I upgraded to Blu-ray last month, but I'm wondering what and when the next form of home media will be. Is Blu-ray here to stay for the foreseeable future? In the future do you expect all movies to be sold as streaming or downloadable content? Or will there be a new form of physical storage?

Everything streaming through one box into various consoles around your house, from music, movies, videogames, internet and even books - different rates of subscriptions depending on what you want and how much of it you'll consume.

There'll still be physical media (people will still want to give gift-wrapped gifts), but in the future (I'm talking 20-30 years) it'll primarily be streamed content.

In the future, we will have chips implanted in our brains and we will have instant access to everything ever recorded simply by thinking about it. Only the manufacturers of televisions stand in the way of our entertainment destiny!

probably streaming. and then we can all kiss collecting good bye. streaming will be more or less renting. Because once streaming is out and the next media format is in all those streamed movies, games, music, etc you bought will be bye bye. Unlike physical media that if taken care of will last you the rest of your life. I've thought a few time about not collecting anymore since i know its going to be dead hobby someday but I just love movies to much to stop. It will be a real shame. The only people who will even care to notice how screwed we will be from streaming will be the ex-collectors. The average consumer will think its great right up until that day comes where you go to log into your account to watch your favorite movie (THAT YOU PAID FOR) and utt ohh... Its not longer available.
And can you imagine if we do have subscriptions instead of just streaming from one place or downloading. What a mess that will be. Now-a-days if a month comes along where you are strapped for cash you just don't buy any DVDs for a few weeks, no problem. But with a subscription you will have a bill each month. And what if we need multiple subscriptions? We all know how companies work. I can guarantee you multiple companies with subscriptions will lead to exclusives. Just think. The big summer blockbuster is released but you cant have it because you subscribe to another company. YAY! Streaming will be the downfall of media.
And I can tell you one thing. I'll be be buying an eye patch and a parrot the day physical media goes away because media piracy will no longer be a crime it will be your duty as a lover of the arts.

Nah, I don't think streaming will overtake the sell-through market. Maybe the rental market, but there are way too many people who like to build a physical collection. That's like saying the Amazon Kindle will eliminate the hard cover book. There's just way too big a market for it to dry up completely.

I think Blu Ray will be viable until the next big shift in display technology. Just like DVD's were good enough for our old SD CRT TV's, Blu Ray is about as good as you can get for the current HDTV's. Until 3D or some super resolution comes along, there wouldn't be much point. And who's to say that will even happen in our lifetimes?

Unless you buy into the idea that the world will end in 2012, the manufacturers are telling us 3-D HDTVs and Blu-ray Players are on their way soon.

I think it will be quite a while before streaming over takes physical media.

Of course... But it probably will def be the main form of media one day in the not too far off future and then we are screwed.

I agree with the rental arguement. Netflix has already made rumblings about moving towards a streaming model in 5-10 years. Blockbuster is destined to go bye bye as they haven't made any kind of a move towards streaming. I think we'll see Netflix flipflop their current model where they will be primarily a streaming company with a limited number of BR rentals at an additional per item cost. MS will end up as the main competitor and the PSN will end up being folded into Netflix.

Industry and physical world forces will put off centrally stored media streaming until at least our grandchildren's adult years. Wal-mart is not going to stand for being cut out of the media market. I also seriously doubt the broadband infrastructure is even close to existing at the level it needs to be. Some people in the country are unable to get cable...which would seem to be a necessity. On the flipside of that, Comcast's 250gb limits would be obliterated if everything was streaming. They (and other ISPs) would have to upgrade their system quite a bit before central streaming would be a reality.

As for the game systems, I think we'll see one and maybe two more cycles before they lose the disc drives. They'll need at least one cycle of a hybrid machine that has a drive but also has the specs to support downloaded games. Sony may not admit it but the PSPgo is essentially a beta test of the downloaded game model before they roll out the PS4.

Ahhh the PSPgo! For those who want nothing more out of life then to play games for a few years and then be screwed when the PSPgo is old new and yours crashes and you are no longer able to download games for it. Brilliant! Its sad when an Atari 2600's life span will last longer than a PSGgo's. I feel bad for video game collectors. But at least they'll already know what it feels like to be dicked over when it comes time for the studios to do it to us.

I'm sure one day it will be, but one day we'll get past gasoline fueled cars and we won't have to walk anymore like in Wall-E haha. So until that day is upon us I'm not too concerned. I plan to have my collection for quite a while

Well as a collector I like to look onto the future to see where my collection will be. And in 20/30 years from not it will sill be sitting on my shelves but no longer getting any bigger thanks to streaming. We'll need websites for listing what movies we've seen not that we own and that's a horrible thought no matter how far off it is.

Porn on a 3D hdtv

Actually, Wal-mart, and all retailers for that matter, could give a flying crap. These guys are retailers, and they'll sell whatever is selling. The ones who are any good at it learned long ago not to bother to artificially prop a market. They just delay the collapse and get left with a bunch of useless stock. Case in point, look at the number of Wal-marts that are actually shrinking their Blu-Ray selection. Seemed like a good idea to expand a year ago, but if the damn things won't sell, no retailer is going to waste the precious shelfspace on it. If streaming takes over, retailers will simply sell the next shiny bauble that catches our attention. That's what they do.

I think streaming will take over renting, but not physical media. I was always curious why studios never put movies on SD type cards being that discs get scratched and damaged pretty easily.

I think physical media will always be around in some way or another. I can't see online/video streaming taking over the mass market, for one lots of people are still without some sort of high speed internet, due to their geographic region. Looking back, from VHS to DVD, the media got smaller physically (big, bulky vhs tape to a slim, compact disc). Like JZ1276 said, SD type cards may be in the future, they're smaller and can hold a lot more data.

I hope so. I really hate to think of the days of collecting for all of us as being over. SD type cards would be awesome! No scratches! Ha! And damn they are tiny. They would take up no room at all. They would probably come in a case the size of a Nintendo DS game but probably thinner like a Blu-ray case. Wow! Just the thought of that brings a smile to my face. Wonder why they haven't already started to go that way? I guess the cost might still be too high to offer competitive prices against DVDs? Most HD TVs already have card slots and I'm sure a SD adapter/player wouldn't be too expensive (less than a BD player I'm sure) for those w/o a HD TV or a HD TV w/o card slots. Great thinking JZ1276! Sounds like the way to go for sure! Lets hope we see something like this rather than something evil like streaming.