Who needs Blu-ray or HD DVD anyway?

[aristotles]

No offence intended by my remarks but it seems that these pundits are american-centric with a heavy bias towards people in large markets within the US. Downloads will not work because even the US a serious issue with broadband availability let alone the rest of the world. The US != the world. If you need a concrete proof of that, just look at the Warner decision. Warner decided to push the US over the edge to Blu-ray after looking at their international numbers mainly. Sure, Blu-ray had a 2:1 lead most of the time but outside of the US, it was even more lopsided towards Blu-ray.

Let's assume that broadband was available everywhere at an affordable price. Now who is to say that the average consumer would care enough to subscribe to internet service? Even if they had broadband, how could we assume that they would want to wire their house beyond their computer room?

I think the pundits needs to step outside their computer/internet centric techie worlds and get some perspective on how most people watch movies.