Warner "moving away from DVD," focusing on Blu-ray, VOD and DD

[tmok2000]

Originally Posted by syncguy

The natural evolution of DVD is blu-ray. Downloads cannot come close to blu-ray with the current Internet and Access infrastructure. A massive injection of capital is needed to make mass-market downloads and streaming to compete with blu-ray. Who would foot the bill for a massive upgrade of the Internet? Will the movie industry do it? I doubt it....

The answer is, of course, the consumers. We paid for the first Internet, and will also pay for the next Internet. It is already in progress. The next generation of Internet is called Internet2. Check it out: http://www.internet2.edu/about/. Like the first Internet, it won't be paid for in its entirety by one company, one industry, or one government. Every time we pay a cable TV, telephone, and cable modem/DSL bill, we are already paying into building and upgrading the Internet. There will be no "official" label of Internet2, because, this time around, it will be more like an upgrade. Look, some cable companies, e.g., Cablevision Optimum Online, are already offering 30Mbps service. Verizon FIOS and AT&T uVerse are also fiber-based networks that deliver integrated network services. Some day, we will be getting Gbps Internet access, which makes HD video streaming and on-demand network services a reality. If we look back at that time, we will be laughing at ourselves why we insist on having physical medium today. Judging by how far we have come in the last 15 years, that some day may be here much sooner than we know.