[Mikey]

All I know is that I think I've only stepped foot inside a Blockbuster Video or one of its competitors maybe half a dozen times if the last 6 or 7 years. Mostly this has stemmed from the fact that people are god damned savages and can't handle a disc without maiming it. After the second near-unplayable disc my family rented we pretty much just resigned ourselves to watching HBO or buying DVDs outright. Hell, what made me really think about it (before even reading this thread) was noticing that the local Hollywood Video is shutting down.

These days I almost always just use On Demand services from my cable company and that goes for a lot of people I know, as well. I think you're also underestimating people's willingness to trade quality for convenience. Half the people I know can't even really tell the difference between SD and HD unless they compare them side-to-side; just as many don't have HDTVs and are still buying regular DVDs, and may continue to do so for as long as they're manufactured. I think it's going to take so long for HD to really saturate the market that by the time it's the standard Blu Ray and HDDVD are going to be ready for replacement, and that replacement will likely be digital distribution. So really, high-def optical media are a temporary solution for the home-theater crowd that are really into top-of-the-line video and stuff. But for Joe Standard, it doesn't make a ton of sense to upgrade to the newer disc formats.

[Mikey]

I'll agree with that much - as eager as I am to leave CDs and DVDs behind I still like a good-old-fashioned book.

With regard to digital video distribution, I might put my money where my mouth is, I've been looking at this: http://www.vudu.com/

A bit of a gamble, who knows if it'll tank/will suck and I'll have wasted my money, but I'm interested enough to give it a shot before I commit to buying a Blu Ray player or anything. If I do, I'll report back.

[Mikey]