. Prolly like 10 years... To try and sell people something that they cannot see is hard.. Will Blu Ray be around forever No.. IS Digital DL the Future.. Prolly.. But just like VHS gave you the option to watch VIDS at home and DvD taking of those Riens in the new Age.. Blu Ray will take over this HD ERA and then who knows after that.. But BR will be around for 10 years at the least... Period

seriously i want to get a blue ray player but when i hear of people talking of some thing called 2.0 i get descuriged because i dont know what it is.

Give it a rest BABOONS.

Don't you see that you monkeys were WRONG about...

PS3 including Blu-ray
PS3 including HDMI
PS3 including Bluetooth technology
HD-DVD winning the format war

You BABOONS have been WRONG about everything you have been predicting, and this is no different. Blu-ray is here to STAY for some time. Yeah so some of you BABOONS download HD movies,but 500K of you M$ brainwashed BABOONS does mean the rest of the PLANET is ready for it.

Give it a rest and just ACCEPT DA-FEET, PS3's feet in you FACE.....AAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAAHAH AA

I really dont care that much about extra features either, so know i can focus on which player to buy without worrying about that.

Blu-ray might be the last format for movies.....ever. It might last as long as the CD or even longer. I want a copy of my purchase, especially if the harddrive would crash! Everyone of my friends wants a copy of the movie. I don't think digital downloading will be as big as people are expecting. It will have to prove itself to many consumers. I don't know about anyone else, I would prefer taking a DVD or Blu-ray disk over to my buddies place to watch it. Why would you want to take an entire device which will require you to remove wires and create a mess in your entertainment center?

that will be the future, FUTURE. Maybe in 5 years it'll be the way to watch movies, but right now its blu-ray, i'm sure that most of the people are going to use blu-ray for now, they have to let people evolve with the technology, its growing too fast.

Of having a physical format in hand.
Either that or having a physical format AND a copy of the movie/cd on a HDD.

I'll likely never download a movie (especially a HD movie) unless for some reason it becomes mandatory.

1) Old fahioned don't "do" internet, much less downloads.
2) A little to slow dont you think, downloading something instead of just popping it in.
3)retailers- consumers= not so friendly

My internet connection is poor.

I don't want to know about digital movies, there will be too many restrictions and barriers put in place to stop the service from being successful.

The flexibility and reliability of disk formats cannot be underestimated, not to mention the fact that with lots of different stores competing on price with disks it gives a significantly better deal for the consumer.

I like to look at my shelves and see a row of disks that I own, I am not loving the idea of paying for access to a server and not own anything I buy.

Add to that, there is still the problem that many people have net connections of 1mbps or less and that in Britain at least there are huge parts of the country that cannot get broadband yet. The BluRay disk will remain a viable format and the dominant delivery method for movies in the world for at the very least a decade. Downloads will arrive one day but there will still be a physical format, remember that even with iTunes downloads there are still millions who buy CD's and Vinyl.

Physical disks for movies will be around for a long time yet.

and how the hell are people going to use digital download when

1. thier bandwith speed isnt fast enough EXCEPT in japan.

2. people like physical disk. digital download will come eventually..............in about 10 to 15 years from now. get microsofts c#$k out of your mouth

edit: its only hddvd fanboys saying this sh!t. you guys need to man up and give it a rest

Nobody wants to stream, or wait to download their movie and store it on some sort of drive. The cable internet is already expensive as it is, and im definitely not gonna pay double just to have a T1 type connection just to download movies. It's just a bad idea , and I judging from the above post I'am not alone.

Just like how we knew Blu will win we also know DD will never replace physical media in another 10 years or more if ever. Its just plain common sense. Just ignore these articles to save you guys having to explain again and again why DD will not take over Physical media anytime soon.

nough said

is n4g desperate for a story?

hd dvd is dead
blu ray won

nobody gives a crap that people say blu will fall, that hd dvd will cause something

its dead and these storys involving formats need to stop being aproved

i like to have it to take it where ever i want with me. only time i uses digital download is when i want to see a movie in theaters, i go to joox.net on my ps3 and download it to my harddrive which is nice but do i really want to carry around my ps3 just to watch a movie? no!

its going to take at least 10 to 15 years for dd to even a chance with the average joe. people act as if what we here on n4g's know is what the mainstream know. walk up to someone in the street and ask them would they rather have a physical disk or dd and the first question they will ask is

whats dd? its as simple as that. physical disk will be around for a much longer time........get over it. but hey, thats just my opinion

we all know people hate to WAIT just for a download. what i find funny is that if people on here were complaining about a 20 minute install in dmc4, then how in the world are you same people also saying dd will take over? think about that please........

but hey, thats just my opinion

Never gets Old. Toshiba and M$ Bots are Such Sore Loser's.

And For the kids Bandwith Is Not Cheap and its Not how much its costs you But The Cable Provider.
You want Digatal Downloads? u will PAy like x2 your cable bill good luck.

Like has been said More times then One can count IN 10 YEARS WHEN BANDWITH IS CHEAPER!!!!!

and Oh Half of America still Use's 56k still good luck with that.

I would much rather have a movie on disc than on my HDD. Especially if its a Windows machine.

I been downloading Digital content over Live for 2yrs now and been downloading from the net for 3. "see you then" oh wait "see you now" :)

I absolutely understand, when we are talking about MP3 downloads. Grab it and play these songs on a tiny Player, which can be easily carried along while standing in a bus etc. Definately better than a Disc-Man.

But when it comes down to movies, I bet most of the people are relaxing on the sofa and watch dvds.

I'll take at least like 10gig a movie and 5 days to complete hahahah.
Everyone knows when it come to download stuff u can get it for free.

I have two 300gb hard drives full of content I have downloaded over the net in the past three years, and it's all legal. Every thing from movies, TV shows and music all in HD or high quality. All of my content is streamed to my 360 and other computers, and it works "flawlessly". If I need to rent a movie, I don't need to go anywhere, I just download it from Live or VOD from my cable provider, or Tivo it to save. I can even download huge game sized episodic content and full games over Live.

Where the hell have you people been? Oh wait nevermind, you been rebuying, cleaning, and repairing scratched disc.

How does that go again?

Sour.......grapes?

I havent bought a DVD or CD for years.

The time for Digital Download started with Napster.

There is no 'next' media - the CURRENT media is Hard Drive and Digital Download.

It's funny how all those people whining about the PS3 installation on a few games, are mostly all in favour of digital downloads.

Do you know how much space and time it would take to download a HiDef movie?

Most people already have at least one delivery system for digital downloads. It could be your PC, Tivo, Cable box, laptop, pocket pc, MP3 player, portable USB hard drive, or your Xbox 360. <---pick one, their all here and available now.

i don't know what is going on in the u.k but over here in the states i don't think we get 20 megs thru ours isp and i live in washington state seattle in fact the home of m$ and we can walk around and get free wi fi here plus they are going to put caps on the internet soon so dd might be farther then you think at least in the u.s

I don't think Digital Downloads are going to replace anything simply because too many people want something physical to hold onto.

Especially to get full HD movies with all the extra features it would be faster to just buy the thing and for this to work our own internet speeds would need to be monstrous, Ghost in the Shell style.

Well there is a free legal to use P2P program called Qtrax which is suppose to have 5 million songs on it already and they also said that they will soon have 25 million songs on it soon, supposely alot of the big music companies signed a deal to support this idea. Music DD has existed for some time now and movies DD is just beginning and will continue to become bigger.

Im on Virgin Media's 20mb broadband package and Virgin Media will be rolling out 50mb broadband by the end of this year, they are also trailing 100mb broadband but that won't be available until sometime in 2009/2010.

BT is working on something called CN21 which won't be available to whole of the UK until 2010/2011. It will first give you speeds of about 24mb which is already available from BE* broadband.

Japan has a standard 50mb-100mb broadband already, DD will become bigger with time and I think alot faster then many people think. I do like a hard copy but at the same time, DD is just easy for me and many other people.

Edit: You guys know that hard drives for desktop computers are getting bigger and cheaper all the time. 1TB hard drives are going to become very cheap soon enough. Laptop hard drives which are the ones the PS3 and 360 use, are more expensive than the desktop computer hard drives and the biggest one you can find is 500GB I think. That in time will also become bigger and hopefully more cheaper.

Not for a while...if at all.

DD is a non-issue. Why would I want to download a movie that I DON'T OWN because of DRM issues that will expire, when I can just go buy it on Blu-Ray since I own a PS3? Speaking of which, Paramount! Where's my Blu-Ray version of Transformers? HUH?!?!

digital downloads doesn't have a chance against hard discs for a very long time, when at least 3.0mb internet is the standard. Even after that piracy will own that area.

I been saying this for some time now. Starting a bluray collection is a huge mistake. Digital downloads is the future. 5 years from now huge hd's will be affordable and internet speeds will increase....

Check out this article...

http://www.cnn.com/2008/TEC...

1.2 gigabytes per second. Download a high definition movie in about 1 minute. Bluray is not the future.

Everyone says they would rather have a disk to watch a movie on - but that presumes that you want to watch it more than once. The number of movies I would be willing watch more than once is very small (kid movies mostly).

The thing is, a move costs $20-30 bucks - I would much rather download it, watch it once and then move on for $5-6. I haven't purchased a DVD in a long time but I regularly watch HD movies on demand. All it takes is about 10 Mb for 720p or about 20 Mb for 1080p. In that regard, the article was wrong - FIOS gives more than 5 Mb, you have an option to have 20 Mb (while still having plenty of reserve for HD movies). Anyone that has FIOS can stream HD movies today.

Cable is about to provide 100 Mb - and that will be a widely available speed. So I predict Bluray will never have a major impact. If you want to buy a HD movie it is the way to go but it will never become as popular as DVDs. In two years HD on demand with a huge number of movies will be available and Comcast and Verizon will be the ones that profit.

So, in summary, I think everyone here is vastly underestimating the rate of adoption of DD. But we will see what happens over the next two years.

Over the last while, it's interesting to see that most people keep their Music on Ipods and whatever, making CDs a thing of the past. However, that's mostly because of piracy and not because people would rather buy things online. Saying that digital downloads will be the future is somewhat correct, but it won't be for years to come, mainly because this type of thing will take immense amount of time, due to the requirements. Which are of course: 1) fast connection speeds (look at Japan, they are way ahead of us in internet speeds, yet their media is on disks no doubt). 2) Set top boxes to get this actual content. 3) Infrastructure to support downloading available to the masses. Blu-Ray won't have to compete with digital downloads. Most people would rather buy the disc, then possibly back it up, and keep it in their "collection". This makes it easy for sharing movies too, or taking movies with you on trips if they have portable players. This whole digital downloads thing makes the assumption that people are glued to a single TV in the living room (which, isn't too far from the truth, considering North Americans today...being one myself haha).

The point is, sony handed M$ it's a$$, and we should all respect that. HD-DVD is dead, I like Toshiba though, hopefully they make sexy time with Sony and start producing more Blu-Ray products to make the transition smoother to HD content. Here is another interesting bit, out of the 500+ channels on my satellite, i have ~25 HD channels...talk about change taking a long time. Dream on digital download douchebags.

when hd-dvd was still in the competition, we never saw these articles. now, blu-ray is the hd disc standard and all of a sudden, dd is going to storm the world? are there people who hate sony that much to start printing the ridiculous articles? if dd was going to be such a force in the market, we would have had these types of stories long ago.

Told you it was coming. Check my comment history if you don't believe me.

i tell you what when a digital downloaded movie reaches over a hundred million per movie then dd will overtake dvds - lets face it people the future is blu -

Unless were talking whole video games being dd then I don't care cuz I still wont be switching multiple disks like its 1997

I doubt downloads will mean a death of a format.
For one Blu-ray has more features and more memory.
Only format to play in full 1080P besides w/ computer support from Alien Ware, Apple, and Sony later on you'll be able to download Blu-ray movies just like you do with DVD's.
Understand what makes a download a bad thing for a movie is one everything is upscaled not true HD, second not having a hard copy to share w/ people another bad thing.
Microsoft and Toshiba are just jealous because they've lost.
Sony is ahead they have OLED and Blu-ray I don't think they ever lose.
Downloads are cool and all but I know most people would rather have a hard copy of a movie than a digital download.
However I can see downloads as being the future to rent movies and games from your console or TV.

... from where... and is that with or without a computer, internet access, and a high speed connection? And will it be without extra fees? Will the downloads be permanent, and copy-protection free, or what?

I still think Blu-ray's real competition at this point is good ol' DVD.

I dont want movies to become mainstream dd, as I like buying my movies or renting them, if I want to rent a movie all I hav to do is go to my local video store and hire the movie I want all in about 10mins,I do not want to have to wait for hours for my movie to download, by that time I prolly wont want to watch the movie anymore, I dont think this will become mainstream I think it will be a choice thing, but hard copies will be around for years to come im sure, Music is diff along came the ipod and mp3 players and everyone wants there music on a small easy to read and hold tons of songs on one device, no one wants to carry around a big discman any more and change the cd every 20 songs, MUSIC IS PORTABLE , MOVIES ARE NOT, I would not like to see movies go the same way as music, I wont support it Ill keep buying my movies on DVD and blue ray when it comes main stream and cheaper.

I'm just going from experience here, but I KNOW that the average consumer will ALWAYS prefer a hard copy over a digital version. Why? People like tangible more than intangible things. It's just the way I see it, really.

I love having big collections, I only started buying blu-ray cd's a month ago after knowing blu-ray is winner. I have over 300VHC movies in my basement and I have over 200dvd's which will soon accompany vhc in basement cause I already got 13blu-ray movies and planning to exceed my library its just what a like, you can ay a hobby in some way. but to have my collections of movies on HD I would need to buy lots of HD to store all the TB'es and I would be enraged if something happened to my HD and all my movies would be gone. I can even go change my dvd if it gets scratched or something which happens once a year maybe. the fact that I watch movies on 47"LCD samsung, means DD content probably wont be as high quality and bandwich in my country is limited and I live In center of europe. 20mbconnection(fastest here) gives max 2mb/sec download speed which is to slow! plus you CAN'T download more than 40gig a month, cause each extra gig will cost youaround 2$
So even after 10years when DD becomes more populair I think physical discs will still be used same way cd's and dvd's r used now.

wow why people take my bobbles? face it DD wont happened at least for 5more years. plus pirating will kill it!

I never have downloaded music. I don't own an ipod. I'm happy buying my movies at the store and getting to unwrap them. Unwrapping new stuff is therapy.

Why would I pay to download a movie when bittorrent already gets me movies for free?

and you will need a blu ray burner to backup those big hd files.

i know people with more than 20 blu ray movies.
i´ve got 21 myself , lets say 25gb for each one, even tho they come in 50gb disc, but this is for illustration purpose, thats at least 525gb, its an assload if you ask my.
I dont plan to upgrade my 400gb hdd for a while.
pardon my English.

not only think that they're a world class know-it-all, but get so much damn attention from people?

This is no different than those forum posts we love to hate. I could post this same tripe in a forum and it would get shot to hell. Editorials....a.k.a. license to jerk your own chain.

i have comcast ON DEMAND and i rent some hd movies,maybe once or twice a month but movies i truly love i buy on blu ray.anyways all ps3 games are put on blu ray so it will only get bigger and better.m$ stop hatin.PLAY AND WATCH B3YOND!

people who believe article this dislike the ps3

wafj

lmao downloads will never overtake hard copies, nor will they ever stand the quality since compression for downloads needed to speed up the process.

Just show them it is better than DVD and they will jump on it.

digital downlaods suck, they will never look as good as blu ray and they will never have uncommpressed 7.1 sound for atleast 5 or more years. apple TV for example only does 720p and ther stand def stuff isnt even standard def, its only 640x486 plus internet prices are only gonna get higher not lower.

hd movies are anything 720p and up. The fact that a player can play a movie at 1080p as well as a tv being able to display the same res does not mean the content itself has been created at that res. The cost of making movies is getting more $$ and therefore unless the original movie was shot at a resolution of 1080p or higher then the transfer to bluray or dd hd will only be as good as it was originally created.

Movies on live in hd (720p) dont take forever to dl. They are ready to watch in less than a min. The cost of entry level dsl and cable is under $20 which is what most dialup people pay. Unless you cant get high speed, there is no reason to not have it. Itunes is a huge movement for the dd age for music and will be for tv shows and movies. Sites like youtube and google video are slowly starting to offer hd versions of content as provided by the creators. Movie rental sites netflix and movielink offer instant playback of movies as well. Netfilx especially gives you X number of hours of online movie playback free as part of your membership. NICE!

It is only going to get more and more popular with the likes of dish network and cable companies offering on demand hd content. There will always be a place for people to purchase the physical media but there will also be equal place for those who want convenience in the form of just clicking "download now" on their computer screens.

The digital age has also shown that people are wanting to take their content with them. True it may not be high def like seen on a tv but the fact you can simply dl high quality movies and shows to the psp and zune and especially ipod is proving to be a thorn in the side of physical media. Even sony knows this as they are offering hq dl's of movies for the psp as bundled with some mem sticks.

Wll it be something that takes over...overnight? Not by a long shot but I think by 2010 it will be far more mainstream than it is. I am not sure it will be enough to slow bluray but it will give it a run for its money.

yeah i have a ps3 with blue ray but to be honest i rather downloand my movie and just watch. I'm a huge cough potato and so digital download is what i like. I dont care how long i have to wait to download as long as i dont have to go anywhere and just download and watch thats my thing. trust me once you start downloading and watching you will forget about owning a disc. Its the future embrace it now. it make take a year or 2 but digital downloading its the future. Blue ray is nice and all but it wont last thats the point. All the fools supporting blue ray must not know that there is something better for them outthere. Dont hate just participate bunch of LEVA's. Hve fun with those blue rays i only have 3 and the rest is digital downloads.

"I" , would rather pay for a movie and have have it physically with me then keep it on hard drive which I know could fail me anytime... Also the space, I know that Hard drives are getting bigger but to experiene HD movies you still need a lot of space ! + on blurays you get the extras which I like to have with a movie when its released on DVD,Bluray or watever. And also internet speed, I have 256 right now... SO I don't want to wate 30 days to get my movie :o ! Even if I had a faster connection that could get me the movie in 2 mins or 10 , I want to get out of my house and walk there have the customer interaction with the "shop dude". And be able to walk around the "blockbuster shop" and find a movie that I like.

because everyone will have their computer/ps3/360 in the same room with their entertainment center, then everyone will have cable or high speed dsl to be able to download this, o and everyone wants to pay for movies they cant physically bring with them and take to a friends house. yeaaaaaah, wat a stupid idea

Sure, digital downloads would be great and is the future but:

1. Exactly that, it will be the future, not the near future.

2. People will most probably download to burn on Blu-Ray discs later on. Few are those who don't keep a hard copy.

3. Do you really think Sony and Blu-Ray backers don't have something planned? Let's not forget they just won the next-gen format war people, because they PLANNED AHEAD!

Who wrote this article? Some fanboy or Microsoft/Toshiba personnel?

There's one reason that the movie will not go via internet: Tracks.
Because sometimes, you only like 1 track of a CD, what will you do, buy the CD or get the 99c download? That's what I thought.

In the case of movies, it's more hit or miss. Are you really going to buy a 5 minute section of a movie? No!

That's my opinion.

But it won't Replace ownership of hard copies, and as of right now even I can't stream 1080p video off the internet because I only have Fiber Optic. That's right, I can Only download at 5 MB per second. 1080p video requires a lot more than that, and the average Broadband user is on a 768 KB per second connection.

These "Blu-ray will never win articles" just seem like a last attempt to spew hatred against the format.

Digital Downloads however may replace DVDs (if) such content becomes quickly and easily transferable across PCs/Devices. Quick and Easy are the two most important aspects, and the reason why MP3s are so prevalent.

I LOVE digital downloads--wait..I mean, TORRENTS. I LOVE TORRENTS.

small video clips and mp3 downloads and torrents. This is not a 25GB or 50GB download. For digital distribution to compete with Blu Ray, the internet bandwidth must increase tenfold, as well as your HD storage.

Wow... the XB360 fans without the HD and the ones with 20GB disks should rather not comment. Their machines are not even able to download one movie in full HD format comparable to a Blu Ray disk.

Seems like the FUD machine against BR is now in full swing. Shame... maybe these people spreading the FUD should maybe make good products before they spew all this BS.

when 10TB HDD's are the norm
and you can download a Full 3x1080p movie in 8minutes. Until then I will not accept anything except real Discs.

Well broadband is cheaper now and its getting faster every year yet some of you still think it will take 10 years just to take off. 50mb broadband from Virgin Media this year, they are also upgrading their 4mb customers to 10mb. BT is working on CN21 and this is just for England.

Japan or the whole of Asia have pretty much got 50mb/100mb broadband as standard and now they are trailing 1.2GB broadband connection. Im also pretty sure that some of the ISP's in America are upgrading their infastructure so they can provide even faster speeds.

The downfall of broadband here in England is the fact we still use copper wiring to deliver the broadband, which frankly is not good enough and you won't get the speeds that are advertised.

Downloads will never replace discs.

Fist of all most ISP's have download limits or fair use policies.
Secondly downloaded movies are compressed more to make file sizes smaller which means poorer quality picture.
Thirdly downloads are ofter quite slow because people rarely get the full download speeds advertised by their ISP's.
There is also the fact that movie download services are basically rental services. If they are not rental services then would would end up needing massive hard drive space to store all your movie collection.

Digital download movies will never surpass physical forms of movie media! With discs you can take them to watch them where ever you feel like and swap them with friends. With a digital download, you're confined to watching it on whichever piece of hardware you downloaded it to and that's it.
Plus people like to own things when they pay money out. With digital downloads you own nothing.
All of these threads are clearly being built by sore losers who still are desperate to save face in lieu of Microsoft's huge loss on the format wars (and it is a huge deal).

After you buy a movie online and download it (20 GB), on what you will back it up on?

I was at Best Buy today Spiderman3 Special addition in Blu-Ray was 70 dollars that is more than the price of a game are you fking serious go ahead Blu-Ray fans be my guest spend that money let that company rape you. Lets get technical for sec 1080P is only as good as what the film is shot in and no films right now are shot that way so what you are paying for is false. The movie was not shot in true Hi-Def only the transfer to disc. One of the cameras out there right now created by Oakly Sunglasses founder is the one of the first true Hi-Def cameras its called (Red). How I know this is a friend that works in the industry and Peter Jackson is likely the first one to be using it for his next film. I Spent a lot of money in the past on regular formated DVD's and just a little pissed that companies are already trying to force another technology on us that hardley differs from whats already there.

I can tell that Digital Downloads won't be taking over till maybe in another 5-10 years.

People love discs especially DVDs. We won't see DVDs being thrown out of the market for a couple of years, I guarantee. But I should say:

This is the only time for Digital Downloading to enter the mass market and dominate. Otherwise Blu-Ray will snatch that position.

Personally, I'd rather have discs (Blu-Ray) since they are portable and contain so much space.

Blu ray is here to stay, so all you sore ass losers can just go suck my ****

Have you ever stop to think about what you are saying for a minute. If DD is truly the future, than why is it that Toshiba and MS invested so much in HD DVD (more than DD).

There are several reasons as to why DD will never pick up.

1) Bandwith problems; lets face it, as it stands right now, it takes DAYS to fking download that sh1t.
2) no unified platform; there isnt a single unified platform rather Apple will offer their load of crap, MS will try to force us into downloading their WMV crap, every else's mom will try to force us down their own crap.
3) The internet. Thats right, the fking internet. DD isnt new. It already exists and its called FREE FKING DOWNLOAD. People dont pay to download crap on the internet. People download for free, ok. So with that in mind, why the FK would you pay 5 buck to download some crap of MSs site that automatically deletes itself, when the same thing can be found on some torrent/ news site. When they finally get the bandwith straight, this will just mean people will use torrents more.
4) You still need some for of media for storage.

All in all, you were stupid and bought the wrong - now totally worthless - piece of crap. Just admit it, and stop acting like some sore loser.

blu-ray is here to stay. there is already digital downloads (torrents). the movie is 4gb when its less quality, full 1080p movies are well over 28gb, and thats not even the full movie. there lots of problems with that, people DD the full movie with phonline, or dsl, even cable, and fios. another thing is hard drive space. people is not going going to pay for a movie and take up space. DD shouldn't be considered for probaly the next 7 years. another thing is, if you have a 1TB HDD and you DD 20 movies (Saying movies are at least 50gb) thats already 1TB.

you cannot be a self proclaimed 'hardcore online gamer' and favor DD over bluray: period.

if everyone goes DD, you have enough congestion to ruin your precious ping: capice??

big fat jam in the tubes: is that what you xlosers want?
that'll ruin your deathmatches and you'll feel like a stupid loser once again!

xbaboon: a selfish ignorant ass endangering the online gaming community as a whole.

people who think downloaded movies will "TAKE OVER" any physical media are lying to themselves. downloads will be an OPTION but won't be the standard for at LEAST a decade (10 yrs for the uneducated) and even by then a new physical media will take over. downloads will be an option then as well. and don't give me the mp3 argument because the file sizes are WAY different. who the hell wants to dl 20+ GB for each movie? i sure as hell don't

In the USA it is going to be hard with bandwith being as it is. Another factor is how easy it will be to store and or recover if lost. I remember when I first lost my computor and all information was lost, what I am trying to say is that, be able to transfer miedia without limits is still needed, and storage like blu-ray is still needed.

In my opinion the mp3 and cd comparison is invalid. Mp3's are small freaking files that can be downloaded in no time and on top of that you can burn that to a cd. A hard copy still exist and you save gas money. The only people who buy the cd's just want the official art and the etc. ((Which I do.))
DD will only be an alternative to Bluray for now. I really think a lot of people prefer to have a hard copy of something and internet speeds are, as most people have said, just not up to par yet for a 1080p movie. Thats a huge file, and with all the extra content its ridiculous. As it stands, until bandwidth improves dramatically, AVERAGE hard drive size is upwards of 400-500 gigs, and people improve drastically in computer literacy and distrust of computers than DD will not kill Bluray. I personally will prefer the hard copy. DD may eventually trickle down and take over, but not soon. It'll be awhile, maybe until the rise of a new generation, when people are ready to try something new.
Only my opinions though.
Peace.

Well seeing as how Sony is going to offer the ability to transfer Blu-Rays to memory sticks I don't see how that is their downfall. With a Blu-Ray you can have the box and disc for your collection and if you want to store it digitally, well that could be your option too.

when people refer to the size of these movies being 25-50gb they are way wrong. You have to figure the core movie and single audio track wont really be more than about 15gb at most. It is the extra content and other audio tracks and languages which may take up several other gigs of space. So how is it that a movie on live being 720p and 5.1 tops out at "UNDER" the size of a dl dvd (avg size 6gb)? I am betting if that same movie was available in 1080 would maybe top out at 10-15gb.

Take that into consideration when thinking of how dd could become more mainstream. I dont care to much for the special features unless it is of a movie I really like to know how they did that. In that case I would purchase the real thing. Most who just want to watch the movies are likely to look at the convenience of click and play.

The only thing it will achieve in "killing" is the movie rental chains. DD will be used to "rent" movies (just like on demand from cable providers). People who buy movies want to have a physical disk to call their own, not some data on a HD.