Digital Downloads or Blu-ray?

Contrary to many people saying downloads will take over and kill Blu-Ray, Blu-Ray will exist I think indefinitely. So long as HDTV's are being produced, so will Blu-Ray. They kind of go hand in hand in optimizing each others performance.

Sure downloads and HD downloads will gain a chunk of movie marketshare, but Blu-Ray will dominate the HD media of choice. This isn't like music, you only liking 2 tracks of a whole cd. Movies are a 1:1 ratio thing, and physical media will always be easier than having to keep upgrading your storage system.

Saying downloads will take over is like saying people will not shop at retail stores anymore. More and more people will buy stuff off the internet I agree, but you won't keep people out of retail stores and that goes for everyone. Believe it or not people like to get out. We can't be completely 100% lazy.

No, downloads aren't going to replace blu-ray, or DVD for that matter. You mention the reason why - people still like having a physical item, a collection. Sure, people point to music, and how iTunes and an iPod has replaced most peoples' CD collections, but that's a bit different. First, the big problem with music was having to buy the entire album even if all you wanted was 1 or 2 tracks. Second, you can now get a song for a buck. Movies don't work that way. You never hear someone complaining how they'd love to only buy scenes 1, 5 and 23 from a movie, for instance. The other issue that downloadable video isn't at the same high resolution as blu-ray. In some cases, it's not even as good as DVD. For casual viewing and rentals, streaming or downloads may be fine, but even then, not everyone in the US has broadband. Even most people who do have broadband don't have a fast enough connection to support streaming in HD. Blu-ray isn't going to fail but it's going to remain a niche product.

Without a doubt BLU-RAY. Maybe renting a movie on your couch is more convenient but you wont get 1080P thru Apple TV. And downloading a HD Movie can take some time.

I don't think that will happen becuase with it you have to buy a service and also only one movie can go on a stick so basically it's just a waste of money that most people can't afford. IF it does happen it probably won't for a while becuase they're trying to make it be able to store more movies and also be cheaper. But I still think DVDs have a few more years of reign left in them.

Personally, I don't use either, but I think digital downloads are going to overtake Blu-Ray. They're faster, more convenient, cheaper (you don't have to buy a $600 player), and you can probably get close to the same quality. For a Blu-Ray disc, you have to go to the store, find the player and movies, wait in line to buy them, drive home, hook up the player, and then you can play the movie. Probably two hours total, depending on how efficient your store is and how complicated your home theater system is. For digital downloads, you download them from a website and play them on your computer. Probably a half hour, depending on how fast your Internet connection is.

Plus, you have more variety in your selection. You can probably find tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, of movies online. At your local video store, you can probably find a few thousand.

I'll cast my bet with digital downloads. 2020 at the latest and Blu-Ray will be as out-of-date as the VCR.

it will depend on the person. when we are able to down load high def movies it will either be like pay-per-view or only work on the computer that you downloaded it to. so you won't be able to take it over to a friends house to watch it. the average blue ray movie plays at 20 megs per second. i got a real good internet connection, but it isn't that fast. the hard copies won't get replaced but they will sell less of them.

If you like high definition (as I do), only blu-ray will satisfy you... if you dont care about video quality then downloads will be fine.

not everyone has a super fast internet connection, so blu ray is the winner.