I had an idea to finally get over this BD/HD Debate. Just downloading HD movies from something like Xbox Marketplace or ITunes Music Store.

Advantages:

1) Dont need a $800 player that will only play half of the HD movies available and will be obsolete in 6 months when ZOMG multiplexed Vog Orbis 9.1 multiplexed super surround over HDMI 1.5 discs come out.

2) Discs cant break!

Disadvantages:

1) Long download times - which is fine for me because its shorter than Netflix delivery time and you can play the movie before its finished downloading

2) Need to secure the data - I personally have a 1 TB RAIDed NAS but most dont.

3) Movie studios might not go for this since it might lose them money if no one buys physical disks.

Anyone who's fried their hard drive can't be too serious about downloading as an alternative to buying physical product. So IMO, no downloading will not kill the high def disc formats. If anything ends up killing them it'll be the fact that there are two of them rather than one. Again IMO. ;) There are always going to be people that like to hold a physical product in their hands. There's certainly no pride of ownership when it comes to downloading.

Disadvantage..... There's nothing physical to grab hold of.


I like my movie collection because it is just that... a collection. I take no sentiment to virtual copies of movies. They get deleted, corrupted, misplaced, forgotten.. etc. My physical copies get treated like precious metals and put out on display. ;)

Yes.

I think someday they will. Content on demand is simply too attractive an option, though not really fully feasible right now for some of the reasons you describe. I think all the CE companies who don't have thumbs up their butts are looking towards downloads long-term for the future. Rental places, etc are all looking at digital downloads for the future.

One need only look as far as MP3s, iTunes, etc to know that people like downloading content.

I think that physical formats will be around for the foreseeable future, but long term definitely I think anyone involved with BRD and HD-DVD recognizes that downloads will be a competing content delivery method. The people with a great deal of business smarts realizes that they could be complementary as well.

I have 3 HDD and 1050MB of space. I am downloading sub-DVD and sometimes sub-VHS real format video. And I have to consistantly delete old video in order to clear out space for the new downloads.

If you think HDD can replace optical format you are living in the la la land.

i think they will sooner than expected..... but i think the rental market is far more likely to succeed (think a hybrid of xbox marketplace and netflix style subscriptions)

im really starting to hate blockbuster (and netflix did the same in the past) where they take forever to mark they got the movie back. and even then most of the hd movies in my queue are marked as short or long waits. i would actually pay more to ms for live marketplace videos (than netflix/blockbuster) if they created such a plan because they wouldnt have the same supply issues netflix/blockbuster seem to have with hd movies.

It's the dream of both MS and Sony... for console they are already talking about dropping the CD base medium for download only games.. so it's coming and already begun (on Xbox live)

Won't happen this decade. Besides, what % of people, besides heavy users, have very high speed Internet? I've got 512kbps and couldn't imagine having to download anything greater than 100Mbytes.

I like portability, the case and cover. Just ask those who downloaded Vista and weren't able to get an actual dvd following their failed installation/crash!

I'm computer savy and I'm not remotely interested in it. My presumption is most are not as well.

I should add, that my interest in downloading movie content may interest me for my ipod, but not for HD content and I certainly don't want 1/2 of HD either.

my2cents.

Not likely going to happen anytime soon until the download services reach the VOD speeds. Considering that size of the Movie files in HD 1080p format takes alot of disk space 15 - 30GB it will not take very long to fill a hard drive with only a few movies. Most people like myself are not going to deal with those storage needs. It is just like a DVR where you are to consistently making room for more content and you can't keep everything.

One user expressed his experience with Xbox Marketplace here: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=836002 To me that seams like a big hassle of free up disc space by deleting your favorites and waiting hours for the download to complete. Compared that to driving to your favorite rental store or B&M and coming home and tossing in the movie. For me that in less than 15 minutes round trip to get a new movie on disc instead, plus it is archived until the viewing period with no waiting next time.

Not a chance.

It will. I am going to go against the crowd on this one.

HD Downloads will likely be rentals first. Now imagine a STB in 2011 sits on top of your TV looks just like your cable box or tivo with a 1TB drive and ethernet/wifi, remote control, and SoC decoder design like being used in 3G HD DVD players. Likely will cost less than $150 to build.

Just like Netflix you setup a list of movies and it downloads them. Running 24/7 a 5MB connection (cox cable) can download 1.6TB so lets say it throttles back when you are using your connection and downloads a mere 1TB of movies. At 25GB ea thats 40 movies per month. Doubt the studios will allow you to watch that many for netflix prices. So the tech is actually faster than the business plan. A "4 at once" Netflix plan cost $25. The most that you likely could watch in a month is say 4 out every 4 days = maybe 1 per day so 30 movies. Let's say Netflix Online offered you a choice of plans:
20 movies per month for $20.
10 movies per month for $15.
5 movies per month for $10.

You wouldn't be interested at all? You would say No I want to pay more each month and wait longer, and deal w/ scratched disc, and backlogged popular movies instead? What if you could opt-in and score movies you watch at the end so it found movies you like. It could surprise you with movies not in your list that other viewers with similar habits liked.

Don't like netflix style plans? Same thing could be done with a traditional rental setup. Imagine if the STB allowed pre-download. Select the movies you like and it pre-downloads them. On release day you just pay & watch.

Try not to think about it like a computer system but rather like a Tivo for movies. Simple interface. Not too many options. Control it with your remote. Now this is possible today but in 4-5 years the tech will be cheaper and easier to use, connections faster and home networks much more common.

Content for purchase will come next but likely a generation after online rentals are common.

I currently have 100 movies ripped to a 1 TB RAIDed NAS and I havnt seen the physical movies in years. I get to watch the movies on demand and dont have to worry about corrupted hard drives because WHEN a hard drive fails, I simply have to take it out, put a new one in, and the NAS automatically recovers the data in a few hours. The advantages of RAID5 are great. I also have another 300 GB left over for my ripped TV shows and MP3s. When I need more space my NAS will hold another 500 GB but I wait until I need it to buy it since its always getting cheaper.

The only problem is that its SD quality not HD, but I would gladly have 1/4 the movies for higher quality.

I'm probably the minority here, but I have no interest in downloading HD movies.

Someday you'll be able to download a HD movie and then burn it onto a blank BRD/HD-DVD/next format, legally. Of course this will be extremely controlled and the DRM will be ultra strict. You don't want to mess around with those laser beam grids.

You completely ignore the most important problem with downloading - no chance until parasites (MPAA & RIAA) keep releasing DRM-infected crap.

It's a complete nonsense, a joke when you cannot play your downloaded iTMS or other kind of crap on all of your players.

I really hope sane people don't spend a single cent on these useless crap that mop the floor with your rights.

Just like Netflix you setup a list of movies and it downloads them. Running 24/7 a 5MB connection (cox cable) can download 1.6TB so lets say it throttles back when you are using your connection and downloads a mere 1TB of movies. At 25GB ea thats 40 movies per month. Doubt the studios will allow you to watch that many for netflix prices.

And the cable operators won't allow you to download that many movies either. A friend of mine just got a phone call from Comcast saying he's in the top 1% of users, out of their base of 12 million. He downloaded 647GB in March, and they told him if he gets anywhere near that again, he'll be cancelled and blacklisted.

I can't wait for downloadable content

I currently have 100 movies ripped to a 1 TB RAIDed NAS and I havnt seen the physical movies in years. I get to watch the movies on demand and dont have to worry about corrupted hard drives because WHEN a hard drive fails, I simply have to take it out, put a new one in, and the NAS automatically recovers the data in a few hours. The advantages of RAID5 are great. I also have another 300 GB left over for my ripped TV shows and MP3s. When I need more space my NAS will hold another 500 GB but I wait until I need it to buy it since its always getting cheaper.

The only problem is that its SD quality not HD, but I would gladly have 1/4 the movies for higher quality.

So jealous.

It will. I am going to go against the crowd on this one.

HD Downloads will likely be rentals first. Now imagine a STB in 2011 sits on top of your TV looks just like your cable box or tivo with a 1TB drive and ethernet/wifi, remote control, and SoC decoder design like being used in 3G HD DVD players. Likely will cost less than $150 to build.

Just like Netflix you setup a list of movies and it downloads them. Running 24/7 a 5MB connection (cox cable) can download 1.6TB so lets say it throttles back when you are using your connection and downloads a mere 1TB of movies. At 25GB ea thats 40 movies per month. Doubt the studios will allow you to watch that many for netflix prices. So the tech is actually faster than the business plan. A "4 at once" Netflix plan cost $25. The most that you likely could watch in a month is say 4 out every 4 days = maybe 1 per day so 30 movies. Let's say Netflix Online offered you a choice of plans:
20 movies per month for $20.
10 movies per month for $15.
5 movies per month for $10.

You wouldn't be interested at all? You would say No I want to pay more each month and wait longer, and deal w/ scratched disc, and backlogged popular movies instead? What if you could opt-in and score movies you watch at the end so it found movies you like. It could surprise you with movies not in your list that other viewers with similar habits liked.

Don't like netflix style plans? Same thing could be done with a traditional rental setup. Imagine if the STB allowed pre-download. Select the movies you like and it pre-downloads them. On release day you just pay & watch.

Try not to think about it like a computer system but rather like a Tivo for movies. Simple interface. Not too many options. Control it with your remote. Now this is possible today but in 4-5 years the tech will be cheaper and easier to use, connections faster and home networks much more common.

Content for purchase will come next but likely a generation after online rentals are common.

This is exactly what I would be looking for. The advantages are enormous. You don't need a huge hard drive for this option. Just setup your queue and you are all set. No need to worry about incompatibility and you don't have the I bought a disc and only watch it once (common how many times do you really want to watch a movie like Crank). With FiOS spreading like wildfire this will be very easy to use with something like a PS3 or Xbox360 or your PC (protecting your investment). For the few must have tittles you could just order them or they could offer a permanent copy for you to store that could be burned to DVD for use in other players. Lets face it only 25% of the movies ?I own do I really want to watch more than twice on an on demand type situation on more than one TV (most being kids tittles). One last comment to the statement of not in this decade, remember its only 2.5 years to the end of the decade.

Kill? No

Contain? Perhaps

There is an attraction to merchandise that will never full go away. I think downloads may kill the rental market, but not the software market.

Pressed media (especially DVDs) are dirt cheap and portable. If people were hugely obsessed with space, we'd all buy our media in slim-line CD cases or envelopes already.

Won't go over that well for Joe 6-Pack. Most people don't even have an ethernet connection at their entertainment center.

Just seems a bit too techy for mass adoption.

For me, it has to be recorded media. Even if you could get good PQ, I'm guessing you won't see kick a$$ audio tracks that we get with HD-DVD and BD.

The broadband infrastructure is just not there for North America. At least 15-20 years IMO.

Internet2 just hit a record recently of sending data over 20000 miles at 9.08 gigabits per second. That's gigabits, not megabits. At that speed, you could download a complete DL HD DVD in about 3 seconds.

As for how long it will be before that is widely adopted, one can never tell. Change happens at an incredible pace nowadays.




http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070424/ap_on_hi_te/faster_internet_4

I agree with Timothy on this one. I think Downloads may kill the rental market but not the software market. People still cling to this "old fashioned" idea of owning something. I think it will coexist in a similar manner to Itunes and regular CD's (even though analysts have been confirming that Internet downloads of songs are dropping fairly rapidly).

Internet2 just hit a record recently of sending data over 20000 miles at 9.08 gigabits per second. That's gigabits, not megabits. At that speed, you could download a complete DL HD DVD in about 3 seconds.


That's Gigabits, not Gigabytes per second. It would still take a really short time, but 3 seconds is not the answer. 1 gigabit is a factor of 1/8th of a gigabyte. that would be about 24 seconds instead of 3 :D

Internet2 just hit a record recently of sending data over 20000 miles at 9.08 gigabits per second. That's gigabits, not megabits. At that speed, you could download a complete DL HD DVD in about 3 seconds.

As for how long it will be before that is widely adopted, one can never tell. Change happens at an incredible pace nowadays.




http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070424/ap_on_hi_te/faster_internet_4

Gigabits != Gigabytes, devide the 9.08 (8bits in a byte) and you get around 1 gbyte/sec, not 3 seconds but 30 seconds

That speed was only on Internet2, which will most likely stay as nothing more than universities b/c you can't just shut down the internet and install internet2 one day.

The speed was used with modified protocols to go from 6 to 9gbps, that were designed only for this specific test.

As of today most home users with broadband on average can expect 300k/s download rates, which would take nearly 28 hours to download a DL HD-DVD.

I think the speed isn't there yet for HD on demand, and the hard drive space isn't there. The average $1000 PC these days has around 400gb of hard drive storage.
You think people are going to be happy storing 10 movies on their PC and barely having room for other things like digital photos, Windows Vista, Office, etc... etc...

Plus, people like packaging, like having shelves full of discs. I think the whole movies on demand isn't going to take off for a while until technology catches up. Right now the video quality on netflix's on demand is not even near DVD quality and you expect people to be downloading full length HD content soon?

I don't think downloading will kill optcal media for along time.

What need to happen is a box need to be made that hooks directly to the TV and internet. No middle man (ie the PC). This box either has to have a massive HDD or allow pepole to instatly watch any movie they want. The abilty to burn or transfer the movie to a removble HDD needs to be done. Why becase pepole like to be able to watch their movies anywhere anytime.

The advantage to the optcal based format is that it can be used any were as long as their a player. DVD has proven this many cars have player. Also I borrow my DVD to friends from time to time with downloading you can't do this.

Also QC will be a issue for those with good displays and audio. HDDVDs and BD take 15-50 GB of info. Most HD movies online are 10GB or less. I can't see how it can equal a HD Disc.


I don't think the movies studios want this either theirs not as much money it for them. With the optcal based format they can resell you the same movie many many times. (T2, ID4, dawn of the dead, and superbit discs are a great example of this)



I think the HD format will take off when the players become cheep (<$200) and the software equals DVDs cost. At this point it will be less about HD and more about the movie avalibilty and clear picture over DVD..

Pepole also like have a collection of movies. The idea of having your own movie "store" in the closet is a great thing. I've got over 500 movies with no plans on stoping. If downloading should become very eazy for the average person and most homes get them. I will stll mantain a physcal collection while embracing the new formats.. In the end its all about the movies and the ease of USE. This is why VCRs for recording are still popualar. Despite the ease of use of a DVD recorder and the cheep blanks. The VCR still is easyer to use. You just hit power and record. It work everytime. With the DVD recorder their an extended read time. Possible recording issues do to dirty disc or read write failure. Yes DVD recorders are getting better and will some day be as flawless as VCRs. But not yet.

I'm suspecting that the unintended casualty of hd downloads might end up being the dvd.

Customers, where "dvd quality" is enough, might also be enticed by the potential convenience of download on demand. That brings some new options on the table for the degree of compression that can be applied to a movie program. Hypothetically, you can compress a 720p movie using vc-1, down to dvd level data size (and possibly beyond). It is still "720p", so they can market it as "hd", and it may be a mere 5 GB in size, which makes it download feasible at typical broadband speeds. It won't be great 720p pq. It might not be much better than dvd quality, but this might be enough for the "convenience" customer, anyway (in the spirit of mp3 downloads vs. cd).

The optical HDM formats will stick around to service the userbase that specifically wants a physical collection and the ultimate quality possible at hd resolutions.

"A friend of mine just got a phone call from Comcast saying he's in the top 1% of users, out of their base of 12 million. He downloaded 647GB in March, and they told him if he gets anywhere near that again, he'll be cancelled and blacklisted."

Tell your "friend" to switch to DSL and he will never get this kind of phone call again, the line speed will be just as fast(typically), and the service will be 25% cheaper. I know this for a fact.

Gigabits != Gigabytes, devide the 9.08 (8bits in a byte) and you get around 1 gbyte/sec, not 3 seconds but 30 seconds

That speed was only on Internet2, which will most likely stay as nothing more than universities b/c you can't just shut down the internet and install internet2 one day.

The speed was used with modified protocols to go from 6 to 9gbps, that were designed only for this specific test.

As of today most home users with broadband on average can expect 300k/s download rates, which would take nearly 28 hours to download a DL HD-DVD.

I think the speed isn't there yet for HD on demand, and the hard drive space isn't there. The average $1000 PC these days has around 400gb of hard drive storage.
You think people are going to be happy storing 10 movies on their PC and barely having room for other things like digital photos, Windows Vista, Office, etc... etc...

Plus, people like packaging, like having shelves full of discs. I think the whole movies on demand isn't going to take off for a while until technology catches up. Right now the video quality on netflix's on demand is not even near DVD quality and you expect people to be downloading full length HD content soon?

Sorry about the bits/bytes thing - I do that all the time.

I think there is enough consumer demand for higher bandwidth - bandwidth capable of DL movies on demand - that this will eventually become a reality. It's just a question of time. And things change so fast nowadays, I wouldn't be surprised to see it happen sooner rather than later.

Won't go over that well for Joe 6-Pack. Most people don't even have an ethernet connection at their entertainment center.

I think far more people have an ethernet connection at their entertainment center than a next gen video player. Remember the cable connection only needs a broad band router attached.

Just seems a bit too techy for mass adoption.

With all the problems that people run into with HDMI handshakes flaky players ect don't see this being any worse.

For me, it has to be recorded media. Even if you could get good PQ, I'm guessing you won't see kick a$$ audio tracks that we get with HD-DVD and BD.

I agree that some people prefer recorded physical media. But some don't mind downloaded media (itunes, mp3, etc). Unfortunately kicking audio is not all that important to 95% of the users out there. As much as I try to show the importance of good audio to my friends most really dont care, but a great picture that always sells. It is not a question of education its a question of whats important to people.

Downloads will never kill off physical media. For rentals, that's fine. But for purchases consumers want something physical, something tangible that they can put on display.

Downloads will never kill off physical media. For rentals, that's fine. But for purchases consumers want something physical, something tangible that they can put on display.

if the rental market goes the way of download physical media will be more or less killed off by default. ive always wondered on the stats but i would love to see how many movies are rented a week vs bought. i would think the rental market would be substantially larger.

No, not for me and probably not a lot of other people...

I like my stuff. I collect my stuff, see my stuff and can hold my stuff. If there is no physical media, many "collectors" of stuff will be far less interested. As a result of being a collector (closing in on 600 SD DVDs), I wouldn't be able to display my stuff.

If there is nothing pysical to have / hold, there is much less sense of ownership. To be completely frank, I would be more inclined to obtain pirated copies of the digital movies, since there is no additional value-add.

I only got into HD media in December, so I only have 40 discs, right now. That's easily over a TB. There's no doubt in my mind my space requirements would be massive and unrealistic, but that would have to be dealt with.

I can see a market for a VOD of HD material, but doubt it will be HD-DVD / BD quality. What seems more likely to me would be a rental with quality similar to the HD content already accessible via cable/sat/OTA, with slightly more advanced codecs to improve video/audio. This way, bandwith isn't used as much and they can ding you twice - once for the rental and once for the purchase.

For people who believe download will (largely) replace physical media in the next future, I don't care what reason or method you use, would you mind explain to me why ebook and iTMS haven't replaced books and CD yet?

God, I hope not. The quality will not be there... you can bet on it. There will be storage issues, copyright issues, pay-per-play issues, privacy issues, etc.

Take, for instance, I-Tunes. If you don't convert all your $0.99 downloaded songs to a format you can use in any other device (CD's, DVD's, etc.) and cancel their service... your big music investment goes POOF!!

It'll be like DIVX all over again. Remember that fiasco?

Dan

God, I hope not. The quality will not be there... you can bet on it. There will be storage issues, copyright issues, pay-per-play issues, privacy issues, etc.

Take, for instance, I-Tunes. If you don't convert all your $0.99 downloaded songs to a format you can use in any other device (CD's, DVD's, etc.) and cancel their service... your big music investment goes POOF!!

It'll be like DIVX all over again. Remember that fiasco?

Dan

Actually you can buy any EMI track on itunes now with 0 DRM. Makes 1000 copies if you want. No service no nothing. I think the other labels will need to follow suit if they don't want to lose maket share. If this experiments goes well I think EMI will announce same program for WMA based devices. With no DRM audio sales will take off. Maybe the studios are waking up to the fact that punishing the legal buyers is not likely the best answer and people can always buy CD w/o DRM.

I haven't taken advantage of it yet because.
1) Don't like that AAC will only play on iPod.
2) Don't like the quality of AAC - sounded tiny to me compared to high bitrate wma.
3) I store everything in lossless so I can change formats at will or down sample to fit my current media player.

Would HD Downloads kill BD/HD?
Not at my house.

For people who believe download will (largely) replace physical media in the next future, I don't care what reason or method you use, would you mind explain to me why ebook and iTMS haven't replaced books and CD yet?

ebook has had no good reader. Reading a book on computer screen sucks. eInk has potential but has been slow to rollout. Flexible eInk is in the works. An ebook that looks and feels (i.e same weight, form factor, cover) like a book will hit the market eventually. Get a universal format and it will catch on.

The problem with aac/wma tracks online is that CD have no DRM. So you got three options:
1) pay high prices and get locked down music in low quality.
2) pay high prices and get CD quality and convert to any format.
3) steal it.

Some people went w/ #2 many more still go #3. Right now digital tracks do not offer a good value for the money. EMI announcing no DRM is a good first step. Lossless (i.e CD quality) digital music would be another good improvement. When mp3 came out HD were about 1/10 current size so low bitrates were needed. Today in lossless CD quality an 80GB portable player could hold 4000 songs. A media server with 1000 CDs would only need <300GB.

Are we there yet? No but I think change is coming. CD sales are still down and online sales are heading down too. Consumers are tuning out of music all together which is sad I think. Hell digital downloads could even saving hifi audio (DVD-A SACD quality). A track recorded in 24/48 stored as WMA9 lossless would be only 35MB.

I've got a 60GB ipod and I've never used Itunes to download music. All of my songs/movies are from my collection. I used 10GB worth of music. And 40 in video. The video PQ is so so but becase of size and ease of use I don't mind. But with HD I want the Best not a overly compresed HD program..

I think it might be the future if you subscribe to a monthly service which allows you to watch unlimited HD movies. Download and watch whatever HD you want. Library of a zillion HD movies and TV seasons all available whenever you want it.... Sorry, I'm dreaming. Guess I'll keep purchasing. :) SJ

I think Downloads will eventually become the standard. But I don't see it becoming widely used for at least 20 years most likely much longer.

There will probably be some computer at a store that will have all the movies that the store has and you stick something like a flash drive into it, and it transfers a copy of the movie you want to it in under 10 seconds and then you take it home and plug it into your tv to watch it, the flash drive things will probably come in different sizes 1 movie 5,10, or more. That will probably happen before home downloads become standard.

Sorry if this is a repeat of something else in this thread, but just wanted to mention something that somebody else pointed out in the past that I thought was good. Many of us buy discs that we haven't watched. We've paid the money so that we could have a movie on the shelf ready to watch when we want to. If downloads get accessible enough, then most of us will only pay close to the time that we are going to watch the movies. This could be lost revenue to the studios. I know that I own lots of DVDs that I will never watch.

As far as these download type scenarios, it feels to me like the satellite companies have a good in if they can get big enough hard drives and store movies on there for instant (or close to instant) access. They could even just store the first 15 minutes of tons of movies and have those sitting on the drive, then be able to download the rest as a person is watching that. Could look like the whole movie was there from the beginning to the customers.

--Darin

The current cable/satellite companies models are already very close to the unlimited rental model. You get 30-40 premium movie channels on your cable box and tons of included on-demand movies.

People are not going to replace content purchase with a monthly subscription.

DRM has very little to do with it.

I see downloads cutting into Rentals. I also think people don't look at video on demand services in this same vein even though there's essentially no difference ... those haven't caught on mostly due to pricing and perception (do you really want to give your cable company the money you give to blockbuster?)

Really, it's quite hilarious to hear all the people poo-pooing this idea as if it won't happen this decade or ever.

To all the naysayers, here's my question:

How many of you know people (or own yourself) a TIVO or another DVR?

How many of you have ever downloaded an mp3, or own an mp3 player?

The idea that video content, and eventually HD video content is not going to be delivered via networks as well is silly. All the major movie houses, rental houses etc are looking at developing internet delivery of content, on-demand, etc etc.

Note that I am not a proponent of this method of content delivery, I just think it seems fairly inevitable.

I think people will always like having the physical disk etc in hand.Plus as others have said,many people take pride in their collections.HD DL content will be a niche market at best, the next format will still be the main choice whenever this ridiculous war ends.

I personally love scheduling stuff to download on my Xbox, and comming back the next day and having it ready to watch. But I also enjoy being able to pop a disc in my player and having it play as well.

I know this doesn't sound feasible at the moment, and it really never may be. But I'm sure everyone has noticed the insane rate that flash drives are dropping in price. It won't be long where a 45-50gb flash drive will be had at a reasonable rate. Blockbuster can offer to buy one of these unites, come to the store and transfer a movie onto your flashdrive or already have one pre-loaded with whatever you want and pay a nominal fee. You wouldn't even need people to help, just have stations setup here or there where you can plug your USB flashdrive up and grab whatever movie you wanted for a fee. Main reason for the flash drive instead of a normal HD is the stability of shipping one with data on it. You can't just ship HD's back and forth over and over again like you could a flash disk.

I know transfer rates are too slow at the moment, especially over USB to have those self server stations. But these will all improve over the next few years, and I really believe this is where we will see the HD format going.