Re: Digital downloads may beat them all
In theory, yes, but in reality no. Definitely not. The idea of PAID FOR movie downloads (coz lets face it, just about anyone can get any movie in the world downloaded for free) is a nice idea, and if somebody had put the time & money into it already to have an itunes like interface the consumers like etc with decent prices, it could have worked.
But it's not gonna work, because..
a) the big movie companies have all taken too long to decide on an agreed format for the downloads, agreed store to licence to, etc etc.
b) they will/would be almost as expensive as the actual discs, and in some cases, most likely old films, more expensive. which is crazy.
c) they will/would be absolutely CRIPPLED with DRM, and I know Blu-Ray and HD-DVD have plenty of anti-copy protection on them, but it is continually being cracked, and you begrudge it less seeing as you have the actual media. But when you look at what i said before about it costing about as much, taking hours and hours to download, and then you can't burn it to disc yourself because of the DRM, and also because...
d) Blu-Ray / HD-DVD burners are expensive. Fair enough they're coming down, and tech-enthusiasts will buy them, but CD burning became rampant when the drives were £60 and less, same with DVD burning. When drives are hundreds of pounds and discs are nearly a tenner (bringing the price of a burnt download, if that'll be even possible with the DRM, to MORE than a retail disc), the average consumer, even who's "into" hi-def, aint gonna bother.
e) UK's broadband. And I'm not primarily talking about speed, although that is an obvious clear issue. I'm talking about "Caps." It is near IMPOSSIBLE to get a UK Internet connection without a cap. Virgin are possibly some of the filthiest rotten liars, especially seeing as they made a press release criticizing other ISPs for enforcing hidden caps, even though they have a 40gb one themselves. If you're lucky, and I mean REALLY lucky (like myself) you'll have a 100gb cap, but it costs a fortune and is still only a few films, leaving you with no bandwidth left for anything else.
Even with the absolute pain in the arse war between HD-DVD & Blu-Ray (which p*sses me off as much as the next man) consumers still aren't going to be convinced by HD downloading with all these limitations, most of which aren't going to go away anytime soon.