I am one in the boat who believes in digital distribution to an extent. Physical media isn't going anywhere anytime soon and I believe that is for the better. Like you I prefer having everything accessible from my fingertips so I can watch what I want without going through clutter. I too have a huge collection but mostly video games.
---------
You could be right but Blu Ray is in trouble
I thought it was going gangbusters until I read:
a sales pie of Q1,2 2009 shows that DDL/VOD is selling more than twice that of BR discs-and since they are usually much less expensive-that means that A LOT of people are doing it;
In fact BR MOVIES could be going away soon-sales breakdown from charts at
www.Videobusiness.com marketing and Endgaget/Videoscan-(which for a good reason removed the weekly sales breakdowns from casual public view in March- which between just BR and DVD had DVD at 88% and 13% sales avg per week with BR never even keeping a hold of a constant 15% marketshare)
sales figures to July 1 2009:
DVD $5 Billion;Blu Ray $410 million; VOD/DDL $896 million' VOD is taking off.
Rental breakdowns are even worse for BR on a pie chart (A very busy video store near me is making a decision as I write to either reduce or CLOSE OUT BR rentals, YcitiesMMV but Seattle is a rainy, stay inside and watch movies area of the country-and this store in an indie 'destination' store ie good big selection, in high density mixed middle class population area with only one other store in a 1-5 mile radius-depending on N,S, E, W.
so I dunno it looks roughly like
DVD still has 84% of the market, DDL 11% and BR 5%; (Video Business chart) the percent of increase/decrease is misleading as there are still so few BR players that ANY increase in sales needs to be weighted=ie if 1 BR disc sold in May-and 2 in June thats a 100% sales increase-looks like WOW! but isnt really;
With a billion DVD players still installed it still has a large cushion to hold it -and these need feeding
but overall optical disc sales are down by 4%
And you can bet the Q3,4 2009 numbers will be much, much worse
overall sales will drop and there will be a flat if not negative surge in BR disc/player sales;
Dont toss your DVD player just yet; I was getting ready to make the jump-until this;
BR marketing is getting desperate: "5 BR players in each home by Q1 2010!!" of "Disc Sales expected of $3 trillion by 2012!!" well...you get the idea
Aint gonna come even close
the more thinking they are 'clever' companies releaseing BR only discs are shooting themselves not in the foot-but the brain;
Any given title would sell twice OR MORE on DVD than that of BR only;
Financial suicide to kiss off profits in this economy
Maybe APPLE has a good reason for STILL not announcing BR drives in its upcoming players at this late date; Im sure that BR as storage is near zero also-not a good sign
I wouldnt be surprised to see SONY-the liscensor and main pusher of BR, go ch 13 next year-they are selling/closing big assembly plants already and in deep dodoo, and I think are offering subsidies of either player mfgrs or Home video companies or both just to keep the player price low and disc price down to $25 per average-so when I see 2 for 1 sales of BR at Amazon and elsewhere-it sounds like a fire sale to me
Im not sure that if there had been no HD/BR battle that things would be much differnt-most are still quite happy with the PQ and selection of DVD-unlike say VHS vs DVD
Cause while i like my 1080p on Blu-Ray, i rarely make use of the "Extras" it packs on there lol