Originally Posted by GatorB

People that try to proclaim the age of digital downloading is here and that physical media is dead are people that live in a bubble far away from REAL people.

First of all 1/3 of American hosueholds have no internet access. Many because they simply don't want it. Some it's because they can't afford it. And some is because their only option is dial-up or satelite and they rather not put up with all the BS that is involved with those connections.

Secondly 1/6 of all American households only hav dial-up access. This is not suitable for digital downloading. The most you could ever hope to download is 16 GB a month. And that's using your conenction for nohting more than downloading 24/7.

Last time I checked my math that's 50% of all American households. I doubt all the media companies are going to give up on 50% of potential customers. now some may say that in the near future everyone wil have broadband. maybe in other countries, not in the US. That's not how we work. Money is the most iomportant factor not that people that live in rural areas have broadband access. People that have dial-up andmnay that have no internet access( but want it ) live in rural areas where ISP have abosolutely ZERO intention of building out broadband access in the near future if ever. So that 50% figure isn't going down much anytime soon.

Of the 50% that do have broadband half of those have 2 Mbps connection or less. Some by choice, most because that's all their ISP offers. downloading a HD movie from itunes or XBOX live which is only 720p not 1080p like blu-ray or HD-DVD would take 8 hours over a 2 Mbps connection. Who is honestly going to see that as an alternative to renting a DVD at the video store?

Downloading or streaming HD content is going to take at minimum a 10 Mbps connection and maybe 5% of American households have that. maybe in 5 year DVD iwht be dead and replaced by blu-ray as the prices on players and disc drop. Digital downlaoding becoming a real threat to physical media, maybe starting in 2020.