Hey Paul,
I don’t disagree with the differences between the upgrade from the older media and the newer but extend that one step further and the ultimate convenience is portable digital media and media-on-demand (if they can make accessing it as easy as picking a channel on your TV).
I ordered the Star Trek movie from Amazon and it’s a three-way bundle, Blu-ray, DVD and Digital copy. I really think the future of bundling is going to be Digital copies. I think the model it will follow is that of MP3 vs CD quality. While there will always be a demand for top quality anything the vast majority of people will sacrifice a little quality for convenience any day, just look at all the people who shop at Wallmart.
I’m not declaring Blu-ray a dead or dieing format I just don’t think it will become as ubiquitous as DVD at the present prices. Even if you bring the prices down it will still have to compete with “on demand” and other “digital copy” formats. Blu-ray needs to offer some added value other than just improved PQ and SQ which many people won’t see much advantage from playing on a smaller HDTV and w/o a good sound system. Not many people are going to notice a difference in lossy vs lossless audio on TV or HTIAB speakers.
I think the biggest advantage for bundling by studios might be the convenience for them in only needing one set of packaging and inventory streams to their venders. I imagine that venders like Wallmart scaling back there shelf space may even push the distributors more toward bundling to target as many customers as they can with less shelf space.
@ Charles - While the U.S. certainly lags behind in high speed internet due especially to the vastness of rural areas most of the target markets are urban and just as the rural U.S. lags behind in electrification and telephone service it will continue to lag in high speed internet unless satellite service becomes cheaper. I don’t see this being a significant factor slowing the growth of media-on-demand. As more people want the convenience of media-on-demand providers will upgrade their infrastructure accordingly. It’s just that right now most people don’t care about high definition on demand content. It’s up to early adopters like you
(I’m usually second tier) to drive the demand and infuse the telecoms with the capital to expand.
Cheers,
Dean
