Until portable mass storage becomes more affordable, Blu-ray will no doubt rule. If flash memory, who lowering price driven by camera manufacturers, gets below $10 for 50GB for example, watch out.

Grant Greene, Lafayette, USA

Watching streaming media from the internet may gain in popularity, but most of it will be DVD quality, and it won't be full-length movies. With ISP's putting download caps on their customers, you won't see HD downloading that would rival blue ray quality.

Joe Blough, toronto, canada

Simple and inexpensive (read less than $75 USD £50 GB squid) set top boxes will be the next BIG consumer product. Bluray and HD are simply fantastic quality but some content can remain in standard or low resolution and still work. As VHS is dead, DVD will soon be and then BluRay.

Budd Margolis, London, UK

Nobody has mentioned the superior sound (DTS-Master Audio, Dolby HD) on Blu-ray discs. These are uncompressed, lossless formats that you have to hear to believe. They just blow you away.

Fred D'Mello, Mississauga, Canada

Streaming HD will take over from Blu Ray, its a dead cert. TV as we know it will eventually become an outdated format although that's probably 50 years away. The really big thing will be interactive experiences such as fully immersed 3D gaming. Think Star Trek holodeks and you get the idea.

Robert, Aberdeen, UK

It's just silly to condemn Blu-ray already when its uptake depends on an entirely different factor - the price of HD TVs. Most people I know are still planning to go HD, just as soon as the price of HD equipment falls. Also there are a lot of people who prefer physical media to digital downloads.

Adam Dullenty, Accrington, England

Why all the talk about HD films taking hours to download? I can rent a HD film from Xbox Live Marketplace and I can start watching it within 2 minutes while it streams in the background. True, its not Blu-Ray quality, but like MP3s, its 'good enough' for most people.

Dave, Coventy,

Just a thought, I wonder how many people have good enough eyesight to be able to perceive a significant difference between HD and the current "standard" images.

Stuart Duncan, Singapore,

As more people buy widescreen HD TVs, they will get fed up watching low def, 4:3 format. Sure I can try and stretch pictures, etc. But what a waste of the HDTV.

Plus, not many people know how to download to their TV area. It is as much work to set up a complete media setup around the house.

Paul, Toronto, Canada

I stopped buying DVD's in general. Overpriced and they just take up space. I do have a few but decided to use Netflix instead. For the player I bought a PS3 as it seemed to be one of the best players and came with a games console. However, buying DVD's don't think so.

Tony Stewart, Chicago, USA

Simple - reduce the cost of the discs and the players

mmcg, Singapore, Singapore

To say time is running out for blu-ray is alarmist to say the least. The worst outcome I see is that blu-ray remains a premium format rather than a total replacement for DVD. This I believe will just be down to what the majority of consumers consider an acceptable standard, even when the majority of TV's are HD. To see how this could happen you just have to compare the usage of VHS/Laserdisc, Laserdisc was far better picture/sound wise but always remained niche to VHS as most people were happy to stick with that quality.

Philip Carlin, Wolverhampton, UK

Considering the speed of broadband in the UK is an utter joke compared to the rest of the world, I can't see this happening too soon. Combine that with a download cap and copper wires instead of fibre optic. The UK is going to be left behind or it already has been judging by comments from other countries

Chris, London, UK

I own over 300 movies, and totally disagree with Mr. Powers belief that I need yet another disc / jewelbox in my collection. I recently built a home-theater PC, copied all of my dvd's to internal storage and can now instantly access them in seconds. Netflix / iTunes / downloads are the future.

david, calgary, canada

Collin, upconverters reveal detail by examining adjacent frames of images to obtain more detail.

Ryan, just because downloads are now compressed doesn't mean they have to be.

Upgrading blue ray requires a new hardware. Upgrading downloads requires new drivers. Downloads are just more versatile.

Keith S, Winnipeg, Canada

downloading and/or streaming will never take off and will never replace blu-ray. download movies are so compressed and nowhere near the quality you get on a disc. besides, UK 'net speeds are too slow and people like to collect discs. blu-ray is perfectly safe.

ryan davie, aberdeen, scotland

Its exactly the same problem audio CD's had. Cassette to CD was a marked difference in quality but MP3 and other compression techniques offer more convenience albeit at lower quality. DVD quality for most people on a 32/42 inch screen is quite adequate at a low price point compared to Blue Ray.

Mike, Alicante, Spain

Blu-Ray == MiniDisc

Jeff, LA, USA

I am already streaming the majority of my TV viewing from Netflix and Amazon though my XBOX360. Collin in Dallas is way behind the times.

Kai, San Juan Capistrano, CA, USA

Downloading of reduced quality BlueRay (10.5gb) and 720p HD (4.5gb) content has already arrived, big time, in the world of pirate video. It's available all over the net.

sedgwick, London, UK

I have a 37" TV, and regular DVD's are just fine. Blu Ray means more spending for very marginal benefit and I will not be buying any time soon. If I had a 50" screen things might be different but then I would need to dedicate my house to the huge thing!

Colin, Shrewsbury,

HD video recorder manufacturers are going over to solid state memory recorders such as the AVCHD cards which are very small and very convient. I have one on my Panasonics HD model. It's brilliant, though costly at the moment, but the price of these AVCHD cards will fall as demand increases.

B.Warren, Milford on Sea, UK

I recommend that we all never say "never". Downloads and streaming will eventually become feasable, but the infrastructure is just not there and it's going to take more than a couple of years to tackle that problem to a critical mass of the worlds households to make that option more feasable than BR

Collin K, Dallas, USA

Upconverters cannot create detail that isn't there. They are simply scaling the standard def image up to an HD res, no new or better picture information can be available. Blu-Ray delivers the native resolution without re-scaling. The additional picture information is inherent in the signal.

Collin K, Dallas, USA

The US porn industry killed of Betamax when it chose VHS for its product, despite betamax being a superior system.

It's also recognised that DVD took off when the US porn industry chose it above other systems.

Can Blueray look to the US porn industry for salvation? I doubt it

Dave, Kettering,

Bottom line: I can't afford blu-ray or HD TV, and as greedy electronics corporate suits mindlessly make it impossible for me to watch TV or DVD's...guess what? I won't buy, I'll just find something else to spend my shrinking income on! Books, internet, etc.

NBG, NY state, USA

I am still very happy with my bog standard old non widescreen cathode ray tv, and basic dvd player.

Geoff H, guildford,

Upscaling DVD players are quite impressive, smoothly doubling the resolution of the 576p image and giving Blue Ray a real run for its money. Most people will have a huge DVD collection and ask themselves why go to all the bother of upgrading to BR when I can just buy an upscaling DVD player for £40.

marcus wall, cambridge,

If Sony/Tosh had learnt anything from the vhs/ beta wars it should have been , let's not do that again . It left a nasty taste in the mouth for everyone
They should have got together on HD and come to the market with similar technology and realistic prices .
They have lost 3 good years business

Nick Dixon, Sutton Coldfield, England

There are lots of areas that don't have high speed connections, but the areas that do have high population density and more disposable income. Blu Ray had a shot a couple of years ago, but with the economy in the dumpster and falling memory prices, Video Discs of any kind will become antiques

kevin, brookville, usa

The biggest issue is the price of the actual players. People take a look at the price of DVD Players / Recorders and see them significantly cheaper. When money is tight its a no brainer which they go for. Drop the prices of Blu-Ray players to that of DVD Players and see what happens.

Andrew Jones, Wrexham,

Hmmm. Just like the death of CDs when MP3 appeared 5 years ago?.......... oh.

And this from the same newspaper that was reporting only yesterday the continued popularity of vinyl!

Greg, Bolton,

When living in China I bought hundreds of DVD's priced around 50p - £1 each. In the UK I buy ZERO. Piracy may be illegal, but people buy films if they are cheap. The industry is pricing itself out of a profit. And don't give me **** about royalties. Bring the price down 90% sell 1000% more.

Mike, Nottingham, UK

Although I have noticed the price of some blu-ray discs are getting cheaper...I am in no financial situation to rush out and purchase a blu-ray player...and then have to buy a new tv(HD ready) as I still have CRT sets in my home..when I can buy movies online for £2.99-5.99(play.com)..Blu-ray no way!

nic, bristol,

Blu-ray is amazing..the quality is simply breathtaking. Plus the upscaling too of normal dvds is a huge benefit. Normal DVDs now need to be gradually phased out. Streaming cannot takeoff...plus the quality of the sound compared to both dvd/blu-ray is too poor. A big disadvantage for surround sound.

kirk, Rotherham, UK

I must agree with Mr Powers when he talks about actually having the disc so that it can be watched later. As convenient as having a movie on your hard drive may be it is nice to go and pick out a film and put it in the machine.
Of course its obvious why Mr Powers thinks this is so!

Jack, Bristol,

Having just got a Blu Ray Player and Watched Casino Royale on both DVD and Blu Ray you can genuinely tell the difference between them. I intend on replacing my big action and scenic DVDs with Blu Rays e.g. Star Wars, Transformers, Planet Earth with Blu Rays but leaving the likes of Comedies on DVD.

Daniel, London, England

The article says it all...£9 for a DVD, £19 for a Blu-ray disk. It doesn't cost an extra £10 to make, so maybe if we weren't being ripped off the format would be more successful..

Chris, London, U.K.

Streaming, even in the developed world will always be limited by bandwidth. Downloading might work better here, but in less developed places, piracy can increase accordingly.

Cheap DVDs, upscaling players and high BR prices killed BluRay. The size of the disc (CD) is ancient too. Big mistake!

Andras, Northington, UK

As long as download speeds remain slow, online streaming of TV will struggle. Here in South Africa the speeds/monthly bandwidth caps are so restrictive, we are forced to write everything to disc since that's still the cheapest way to store/move data around. Japan gets it right with 100Mbps fibre.

Bryan, Cape Town, South Africa

Upconverters are very good. Very close to HD

If they bring down the price of HD discs then I would expect them to take off far quicker. Why pay £20 for a disc? Far too expensive.

Paul Davis, York, uk

Here in Vancouver I am connected to the internet by fibre cable feed from TELUS the Telecom service provider, they provide IPTV and High speed Interconnect. Why invest in blueray & expensive discs when you can stream/download movies in seconds. Save your money and go for downloads and storage.

Tony, VANCOUVER, CANADA

The problem with Blu-Ray is Sonys astronomical licensing charges. $50,000 to use just the Blu-Ray logo on your packaging. (just for starters). And then the high cost (inflated by Sony) of pressing blu-ray discs, (like 20x the cost of a DVD).

Sony has not learned from Betamax.

William, Manchester,

Don't believe everything the marketing people say - they are full of hype. There are far more slow connections than super fast ones but more fundamentally, why should people invest in HD anyway - there are few tv channels broadcasting in it? Indeed, some haven't even fully caught up with widescreen!

Barrie Redfern, Zdole, Slovenia

People will want their own hard copy, but why would they want a massive DVD sized disc when they can fit one (or more) HD move onto a stick and plug it directly into the TV they own? Technology is going to leapfrog Blue Ray

Rollo Tomasi, SHEFFIELD, Thailand

Have you tryed playing a Blu-ray film from an external hard drive?... It doesnt work very well. Even from a 100mbps ethernet hard disk the film still crashes from time to time! Film downloading & streaming is just a load of hipe, like cloud computing! People want removable media....

Michael, Dorset,

Without truly unlimited downloads and speeds approaching ADSL2 IE. 24mb, streaming won't be practical. However I still believe SD Cards may be the future, the price per gb is coming down all the time and it's tiny in comparison to a CD. Imagine how small HD players could be!

nick, leeds, uk

At the moment streaming/downloading quaility is poor but I think we will all have a computer in our living room in a few years, a screen will be attached to it that can act as a normal PC or a TV. The streaming/downloading quality will improve dramitically and the DVD player and blu-ray will die!

Liam, Margate, Kent

However good the streaming technology is, I still want to own a hard copy. It is simple, if I buy a DVD or Blu-ray disc, I will pay x amount to have that on my shelves, just like a book. Just the download? I am willing to pay a couple of quid, max.

Antony, Las Vegas, USA

It's still very much the way to go for the time being. BlueRay players and recorders are getting cheaper every day. The prerecorded disks are getting cheaper too. On top of that most pc manufacturers are now fitting BlueRay as standard. Old dvd's benifit from an upscale whilst being played too.

RayB, Newcastle upon Tyne, uk

I'm sorry to say that Online Video (Streaming or Downloading) will never replace the disc. Simply because Streaming and Downloading are provided in far poorer quality, are far less available, and are too restricted. In truth, the Content holders have shot themselves in the foot with it using DRM.

Gareth, Swansea, UK

As you already mentioned in your article, slow broadband speeds in the UK along with download limits with most ISPs means that it will be a long time before streaming TV shows and films, let alone hi-definition content, becomes the norm and overtakes Blu-ray.

Andrew T, Leicester, UK

"Own things you can handle? Can't do that with a download?" Five years ago you could't put Youtube streaming on the hard disk. Now you can with cheap software. The same will happen with HD formats. Hard Disk space is cheaper per GB than Blu Ray disks! That's where my DVD/VCD collection resides now.

Paul Muller, Mae Sot, Thailand