Bryan Bartow

In case you haven't heard, Toshiba bailed on HD-DVD — essentially waving the white flag to Sony's competing Blu-Ray standard. Playstation 3 fanboys and the 46 people wealthy enough to buy set-top Blu-Ray players are rejoicing no doubt. Unfortunately for them, and for Sony, the only thing they've won is the right to be the only format stomped by the combination of cheap storage and movie download services, such as Apple's iTunes movie rentals.

With storage becoming insanely cheap (I purchased a 500 GB external hard drive this week for $130) and cable and phone companies continuing to pump up the bandwidth available to their customers, digital movie downloads are becoming increasingly attractive. I believe that the only thing holding back widespread adoption of the practice was an easy-to-use service and Apple, in my humble opinion, solved that problem with the release of its rental service and Apple TV Take 2 software upgrade.

Now, videophiles will tell you that Blu-Ray offers 1080p quality video that just isn't available anywhere else and they'e right — for now. They'll argue that Blu-Ray offers interactivity beyond your wildest dreams. I've yet to see that and I heard the same thing about DVD. They'll tell you all about how awesome the 8.1 surround sound on Blu-Ray makes their home theater setup bump and they're right. But this is only a temporary advantage.

You see, as ISPs continue to "fatten the pipes" 1080p movie downloads will become feasible. 20.1 surround sound? Feasible. Interactivity? Use a cross-platform runtime, such as Adobe's AIR to distribute your "interactive movie companion application thingy." Your computer can already do everything the Blu-Ray set-top device can. Why mess with the hassle of keeping flimsy, easily scratched discs around? Why buy yet another device for your home theater setup?

Of course, there are legitimate uses for set-top devices and Blu-Ray, or whoever format enters the fray next, will have its place, albeit a very small secluded one. I just hope Sony can sell enough merchandise to make up for the ridiculous amount they've spent so far trying to win the war. Actually, no I don't. I hope this is the failure that puts them out of their miserable existence. Time will tell.

[Update: Looks like Duncan Riley believes Blu-Ray will eventually give way to download, but not anytime soon. I failed to mention one very important issue in my original post and that is Time Warner. If their proposed "pay-per-megabyte" plan actually takes hold then look for other ISPs to follow suit. This, of course, will pretty much kill all digital distribution services. According to TW's most recent figures, downloading an HD movie rental from iTunes would cost somewhere north of $30. This decision, more than any other, will determine who wins the war.]