I don't find digital downloads all that appealing currently for everything. For TV shows, and some movies, sure. But discs will continue to be my primary source of movies, even if it's just a rental. Both for cost and quality issues.

http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/articles/comments/13347/ has some good image comparisons between the Apple TV, HD Cable, DVD and Blu-ray.

I also don't see digital downloads becoming this mass market thing as quickly as some people think. They all require some sort of separate box, none that really sell in the big box stores yet. They require home networking setups of some kind, thus raising the tech barrier a bit. They require a decent broadband connection to get the movie playing in a reasonable amount of time. And for the connection, if they go wireless, they have to worry about all the fun interference issues cropping up with the 2.4ghz gear. Even beyond that, consumers then have to worry about their provider implementing network technologies that slow down the service, ala Comcast.

There are a lot of hurdles to jump to get digital downloads into the mass market.



I can agree with this, as I see Blu-ray living alongside DVD far longer then DVD lived beside VHS. But I just don't see digital downloads coming up and really providing any strong competition to either disc based format in the US for a long time.