because near future is in 5 days not 5 years. No one knows what will be because4 no one has the full picture. The majority of music is still sold on CD (well at least at the start of this year) even though the ipod/itunes came out in 2001 and DL files are small. Yes many will take that CD and put it on the ipod but then they also have it to throw it in the car or in an other device when needed.


as all camera phones will be good enough in that field.

I doubt it, not because camera phones won't have good pictures but because people like having stand alone cameras, everyone I know has a camera phone and in a jiffy it is useful but then when they go on vacation, out comes that three year old camera that takes worst pics. The same reason that even though people have made SW for PDAs and there is a section for them on this site most people would rather use the right tool for the job and so skip on the PDA and get a remote.


things will change, that is not the issue, but the direction, who knows, maybe BD will be the last disk based system, maybe it will be short lived. But who knows? To move from one format to an other you need three things
1) you need that people feel there is an advantage (i.e. it needs to be better)\
2) content owners need to think the time is right (i.e. old format not bringing in the $$ no use pushing tech too fast because then you lose revenue and dishearten the consumer)
3) you need the equipment to have extremely low margins

We could have had something better then SD-DVD years earlier, for example why couldn't there have been DVD V2 based on AVC instead of MPEG 2 in 2003? Didn't MS even tried introducing WMV-DVDs in 2003. But why did it not happen? because 2003 was too early for a new format. No one wanted it.

If new formats come out every year or two (or three or four or anything that is too often) you will kill the market. Joe who bought X on VHS and then LD and then DVD and then D-VHS and the WMV and then BD and then formatX will at some point wake up and say "why am I buying this shit when it is only good for such a short time and I will upgrade it?"

as for why am I not willing to bet what the next format will be, the reason is easier. I dont know what will be that benefit to consumers that makes people want to upgrade. Will it be like BD better PQ/AQ will it be something else? Right now and for at least the next 5 years DL is a none factor most people (even if they wanted) could not be using DL and getting results anywhere near DVD let alone BD (by this I mean 50% of movie sales and rentals being DL). But by then maybe people would want 4kp instead of 1080p and that would require 4x the capacity, maybe real 3d (same quality but with two pics one for each eye) which would require 2x the capacity, maybe people would want higher frequency (120p instead of 24p), maybe it will be a better colour space (16 bit instead of 8bit)...... if these are the benefits people are looking for then the next format will need to be able to handle a lot more then BD can now, and will the internet be able to handle it at that point in time?

I think peoples issue with your post(s) isn't that you think DL will eventually be main stream, I think most of us think it might happen, it is this, DVD came out in 1997 and in 2006 (less then 10 years later) BD came out, chances are that BD will be just as old, if not older, when it's real competitor will be introduced. Did you skip DVD? did you think DVD will eventually fade out so I won't buy a DVD player? That is the part that makes no sense what so ever. Obviously one day BD will get replaced it mighty be DL and it might not, but it will definitely not be around for ever. But as a person and especially as a CI you can’t put a blind eye at the here and now because of what you believe might happen in a few years especially since you might be totally off.