Todays NYTimes; Steve Jobs Stakes Out the TV Den - but read on.

Kevin Tsujihara, president of the Warner Home Entertainment Group, cautioned that the Apple deal is just one more game piece, not a game changer. Time Warner has the largest library and huge influence with it. He suggested that the deal with Apple is far less important than Time Warner’s own day-and-date video-on-demand service, announced by Jeffrey L. Bewkes, the chief executive, Wednesday.

“Apple is just one piece of the puzzle as it relates to digital distribution,” Mr. Tsujihara said. “They sell hardware and we sell software, and we had to come up with a pricing model that works for both parties and allows the consumer to legitimately access our content. The ultimate solution is coming up with a format that allows it to be played anywhere — in your car, on your PlayStation, on your computer.”

It looks like Sony isnt asleep and is driving a distribution deal thru the PS3 - one hopes that it will be BD quality with extras.

It looks like Sony isn't asleep and is driving a distribution deal thru the PS3 - one hopes that it will be BD quality with extras.

Good luck with that. Expect bad compression, or a full blown argument with your ISP on why you're using 500GB of bandwidth in a month.

This will work great with SD, portable video, ect.

Sony should allow upscaling on digital media, same as they do DVD's if this happens.

Even the suggestion at making SD video standard for dloads, upscaled or not, is a non-starter.I think Sony is smart enough to provide a hi-def option because I'm certainly not downloading any flicks otherwise.

Even the suggestion at making SD video standard for dloads, upscaled or not, is a non-starter.I think Sony is smart enough to provide a hi-def option because I'm certainly not downloading any flicks otherwise.

Why would they compete with their own format? They already offer hi-def playback via Blu-Ray. The internet infrastructure and drive capacities aren't there yet anyway. I think it's pretty safe to assume that whatever they offer online will be at a reduced quality.

The internet infrastructure

...drive capacities

The willingness of ISP's to provide the bandwidth, and the capacity over "the last mile" (again an issue with ISP's)

...aren't there yet anyway.

there, fixed that for you ;)

It's not a competition to their own format, rather a complementation to their premium format. If "everything" is going the way of downloads, then it behooves Sony to similarly start experimenting with the logistics now (like everyone else is doing). That will ensure that all the p's and q's have all been ironed out by time downloads become a real component to the movie distribution arena. There will ALWAYS be a place for premium quality hd content and tangible physical media ownership, and that is what br will serve for at least another decade. However, it would be foolish to ignore that alternate ways of content distribution are on the horizon. Better to be spooled and ready to go, rather than play catchup when you finally realize this alternate avenue can no longer be ignored.

there, fixed that for you

That IS internet infrastructure. But I'm sure he's thankful for you re-stating the obvious.

Sony should allow upscaling on digital media, same as they do DVD's if this happens.It already does. Any video file you play is automatically scaled to whatever resolution your XMB is at.