Blu-ray Will Transition Users to Digital Downloads

When the format war ended in early 2008, new questions sparked in the minds of analysts and consumers. What about digital downloads? they would ask. Is Blu-ray needed? The answer to the latter was simple– yes Blu-ray would be the next format and yes it is needed.

It has been nearly a year since HD-DVD went the way of the dodo. Blu-ray players have dropped significantly in price and HD-TVs are becoming more popular among the masses. Every time you walk into your local Walmart or Blockbuster you can see that the Blu-ray section has grown, slowly working its way through the aisles that DVDs and the occasional VHS once occupied. Blu-ray is becoming increasingly popular and soon will be the dominant format in our visual entertainment.

So what was all that talk of digital downloads about? People questioned why a new physical format was necessary in this digital age. Digital movie and TV show downloads do have their advantages and are in common use today. I know plenty of people that torrent movies and TV shows, never paying a dime for their entertainment. For more legal options you can opt to download movies straight from Netflix instead of waiting a day for the movie to arrive in the mail, you can download movies through your PS3 or directly from your Apple TV. All of these digital options leave some consumers wondering why they should bother upgrading to Blu-ray, spending more money on another technology that may soon become obsolete.

Digital downloads do have their advantages, but they are not ready to become the definitive movie-watching format. Music downloads have become mainstream, but it took about a decade since Napster first brought us .mp3s before downloads became the way to get your music. I haven’t purchased a CD in years, but I have still been buying my movies on hard discs. It’s because the bandwidth just isn’t there yet. I’ve watched stuff on my computer screen, but there is a big difference between my 20” computer screen and my friend’s 60” 1080i monster. I have plugged in laptops via HDMI to HD-TVs, but the downloaded stuff never looks as good as it should on the screen (not to mention it sometimes takes days to download HD quality movies). The vast majority of users do not have the speed necessary to download HD media in a reasonable amount of time.

The process is underway, however. Blu-ray will be the last physical media to be the dominant film and TV show format. Warner Bros. is planning to use Blu-ray as a tool to convert people to digital downloads. “We can use HD discs to train consumers to move into digital, but it’s a transition,” said Warner Bros.’ Vice President of High-Definition Media Development Dan Silverberg. “Downloaded content will come, but the consumer will get quicker tutorial into video-on-demand, etc., by owning a Blu-ray player.” Getting those who are not digitally adept to understand how to interact with digital files and interfaces is crucial in creating a large market for digital downloads. This is why we need Blu-ray, to teach people what a digital download is and have them become familiar with the concept.

Comcast and other internet providers are approaching the speeds necessary for HD digital downloads. There will soon be Blu-ray players in nearly every household and it will have its share of years as the dominant format. Within the next five years I expect these Blu-ray devices to slowly morph into digital download storage devices that connect your TV to pay-per-downloaded resources. Within ten years I expect Blu-ray to shrink away like the DVD is now, succumbing to the supremacy of the digital realm.