It's a much smaller leap for BD to be mass adopted than for a new format to come along that will induce the vast majority of minimally technically inclined people to abandon the entire concept of media in disc format, not too mention their entire DVD and CD collections.
A valid point, I think.
Downloads, even if destined for success, still need a couple years to develop the needed infrastructure.
But the question is
what will drive consumers to start adopting BD now? What is the value proposition?
First, you have to spend a couple grand to even
have a chance to see the difference with DVD. And I'm not even talking about having to go through this often marketting BS - lossless, bitstream, 24/96, pulldown, HDMI, LPCM, decode, jitter, judder, interlaced/progressive, digital/analog, HDCP, AACS, BD+, etc. No such barriers existed when DVDs came along. Having three HDTV technologies fight for your living room doesn't help either.
Second, there has to be an "inflection" point.
The first "Matrix" is often mentioned as such point for DVDs (I think this was also the last movie ever released on LD). No such point for BD yet.
Third, there has to be a valid working business model.
Studios most likely won't sell hidef discs below DVDs: it costs more to author (often much more) and they jumped into this to make more money (i.e. sell for more). Whereas a successful business model for downloads is right in front of you - iTunes.
Net-net, at the moment hidef optical discs have only fans as their market audience: J6P doesn't see a return on few grand investment and tech savy consumer is in a wait mood for all this fluff with profiling, lawsuits, bashing, etc. to go away. And prices drop.
When will this happen? Ever? Will all this matter when it does?
Diogen.
