HTG official High Definition high octane DVD format war, the aftermath

[madmac]

Ok I will clarify......I can get a 100 pack of DVD+ blank discs for about 20 bucks when they are on sale. I can rip any data disc, Including current market DVD movies, photos etc easily, and the software that I use to do this is easy to use. BD blank discs..... the last I checked were about 20 bucks for 1 disc!!. That's not working at all and the medium is still too copy protected, even though the BD codes have already been hacked by many. It's still got a few years to go but at the end of the day with today's Hi-def requirements and increasing data storage needs, it will take hold shortly.

[Hdale85]

Like I just linked to, you can get blank BD discs for 45 bucks for 50. DVD discs were at one point around this price and when they were they were used by the masses. There's also software out there that will rip BD's pretty easily. Blu-ray discs are nowhere near 20 for 1 disc anymore and the burners are much cheaper, the software is out there as well. So everything is there, people just don't do it.

[emig5m]

Burnable media is so passe for doing backups IMO. I use external 2TB and up hard drives for backing up....

[Hdale85]

Problem is hard drives can fail for that stuff you want to keep for a real long time. Generally if you keep discs in the right case and environment, they should last darn near forever.

[impala454]

Exactly Dougie, and also the fact that it's easy to make multiple copies.

Mac they are nowhere near $20/disc. The 25GB discs are roughly $1-2 when I buy them at Frys, the 50GB discs are about $14/disc. Not a huge cost for the occasional backup. Definitely cheaper and more reliable than a hard drive as long term backup.

[Hdale85]

Also should add to my comment "good quality discs" if you buy those cheap 100 pack frys specials discs for 20 bucks don't expect much haha. I remember them flaking off and what not after as little as 6 months. I've since only bought quality discs though.

[Lex]

Maybe BD vs other storage mediums is a topic for the PC area.

Of course, the original intent of this thread is long past. But hey, we can still talk about relevant things here.

I've been rewatching some of my regular DVDs upconverted via my Sony BD player, and I have to say, it's really made watching them rather enjoyable. I once thought, you know there are so many DVDs I'd like to upgrade to HD, but with the quality of up converting, there's quite a bit of life left in my old DVD collection. How many of them do I want to watch now. Well, that is perhaps debatable at this point, but some.

[impala454]

Yeah Doug I've been in the same boat on a lot of my older movies. I will usually follow the AVS bluray tier thread to see if a particular movie is worth upgrading. Either that or if it has some great special features I'll get it. Price is also a factor. I saw Apollo 13 for $10 the other day and snagged it. PQ and sound are awesome, and has full making of that was not in my original DVD.

[George Bellefontaine]

Yeah I had over a thousand dvds in my original collection but pared it down somewhat. I've replaced a few dvds with blu-ray, but most of the dvds I own look pretty darn good upconverted on my Panasonic BD85. Some are so darn good looking that it's hard to tell they are not hi-def. You really have to look at fine detail in things like flowers and trees to see it isn't a blu-ray.

[madmac]

I agree George!. My Oppo dvd player really does a fantastic job at upconverting DVD's to the point where it honestly looks like hi def. At least like Hi DEF TV. However, when I spin a good BD disc, I have to say that the colors are nicer with more 'depth' all around where the picture is concerned.

On a separate note to members here who have a BD burner. How long does it take to rip a BD movie?. Will a 25 gig blank disc burn it or do you need the dual layer 50 gig one to do it?. Just curious......

[impala454]

Depends on the movie mac. I ripped Avatar and just the main movie file alone was 42GB. Then another movie (forget which) was only 18GB. Seems to vary a lot. I have since given up on it and rather just stick the disc in :P

[Chris D]

am I missing something... or are 75% of the posters on this thread in complete denial...

:rofl:

Both Hi-Def disc formats are dead... 12 months from today and it's completely done (unless you're talking simply about games) but as movie formats they are cooked - toast - fried - over - lost - finished...


and many people predicted this over a year ago... (including me) Dead formats... I've been downloading movies for almost 8 months... ive got over 500 movies on my central hard drive... art work - actors - year - genre - movie company...all easy to be searched...

8O

what's a "format"...!!!!

It's that time of year again, although I missed the actual date this year. The above post was made on Feb 22nd, 2008, predicting that Blu-Ray (and, by proxy, DVD) would no longer exist by Feb 22nd, 2009. It's now 4 years later, and they're still around and strong. I know I personally am still buying BD's. The only DVD's I still buy, though, are just particular children's shows for my kids that aren't even available on BD.

Personally, I really don't like "download movies" for several reasons, not the least of which is quality and useability. I still rent physical discs from both Blockbuster and Netflix.

To be fair, I did just receive an article today that predicts that streaming media will "surpass" physical discs in the next few years.

http://www.ravepubs.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=7454:online-video-set-to-surpass-physical-media&catid=87:proav-edition&Itemid=180

I think this prediction is also a bit "optimistic" in the article, though:

"The year 2012 will be the final nail to the coffin on the old idea that consumers won’t accept premium content distribution over the Internet," says IHS senior principal analyst Dan Cryan.

[Hdale85]

There are places that offer BD quality material at least in PQ online. They don't offer the BD audio formats yet though but I still think a big problem with offering full BD quality movies online is a matter of bandwidth availability. You'd need a pretty decent connection to stream or download 30gb+ movies regularly.

[Ovation]

Also need healthy sized download caps.

I do stream from Netflix for TV shows (I'm less particular about TV than movies) and I've purchased a few titles from iTunes that are years (if ever) away from a BD release. But I do not plan to stop buying BDs anytime soon. A number of my purchases are work-related (historical feature films are a part of my teaching materials and the extras on such films are often valuable to me) and, well, I like the best PQ and SQ I can get. Unless and until downloads match or surpass BD quality in every facet, they will remain a supplement rather than a main source of A/V entertainment.

[JonMarsh]

Well, suppose I ought to get my 0.02 in-

I do get HD from a variety of sources, including iTunes and BD, but for the end game in quality, you can't beat BD, and you can't download or stream that quality level on DSL. Even though there's a number of TV shows I like with iTunes or the ABC iPad player, for my favorite stuff with high production values, I wait for the BD disks. And I'm always glad I do when I get them....

Oh, and I have a pretty good sized collection of HD DVD disks and two top of the line players.

Beyond that, I'm not talking, except that I do have a fair amount of my HD archived to local HD for on demand playing without the BD player. 'Nuff said.

[madmac]

There are places that offer BD quality material at least in PQ online. They don't offer the BD audio formats yet though but I still think a big problem with offering full BD quality movies online is a matter of bandwidth availability. You'd need a pretty decent connection to stream or download 30gb+ movies regularly.

Well ya.....no kidding!!!! :E

[Hdale85]

Well the bandwidth is coming, any month now we should have a 30mbit and 50mbit connection available in my area and I live sort of away from a big city. The 30Mbit will be like 70 a month which isn't bad at all. So it's coming around, but certainly it's a slow process. I do know for a fact eventually physical media is going to be a thing of the past, it's already started happening but it'll be a while before the transition is complete.

[Ovation]

They can up the speed all they want but unless data caps are also significantly increased (without an equally large increase in price), streaming will remain secondary to me.

I know non-physical sources will become the norm relatively soon, but it won't nearly be as early as some seem to think (the OP comes to mind ).

[Chris D]

The thing is, and I'll say it again, is that the experience of those that live in downtown L.A., or the middle of Tokyo, or whatever, does not translate to the rest of the world. Some people may have mega-high speed internet at their house without download limits, and the ability to store large quantities of data. They may not feel that lossless audio is necessary in streaming media, because cut-rate audio is good enough for them, and it should be for everybody else, too. They may feel that compressed video, or visual artifacts, are acceptable. If they can just store a movie on their iPad, the convenience makes it the best thing ever, and they believe that digital media is their right choice.

The problem is, those people project their own preferences, and capabilities upon the rest of the world, and declare their own experiences to define the global market. If that were true, the market would be QUITE different than it is today, I assure you. (i.e. Betamax may have won, or someone may have declared that there is no need for anything other than vinyl records)

Digital media may work for a 22 year old man in downtown Boston. What about a 14 year old boy on a rural farm in the middle of Kansas? A 60 year old man in Paraguay that has no idea how to work a computer, and just wants to hook up a device to his TV and work? What about someone in the middle of Africa? Or even the 22 year old girl living next door to that man in Boston, but can't afford mega-speed internet, or has a 3 GB monthly download cap on her service provider? Does even that 22 year old Bostonian man have a reliable solution anywhere other than his own home?

Until digital media (or any other global mass product) can functionally, reliably deliver a quality product that meets EVERYONE's needs and circumstances worldwide, physical media will still have some sort of a market, and will NOT be extinct.

[madmac]

The thing is, and I'll say it again, is that the experience of those that live in downtown L.A., or the middle of Tokyo, or whatever, does not translate to the rest of the world. Some people may have mega-high speed internet at their house without download limits, and the ability to store large quantities of data. They may not feel that lossless audio is necessary in streaming media, because cut-rate audio is good enough for them, and it should be for everybody else, too. They may feel that compressed video, or visual artifacts, are acceptable. If they can just store a movie on their iPad, the convenience makes it the best thing ever, and they believe that digital media is their right choice.

The problem is, those people project their own preferences, and capabilities upon the rest of the world, and declare their own experiences to define the global market. If that were true, the market would be QUITE different than it is today, I assure you. (i.e. Betamax may have won, or someone may have declared that there is no need for anything other than vinyl records)

Digital media may work for a 22 year old man in downtown Boston. What about a 14 year old boy on a rural farm in the middle of Kansas? A 60 year old man in Paraguay that has no idea how to work a computer, and just wants to hook up a device to his TV and work? What about someone in the middle of Africa? Or even the 22 year old girl living next door to that man in Boston, but can't afford mega-speed internet, or has a 3 GB monthly download cap on her service provider? Does even that 22 year old Bostonian man have a reliable solution anywhere other than his own home?

Until digital media (or any other global mass product) can functionally, reliably deliver a quality product that meets EVERYONE's needs and circumstances worldwide, physical media will still have some sort of a market, and will NOT be extinct.

I agree completely. Physical media is not going anywhere, anytime soon. I will predict though that one day soon, WIFI will be broadcast everywhere (kind of like broadcast TV) and that everyone will have access to it.......along with the commercials unfortunately!!. Except in the rural areas mentioned above that is !!! :lol:

[Chris D]

Well, yeah, Mac... but like I alluded, would Wifi "everywhere" mean just around cities and large towns? Heck, we can't even get CELL PHONE coverage "everywhere", much less wi-fi! I fear the geographical map of wi-fi "everywhere" coverage would continue to look like colored blotches around the more heavily populated areas.

[Hdale85]

It won't be wifi that's broadcast everywhere, there is a reason that cellular companies are moving to internet stand alone devices.

Also Chris you don't need and won't need in the future to use a computer to get digital content. It'll be devices like the Roku or WD Live TV and such, all set top boxes. In fact I'd be surprised if in the future we can download that type of content onto our computer as it'll be a security risk to most companies and the boxes will give them another way to enforce DRM and so on.

[George Bellefontaine]

My choice is now and likely always will be physical media. I was sorry to see the local Blockbuster close its doors. Thankfully there was a large ma and pa operation that stepped up to the plate and increased their inventory. I don't watch as many movies as I used to, and even less in the past month for personal reasons, but my movie watching will be restricted to physical media for as long as it is available. Streaming for me in the future ? Not likely.

[Chris D]

Dougie, ahh.... well, perhaps that's part of the problem, figuring out what digital media is, how it is accessed, and how it is "allowed" to be transported and shared/used on various devices. Nobody just sits in front of one TV in their house and says, "I want to see all my media on this one TV, and I don't care how you get the media to me!" Mom may want a movie-on-demand on that one living room TV, so a set-top-box may work for her. But daughter is going to want to watch the movie/show on her bedroom TV later that night. How do you get it there? Son is going to want to watch it on his smartphone while he's hanging at the park the next day. How does he get it there? Dad is going to want to watch it on his laptop while he's on his business trip to Guatemala next week. How does that work? If not wi-fi, can you only get it on physical boxes plugged into landline internet at your house?

How is it that these things are still so up in the air, but yet for the last several years, a few people have been proclaiming, "digital media is king! Physical discs are dead!" With my Blu-Ray discs, I can watch whenever I want, as many times as I want, in full 1080p resolution, lossless audio, multiple audio tracks, on as many devices in as many different locations as I please, reliably playing without visual or audio artifacts, no pausing for caching, no hitting bandwith limits, no hitting download caps, I don't have to pay for the additional network use, don't have to worry if there's internet access where I want to watch it, I can loan it out to friends, no running out of hard drive space, etc. I can't get ANY of that reliably yet with digital media. Add a digital file disc to that BD purchase, though, and I can at least store it and watch it on my iPhones and iPads.

Honestly, I'm looking forward to the day where I CAN get all of that reliably with digital media, and every other person in the world can as well, regardless of their location and circumstance. Until then, though, physical discs win the battle for me.

George, I'm with you. We used to have two Blockbusters in town, and one has shut down this month. I think I read that there were only 1500 Blockbusters left, and they're closing 500 of them. Bummer. I still use both Blockbuster and Netflix shipments regularly.

[madmac]

Well, yeah, Mac... but like I alluded, would Wifi "everywhere" mean just around cities and large towns? Heck, we can't even get CELL PHONE coverage "everywhere", much less wi-fi! I fear the geographical map of wi-fi "everywhere" coverage would continue to look like colored blotches around the more heavily populated areas.

I guess it all comes down to the financial viability of the coverage and whether it's worth the cost. You need to have a reasonable audience to make the cost worth it. In my town, there's wifi everywhere!!!. Libraries.....pools.....tennis club.....town hall. All free and easily accessible :T !!

[Chris D]

Exactly... perfect for you guys, and hopefully fast and reliable! But I dare guess that situation does not exist for Lawton, Oklahoma residents. Or a farm boy in rural Iowa. Or most of Mexico.

I think you see my point.

[Hdale85]

Dougie, ahh.... well, perhaps that's part of the problem, figuring out what digital media is, how it is accessed, and how it is "allowed" to be transported and shared/used on various devices. Nobody just sits in front of one TV in their house and says, "I want to see all my media on this one TV, and I don't care how you get the media to me!" Mom may want a movie-on-demand on that one living room TV, so a set-top-box may work for her. But daughter is going to want to watch the movie/show on her bedroom TV later that night. How do you get it there? Son is going to want to watch it on his smartphone while he's hanging at the park the next day. How does he get it there? Dad is going to want to watch it on his laptop while he's on his business trip to Guatemala next week. How does that work? If not wi-fi, can you only get it on physical boxes plugged into landline internet at your house?

Well, a lot of that can be done already as you've likely seen with Whole House DVR setups. We have DirecTV and we can watch recorded shows on any TV in our house from the one box as well as any computer, and HBO is rolling out mobile stuff. These big cable networks are even branching out to game consoles now as well.

As for your thoughts on the ability to do what we want with our diskless media well lets be truthful here, we don't really get to choose where the format goes. Yeah sure we can hold out on buying a particular format but what happens if they stop producing discs cold turkey and tell everyone they have to go to downloaded content or something similar? We may hold out for a while but eventually more and more people will start using the networks preferred media. Unfortunately we only have a small amount of power when it comes to these multi billion or even trillion dollar companies that control all this stuff. I think the main reason this hasn't happened yet is because of the restrictions on broadband access that we still have. I think cell networks are pushing forward more and more because of the gaps in broadband access. They aren't up to the speeds yet but they are getting close. The day that they can say that broadband is in 80-95% of homes I guarantee you we will start seeing a huge decline in physical media. The main goal of these studio's and companies is to control their media to the full extent that they are able to, unfortunately for us physical media doesn't fit into that definition because we can easily copy, duplicate, and resell the media which they don't want. They don't want us selling used copies of discs, and worse pirated copies. They don't make any money off any of that and they are looking for a way to force people to buy it from them. Not to mention the lower production costs they'd see with moving away from physical media.

[Hdale85]

My choice is now and likely always will be physical media. I was sorry to see the local Blockbuster close its doors. Thankfully there was a large ma and pa operation that stepped up to the plate and increased their inventory. I don't watch as many movies as I used to, and even less in the past month for personal reasons, but my movie watching will be restricted to physical media for as long as it is available. Streaming for me in the future ? Not likely.

Like I said in my last post, unfortunately I don't think it really is our choice.

[impala454]

Exactly... perfect for you guys, and hopefully fast and reliable! But I dare guess that situation does not exist for Lawton, Oklahoma residents. Or a farm boy in rural Iowa. Or most of Mexico.

I think you see my point.

Hah, my sister used to live in Lawton.

It is always funny to see the "years later" posts on threads where big predictions are made. I made a similar post on another forum fairly recently. The guy was predicting back in 2009 after the stock market crashed, that the dow jones would never get above 7,000 again (and here we are back over 13,000 )

There was also yet another one about gas prices, after the spike in 2007. The guy said we'd never see sub $4 gas again. Then a year later we were at less than $2 . If the pattern over the past decade or so holds, I think we're about due for another plunge.

[Chris D]

am I missing something... or are 75% of the posters on this thread in complete denial...

:rofl:

Both Hi-Def disc formats are dead... 12 months from today and it's completely done (unless you're talking simply about games) but as movie formats they are cooked - toast - fried - over - lost - finished...


and many people predicted this over a year ago... (including me) Dead formats... I've been downloading movies for almost 8 months... ive got over 500 movies on my central hard drive... art work - actors - year - genre - movie company...all easy to be searched...

8O

what's a "format"...!!!!

Once again, it's that time of year, folks. The above post was posted on Feb 22nd, 2008, five years ago, with the bold prognostication. Correct me if I'm wrong, but when I go to any box store or supermarket today, I still find Blu-Rays and even DVD's still for sale. Still buy them off of Amazon. The stock inventory definitely is smaller. But a dead-cooked-toast media format? Sure doesn't seem so.

Now I'm thinking we might even see the NEXT generation of physical media (probably 4k resolution) before everything goes purely digital.

[impala454]

haha nice. Love to see this kind of stuff.

[Hdale85]

I don't know, streaming is really starting to take off and 4k is already favoring streaming. I know it won't be replacing blu-ray anytime in the near future but just saying.

[mjb]

Blu-Ray players are now under $100, and the films under $10 - but still, despite the obvious jump in quality, blu-ray hasn't managed to engage me like DVD did before it. I've only bought a handful of films, mainly because I don't want to be stuck with another dead format like I was with DVD. Not a problem with downloading or streaming movies - but my internet is unfortunately way too slow for this to be practical for me, and 4k is just a distant dream.

[JohnA]

Considering that although many ISP's are now offering fast enough D/L speeds to stream high def movies, many of them are also putting monthly caps on those speeds as well, with price penalties whenever you go over their data cap amount. All that kind of puts a cruel wrinkle in streaming high def movies, when a ISP does things like that.

[impala454]

I totally drained my iPad's AT&T LTE data plan watching a football game via the ESPN app a while back. So lame.

I agree with Dougie, the streaming stuff is getting huge, but it's not going to replace physical media anytime soon. Just like you don't see bookstores shutting down either, even though ereaders have taken off. People simply still like to purchase/own/gift/etc physical items. I doubt that will change much for a long time.

[Hdale85]

Even video games are moving to downloads more and more. You can't hardly go to a store anymore and buy a PC game. And Xbox and Playstation are pushing downloadable content and games crazy hard.

[Chris D]

In addition to the previous gripes and points I've put earlier in this thread, every time I download an "on demand movie" to my Dish Network DVR, and then watch it later, I get regularly occuring digital artifacts, and the movie will skip a couple seconds here and there.

I still can't stand streaming media for that and other reasons.

[aud19]

Laserdisc hobbled along for years too... (And no I'm not making a direct comparison, BD is relatively more successful than Laser ever was).

As much as you all want to validate your purchasing decisions there's simply no denying that BD will not have the market impact DVD had or streaming will have. It has and always will be a stepping stone between physical media and streaming (just as LD was a stepping stone between VHS/analog and DVD/digital media) which is all I've ever said.

By all means enjoy it's very tangible qualities and invest whatever you want in it but it is what it is.

[Chris D]

am I missing something... or are 75% of the posters on this thread in complete denial...

:rofl:

Both Hi-Def disc formats are dead... 12 months from today and it's completely done (unless you're talking simply about games) but as movie formats they are cooked - toast - fried - over - lost - finished...


and many people predicted this over a year ago... (including me) Dead formats... I've been downloading movies for almost 8 months... ive got over 500 movies on my central hard drive... art work - actors - year - genre - movie company...all easy to be searched...

8O

what's a "format"...!!!!

Yet another year gone by. This post was made on page 21 of this thread, February 22nd, 2008. Six years ago. No doubt digital media has a good market today. But I'm still renting and occasionally buying BD's. I didn't realize BD stopped being a format 5 years ago!

Discs now being mastered in 4K. We have 4K displays, and a few niche 4K players. Will we see 4K physical media before everything goes digital? Will things EVER go all digital as this prediction was supposed to happen 5 years ago?

[Hdale85]

I'm sure we will see a 4k blu-ray format, although they seem a bit reluctant to do anything but streaming at this point? There's been talk about what could happen for 4k, but so far all I've seen is streaming.

Also I wouldn't be too surprised if blu-ray discs sales were on the decline. I don't know a single person local to me that actually buys them other than me...And even I don't buy them as often anymore. Streaming on the other hand is exploding and you can't deny that.

[Hdale85]

Pretty decent article here about it. I'm not in much agreement about 4k sales. I think with companies like Vizio pushing out high quality low priced UHD TV's I think sales will start going up rather fast.

http://www.dtcreports.com/weeklyriff/2014/01/27/can-4k-save-blu-ray/

His feelings on blu-ray sit right with mine though.

Not-so rosy Blu-ray picture

Nearly a year ago, I wrote a post postulating that U.S. sales of Blu-ray software and hardware had reached the top of their bell curve. A plethora of disparate indications at CES seem to confirm Blu-ray’s downward trajectory.

Then there is the remarkable Blu-ray hardware brand compression in the U.S. market. TWICE and NPD annually combine to produce Top 10 Supplier lists in a variety of CE categories. In 2012, the pair reported 10 Blu-ray suppliers comprised 98.8 percent of the U.S. Blu-ray hardware market. In 2013, just five suppliers – Sony, Samsung, LG, Panasonic and Philips – comprised 91.1 percent.

On the software side, DEG reports continued massive packaged media revenue hemorrhaging.

In total, DEG reported that total U.S. home entertainment spending was flat, up less than 1 percent. But despite rosy pronouncements – focused mostly on streaming – revenues from disc sales and rentals dropped in all categories:

sell-through packaged goods slipped 8.07 percent in 2013 from 2012 (see my previously linked post for the slightly more severe 2012:2011 comparative drops),
brick & mortar rental fees dropped 14.27 percent, physical subscription revenues (probably mostly Netflix) sank 19.07 percent,
kiosk sales (likely mostly Redbox) dipped 1.02 percent.

By comparison, digital “electronic sell-thru” was up a whopping 47.12 percent and “subscription streaming” rose 32.13 percent.

[Ovation]

Yet another year gone by. This post was made on page 21 of this thread, February 22nd, 2008. Six years ago. No doubt digital media has a good market today. But I'm still renting and occasionally buying BD's. I didn't realize BD stopped being a format 5 years ago!

Discs now being mastered in 4K. We have 4K displays, and a few niche 4K players. Will we see 4K physical media before everything goes digital? Will things EVER go all digital as this prediction was supposed to happen 5 years ago?

Since the OP, HD streaming and purchases have come a long way. BD is still the best in absolute terms (4K streaming is not mainstream yet) but the gap today between a BD and itunes is a lot smaller than it used to be--same with Netflix streaming, though the gap there is a touch bigger, at least in my gear. But the convenience factor is not to be underestimated. I've already shifted to iTunes for a lot of kid movies as they are easy to stream with the wireless hard drive I picked up to go with the iPads and iPods. I can see a day where I make the shift. I just never believed it would happen at the speed the OP thought--and I, like you, was correct. I don't think physical media will die out entirely, but there is room for both in my collection. (Same goes for books).

[aud19]

I'm sticking with my original sentiment. I have yet to buy a BD and have no desire to change that. It's an intermediate format that will not have the market penetration or long term dominance that DVD enjoyed. Streaming and "soft" media is the future, may as well hop on board.

That said, I still understand why those with the disposable income and quality HT equipment (and/or lack of quality internet connection availability) would partake in it. Just be aware it's a stepping stone.

[Ovation]

It's an audio issue for me. My whole system is biased towards audio and, so far, the best audio experience remains BD. And as long as Criterion releases continue to be as top notch as they are now, I will always buy a BD over the "soft" Criterion titles in itunes (almost always lacking the extras that make a Criterion release stand out).

The only thing blocking more rentals in "soft" media is the fact my living room TV is an SD CRT with which AppleTV is incompatible. The BD player I have hooked up to it (for ease of watching BD only rentals and titles in my collection, as well as a way to stream Netflix in the living room) works fine with my audio gear (which is a two channel kit well ahead in quality to the video display--I'm nothing if not consistent in my A/V kits).

Also, if a "stepping stone" is viable for a decade or longer, it's not really all that "temporary". And I'm confident BD will be around as a mainstream medium in 2016.

[madmac]

It's an audio issue for me. My whole system is biased towards audio and, so far, the best audio experience remains BD. And as long as Criterion releases continue to be as top notch as they are now, I will always buy a BD over the "soft" Criterion titles in itunes (almost always lacking the extras that make a Criterion release stand out).

The only thing blocking more rentals in "soft" media is the fact my living room TV is an SD CRT with which AppleTV is incompatible. The BD player I have hooked up to it (for ease of watching BD only rentals and titles in my collection, as well as a way to stream Netflix in the living room) works fine with my audio gear (which is a two channel kit well ahead in quality to the video display--I'm nothing if not consistent in my A/V kits).

Also, if a "stepping stone" is viable for a decade or longer, it's not really all that "temporary". And I'm confident BD will be around as a mainstream medium in 2016.

Are you saying you have no 1080P display to watch your BD's??. If so, that's a shame because your only getting half the fun of what the medium can do!. Say it ain't so Ovation......say it ain't so???!!!.