This absolutely has to happen to avoid both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD from going the way of DVD-Audio/SACD. The only way high definition discs will succeed in the marketplace is the development of affordable hybrid players. Most consumers will not pony up for a $500+ player that can only play about 50% of available HD titles. Consumers will pay $250-$350 for a player that can play all available HD disc formats.
The alternative is for one of the formats to die off, and that is well over a year away if it is going to happen. If the HD-DVD and Blu-Ray camps continue on their present paths, then cable and satellite providers will jump in to fill some of the HD void with better HD on demand, and I expect Blockbuster and Netflix will be looking at ways to allow HD downloads via high speed internet. I'm thinking of a simple and small set-top enclosure with a small hard drive and ethernet capability (wireless?). Simply order your movies online like you do now with Blockbuster/Netflix, and it smartly steams the titles to the box and is ready to watch in 12 hours or whatever. It can only hold 3 movies at a time (or whatever you pay for it to hold) and you can keep a movie as long as you want (just like they currently offer with DVD's) then just delete it and then your queue will DL the next title. No more postage costs. No more media costs. Tivo could also outfit their boxes with similar capabilities.
“The other one is a biggie, and it's something very noticeable in the videos: touch sensitivity is pretty bad. Using the virtual keyboard proved to be far too painful, and we're pretty sure it wasn't multitouch-friendly.”
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This absolutely has to happen to avoid both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD from going the way of DVD-Audio/SACD. The only way high definition discs will succeed in the marketplace is the development of affordable hybrid players. Most consumers will not pony up for a $500+ player that can only play about 50% of available HD titles. Consumers will pay $250-$350 for a player that can play all available HD disc formats.
The alternative is for one of the formats to die off, and that is well over a year away if it is going to happen. If the HD-DVD and Blu-Ray camps continue on their present paths, then cable and satellite providers will jump in to fill some of the HD void with better HD on demand, and I expect Blockbuster and Netflix will be looking at ways to allow HD downloads via high speed internet. I'm thinking of a simple and small set-top enclosure with a small hard drive and ethernet capability (wireless?). Simply order your movies online like you do now with Blockbuster/Netflix, and it smartly steams the titles to the box and is ready to watch in 12 hours or whatever. It can only hold 3 movies at a time (or whatever you pay for it to hold) and you can keep a movie as long as you want (just like they currently offer with DVD's) then just delete it and then your queue will DL the next title. No more postage costs. No more media costs. Tivo could also outfit their boxes with similar capabilities.