Is your friend effin' kidding?
Spider-man series, Die Hard series, Pirates of the Caribbean series, The Rock, Rent, Gone in 60 Seconds, Pearl Harbor, King Arthur, Troy, Wyatt Earp, the Harry Potter movies, Casino Royale......
Netflix says they have 500 Blu-ray titles on there. Either your friend goes through movies fast or he/she is really picky.
Apple is going to have to include Blu-ray Disc drives on their computers soon. That whole idea of downloading everything is nice and all, but most BD movies come on 50GB discs. That means the 500GB hard drive you just bought at Best Buy will hold between 10 and 20 movies (pretending that half that space is taken up by special features). They would also take hours to download.
Just finished watching my first HD movie rental on Apple TV, waited a couple of minutes (not sure how many, because after I ordered the first movie I ordered a second, not realizing that it change the order of my queue) and then I was able to watch it. I quickly ran to to the my receiver (it's in my basement) to confirm that the movie was in fact in Dolby Digital and it was. Overall this was an excellent experience for me.
Now that's talk about my friend with the Blu-Ray. Yes, they do see a lot of movies (I go to the movies with her once a week). The movies that you mention aren't exactly her tastes (she never saw the Pirates of the Caribbean), but come on now. Gone in 60 Seconds, Pearl Harbor, The Rock? For starters, they're old movies and they're not that good. Just because a movie has been re-released on Blu-Ray doesn't make it a good movie.
Now as for the bonus crap. Yes, I'm calling it crap. When I first got a DVD player I watched the bonus material, looked for the Easter Eggs, watched the bloopers, watched the directors cut and the unrated version and so on. But you know what I've come to the conclusion that a majority of that stuff is just filler. The only bonus feature that I recommend to people is the bonus disc that comes with Citizen Cane, Battle over Citizen Kane. As for the commentary tracks go, the only ones I've found interesting are the Kevin Smith ones. Yeah, I also think the Star Wars bonus stuff is cool, but then again I'm a Star Wars mark.
Of all the people that I know that buy DVDs, I know only one person who fully explores the content. The rest just watch the movie and that's it.
So why am I saying this, well, basically I think the majority of people out there would rather buy a 9.99 HD movie or rent it without the bonus crap, which would cut the size of the file down.
When I built my home theater last summer, the sales man tried hard to get me to spend over $1,000 for a Pioneer Elite Blu-ray player (most of my components a Pioneer Elite, including my 50" Pioneer Elite Plasma) and I said no. Instead I opted for an Apple TV and I have to say that it was the best $400 (I think that's how much it cost back then) I spent. When I show off my set up I show video streaming of DVDs from Mac Pro to the Apple TV and even my A/V Gadget head friends can't believe how good the picture is (my TV does the upscaling of the DVDs) and compare it to their Blu-Ray movies. Then I show off all of the free content I get, via Podcasts and they can't believe it.
The missing piece for me was the Dolby Digital and now that here, I'm ready to start phase 2 of my home theater project.
God I didn't mean to ramble on like that. It's just that the Apple TV is one of my favorite toys of 2007, like it better than my iPhone. It really changes my TV viewing experience. I only wish that it had an onscreen clock, well there's always Take 3.