Quoting Dr Pavlov:

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Alien:

Excuse me but it was the collector's like myself that made DVD the fastest growing electronic film medium in history. That growth has not flattened or predictably taken a bit of a downturn. The Blu-Ray take off was slow largely duue to that particular fact, the Studios have figured out how to rope us in now, that however does not mean that most of us will now tajke verything to BD, in fact, I consider that highly unlikely. My BD growth will now accelerate and DVD growth will slow, but i don't foresee it stopping altogether. Hollywood would have to convince me that many of my old films and TV series would actually benefit from transfer to BD, possible but I haven't been persuaded yet, and I don't believe I am alone in that skepticism. Time will tell. As for downloading, for collecting I still don't see this as an economically viable solution, it would cost an awful lot of money to provide sufficient storage for my collection + backup files, unless I chose to make my discs my backup, not likely as a sole backup. But in this business, who knows what the future holds...certainly not I.

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Streaming and downloads are the way of the future, like it or not. There's history to support this.

I have an ebook reader, and I hear people tell me that they won't last. Well, the fact that ebooks outsold actual books on Christmas day at Amazon is a reflection that, yeah, they very well will.

Electronic media is the way of the future. CDs and mp3s are a good example of this. Do I like it? Not necessarily, but you can't ignore that it's happening.

Collectors didn't make DVD the fastest growing medium. They helped, sure, but it was the general public that made DVD what it is today. Not the small percentage of people who buy mass amounts of DVDs.. If DVD strictly relied on the collector's market, DVD would have been another laser disc player. But once DVD players became affordable (something LD never really did), the benefits to owning one greatly outweighed not. Couple that with Netflix and, later on, Redbox, the conveniences of a DVD player went through the roof.

Now, with streaming getting better and better and technology such as the Ryko box, On Demand and even blu-ray's streaming capabilities, physical media will eventually become a thing of the past for the majority of people.

Will this happen overnight? Of course not. But it will happen. I can't speculate when, it could take a couple of decades, but you eventually won't see the rows and rows of movies at your local best buy.

I will say this about Blu-ray: It very well could be the last chapter in that part of technology. Not because of what it offers, but rather of what is around the corner.

Oh, I agree. Right now it's not the end all be all, by any stretch, but it's also in its relative infancy. I pay $7 (or 8) a month for unlimited Netflix streaming and I love it... for old TV shows and documentaries. Is it going to replace me buying The Descent on Blu? Hell no.

But that's right now. I can easily see some sort of ondemand owned catalog in the future, where, say, Sony stores all of its titles on a server and you can either rent or buy.

Quoting samuelrichardscott:

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You have no clue... no clue at all.

lol well i have a clue about DON'T invest money in hairdressing.

Quoting mdnitoil:

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The only people who are still hording discs are people like us, users of disc cataloging software.

People like us... Probably like you and several other users here, but not all of us. I do not catalog discs, nor DVDs, nor blu-rays. I collect movies, that I want to be able to watch when I want, stopping when I want, looking at a particular scene when I want, analysing a scene on slow motion when I want, and all this with the best quality possible, that means on a large screen with good audio devices. As for now, downloadable stuff or VOD do not allow to do that, has many restrictions, and that's why I'm not at all interested by what is actually proposed.

Quoting jgilligan:

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The big problem I have with getting a movie online is the whole DRM issue.

If I have to count on a company and a server to be up for me to be able to view the movie I purchased, then no thanks.  I will either stick with real media, or not purchasing.  To much risk in losing access to something I own.

But, if we are talking about rentals, like Netflix, then I see downloads as a very viable alternative.  I can count on a company or server to be up for a few days.

This. I wouldnt buy timebomb software/movies/music.

I'm the kind of person that doesn't see choices as mutually exclusive - well, I guess some really are.

But in terms of media, I want and do have it "all." I buy DVDs and BD, download trailers, stream movies from Netflix, etc. What I use depends on my mood and location. My Netflix subscription allows me to enjoy a movie on the train, for example, without carrying around physical media (yes my 3G cellphobne modem is fast enough - works great). I use profiler for it all. I have an icon in LoadDVD Pro for each media type, and I just bring up the movie and click on the Youtube trailer, the physical disk, or the Netflix link, and it just plays in a window  , while I am browsing the Cast/Crew gallery and watching a slideshow of my favorite actresses from the film.

Of course at other times, nothing beats popping in a BD in the player and rolling down the big screen in my AV room and watching a nice movie in good sound with the family.

I WANT IT ALL, MAN!!!!

Quoting Alien Redrum:

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Quoting FilmAlba:

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Quoting Alien Redrum:

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Oh, I agree. Right now it's not the end all be all, by any stretch, but it's also in its relative infancy. I pay $7 (or 8) a month for unlimited Netflix streaming and I love it... for old TV shows and documentaries. Is it going to replace me buying The Descent on Blu? Hell no.

But that's right now. I can easily see some sort of ondemand owned catalog in the future, where, say, Sony stores all of its titles on a server and you can either rent or buy.

So when you buy this where you going to store it?

It could be an option that Sony stores it on their server, and you log in to watch it.

Or, you store it at home. FYI, storage isn't going to be an issue in the future.

Yeah in the future which is like 10 years or more. Be like the size of a boiler or smaller sitting in a cupboard you can hook up any computer to it wireless or wired.

Quoting FilmAlba:

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Quoting Alien Redrum:

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Quoting FilmAlba:

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Quoting Alien Redrum:

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Oh, I agree. Right now it's not the end all be all, by any stretch, but it's also in its relative infancy. I pay $7 (or 8) a month for unlimited Netflix streaming and I love it... for old TV shows and documentaries. Is it going to replace me buying The Descent on Blu? Hell no.

But that's right now. I can easily see some sort of ondemand owned catalog in the future, where, say, Sony stores all of its titles on a server and you can either rent or buy.

So when you buy this where you going to store it?

It could be an option that Sony stores it on their server, and you log in to watch it.

Or, you store it at home. FYI, storage isn't going to be an issue in the future.

Yeah in the future which is like 10 years or more. Be like the size of a boiler or smaller sitting in a cupboard you can hook up any computer to it wireless or wired.

Not even 10 years. You'll be seeing petrabyte drives for home use on the shelves within 2 years. By then, terabyte drives will be the norm, and in even a more portable form then they are now. Hell, you can get 64gb USB sticks now.

Storage is absolute last thing that will be a problem.