I agree with Mr. Florian’s argument for the most part, but eventually change will come and the fanboys of today who absolutely insist on collecting everything will be left behind by whatever new technology comes along (and they will be absolutely ELATED at the prospect of buying so many obsolete BDs for so little money!), progress is second only to death and taxes in life’s certainties, the million dollar question is, will it be replaced by another physical media (like tiny flash memory cards) or by something like downloads? One thing is certain, if its downloads then telecom-internet providers have a LONG way to go (and better get started quick because its already behind and will lose serious ground when 4K gets here!) because the technology won’t pause to let infractructure catch up.

For a movie, and even more one that I want to watch more than once in the future, it will be a long time until I want to give up on a physical media. First, I’d need the downloaded version to offer the same quality as the disc with the same quick response (for extras and other features), which means downloading and storing a whole 50 GB disc at this point. While my ISP hasn’t instituted a bandwidth cap in my area yet, they have started to test them in certain areas of the country with a typical cap of around 50 GB a month. That’s a single movie currently! Additionally that download would take over a day (as I recently pulled down a 40 GB download for work last month) and slow down everything else I might want to do online while it does that in the background.

After that, I’d need some very large storage medium for these that is resistant to failure, like a RAID array, so that if a hard drive dies, I don’t lose my whole movie collection and spend the next two months downloading it again. I’ve started on a project to rip my whole DVD collection so I can view them all from a single media PC in my living room, but if that hard drive fails, I own the discs and can just rip them again. Downloading every title again would kill my connection for weeks, and what if the provider of these stops offering them, or changes the format they offer these titles in to something I don’t like? Then my collection might be wiped out and I have no good way to replace it.

Finally, I just like owning the media. I like having my music collection displayed in CD’s and records on the shelves so people can browse through and listen to things they haven’t heard, or borrow an album to see if they enjoy it. I might have the entire thing ripped to a network drive so I can listen to anything easily while I work, but I still like having the actual media out there. I also can’t count how many people have borrowed my wife’s collection of Gilmore Girls DVD’s. Most of her friends have seen the series, but many had not, and many never would have if they had to purchase it online instead of being able to borrow the set from her and learning to love it, then buying the sets themselves.

So, while downloadable content has a place for me (Nine Inch Nails, who offered their last album in a better-than-CD quality 24 bit, 96 KHz FLAC download seems to know how to take advantage of this better than anyone else), I don’t see it taking over from physical media anytime soon for me.

Give me three clicks instead of two or three hundred-button remotes anyday.

Really? My cable provider’s VOD service is excrutiating to use. It’s incredibly slow, you need many button presses to get anywhere, and their selection is extremely limited.

Where’s the download service that’s going to give me 1080p, DTS-HD MA and DD TrueHD? I was watching the Mummy 3 and there’s some sections that are encoded at 49 Mb/s. This is about five times the total bandwidth of my cable internet.

I’m not going to accept lower quality. If Blu-Ray goes the way of the dodo, I’m throwing away all my HT gear and finding another hobby.

Give me download anyday - double click, skip the opening credits - no menus, no hassle finding things - just in my chair, watch it on the medium most accessible to my here and now, no control over-burden (which is what 2 or 3 remotes really are).

Give me three clicks instead of two or three hundred-button remotes anyday.
In case anyone is wondering, I did get up and get the DVD (I’m not actually as lazy as I might sound), but I did consider downloading it instead first. If there are more people like me, who would rather download something that’s just across the room for the ease it provides, the disc will be dead and we’ll all be remembering them as cassettes with a pleasing shine in just two or three years time - people who want the physical item will be considered collectors, and as such a very niche market, with an equally small supplier base.

I haven’t watched anything on TV for four years - I don’t need to fiddle with TiVo, Sky + and the like - I’m in complete control and at the cost of a few mouse clicks I can absent mindedly make while I take a few minutes break from work/checking e-mails, the height of topicality for my life – it’s like using the internet – you think “how does xyz work” and get the answer bookmarked for later.

I think what studios are missing out on is the enormous advertising potential available to the internet media – pause the show, click your mouse over the purchasable material, get directed to the affiliate vendor (maybe even a price comparison site) and voila – that table, shirt, background music etc. is delivered to your door within 3 working days.
Disc’s can’t provide that kind of lifestyle enhancement, but given a bit of time the internet can, and it can cost the consumer (in terms of downloads) next to nothing (perhaps even free) whilst still keeping the studio profit margins in the green through indirect advertising and selling.

Of course a future like that will impact on content, but then again, today advertising already does.

Most of the movies I’ve bought will not get repeated viewings but its good to have them for guests as previous posters have said. I’ve noticed that the ones I do watch repeatedly become like music - the flow of the scenes seems to entertain as much as the story.

I suppose I already have made a move towards downloading as I’ve saved and watched several movies on the DVR. If it weren’t for this fact I would have said that discs are better because of the special features, but the fact is I’m using the DVR for the convenience. I hope discs don’t go away, I like the idea of having a collection and a collection on computer hard drive is not as fun to look at nor is it secure (computer discs crash).

The difficulty facing digital movie distribution is that, unlike music, the trend has been toward higher bitrate content encodes which places additional burden on the distribution network. Digital music distribution had the benefit of widespread acceptance of low quality mp3s as a delivery benchmark.

Digital video distribution isn’t competing against highly compressed QVGA files. The content owners haven’t realized that reduced quality of deliver must be accompanied by some additional value to the customer whether through reduced price, or increased convenience. Unfortunately, to this point, the studios seemingly provide a lower value product at equivalent (or higher) pricing.

Combine the above with the increasing restrictions on network bandwidth imposed by the ISPs. North America, for numerous reasons, seems mired with a combination of sub-par speed and usage caps. Consider for a moment that with my connection (7 Mbps), assuming I could max out the speed to the distributor, it would take over 16 hours to download a single BD50. At that point though, I would nearly have maxed out my available usage for the month as well. On top of the problems the studios create for themselves by having a weak value proposition, the biggest factor outside of their control and possibly biggest barrier to successful digital movie distribution is the network itself.

There was an interesting research report from Video Business that suggested a similar trend.

http://www.videobusiness.com/article/CA6623292.html

In the end it won’t be the people downloading from the internet with illegal content the kill physical media. It is the consumers like my parents that simple want a way to get more content to their homes with a press of a button…. Remember Brian in this world you will never drive to the video store to discover all copies of Batman are already rented.

Sandy

Yes, some titles sit on my shelf for a while before being watched (or re-watched). However, one of the reasons I keep a shelf full of films is to share with friends and family. Whenever my father pays a visit, we have “movie nights” and it is gratifying to have a wide selection to offer him. I also bring along some movies when traveling (difficult to rent a film I like while I’m traveling).

Using the “download” model seems too risky (given the number of drive crashes I’ve suffered over the past 20 plus years). The discs don’t “crash”. And if I grow tired of a film (or give in to a “double dip”–not often, but it does happen), I have ready to hand gifts. And in a world where ISPs are capping downloads before adding fees (and hi-def movies that look as good as a BD take up A LOT of bandwidth/space), I think I’ll stick to the physical copy for a while yet.

I’m not entirely certain, though, that “ego” is as important as Brian argues. At least 1/3 of my collection is work related, and a number of them have been “blind buys” rather than purchases intended to validate my opinion of a particular title (film or TV). This is especially true of “bargain bin” purchases that are frequently cheaper than rentals. I don’t deny ego plays a role in wanting “a collection”, but I don’t think I’m “making a statement” on the order of “save the whales” when I buy a film (anymore than when I buy music or books).