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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Rodrigo Istalindir" data-source="post: 3286915" data-attributes="member: 2810">I disagree in return <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />  Video formats are *very* slow to catch on.  PAL is better than NTSC, but the US never switched.  Beta was arguably better than VHS, but convenience won out.  Laserdisc was better than VHS, but never made it past niche stage.  The things that made DVD adoption relatively quick aren't in play for HD/Bluray.  The convenience factor (no rewind, chapter access, etc) isn't there.  The (perceived) increase in reliability isn't there.  The consumer electronics industry has a serious case of penis envy regarding the computer industry, with its expected and regular upgrade cycle.  They want that, too, but they don't understand that it won't fly with the bulk of the consumers.  They're doing themselves a serious disservice with their talk of second-gen HD, higher capacity HD-DVD/Bluray discs, etc.  All that does is encourage the consumer to take a wait-and-see approach.I don't doubt that they'll sell stuff, and eventually one format will win out (likely for price reasons), but I don't think they're going to recapture the success of DVD.  Especially if the content makers keep insisting that they're subsidizing the costs of the discs now and that prices will go up once adoption is more widespread.  They're still not there.  The ease-of-use is still an issue -- my dad is a chronic early adopter of this kind of stuff, but it still hasn't hit the point where he can get it to do what he wants it to do without bugging me several times a month.  The other issue is reliability -- sure, RAID is nice, till the chassis or the power supply dies, or the data gets corrupted.   What will really make the 'no physical media' concept appeal is when the hard drives are used primarily for local, transitive storage only.  And I still think there is a DRM bomb waiting to go off that will put a serious crimp in people's willingness to move to a purely digital environment.  I've already made some nice money this year rescuing people's iTunes who never considered what they were really getting when they bought digital music.A lot depends on location.  Everyone I know has multi-megabit to the home already.  If ia Netflix-ish service were available now, I'd be on it in a hearbeat.  I can download a movie or two while I'm at work -- two days faster than I could get the physical media from Netflix.I still think the major motivations behind the next-gen DVD was to close the DeCSS loophole, and a mistaken belief that they could turn back the clock and get people to pay VHS-era prices for movies.  I remember when Star Wars first came out asking for it for Christmas, and knowing if I got it that would be my one present that year.  Nowadays, I can't remember the last time I paid for than $15 for a movie.</blockquote>

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