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"Sony seems to have finally broken with its record of failure pertaining to the standards it has attempted to popularize over the last few decades. The Blu-Ray high-definition disc format is now the majority first choice within the Hollywood machine.\nFirst it had Betamax to bury. Then it spent years trying to build a market around the MiniDisc format, to no avail. (Though those little magnetic discs continue to be pushed to and fro by various outlets and retrophiles.) Later came the Memory Stick, which the company to this day supports throughout much of its consumer electronics business, despite its so far limited acceptance among the public.\nBlu-Ray, on the other hand, makes the grade. Sort of.\nThough it is no doubt true that Sony\u2019s Blu-Ray now sits in a relatively comfortable spot atop Toshiba\u2019s HD-DVD in the format war, it\u2019s sales figures \u2013 in the area of video releases especially \u2013 have yet to reach the point financial greatness.\nWhich has us feeling a bit curious. We wonder now: Is at all possible for Blu-Ray, being the relatively young standard that it is, to be surpassed sometime in the near future by digital downloads - before it even has an honest chance to establish a significant presence?\nBoy would Sony be throwing a fit if that were to happen, eh?\nNow, we\u2019re not going to get ahead of ourselves here and predict we\u2019ll be soon seeing a steady supply of 1080p downloads enter the fold via iTunes, Amazon Unbox, Netflix - or any other services of that stripe - come the end of January, but it\u2019s hardly secret that most all signs point in that direction. It\u2019s only a matter of time before the infrastructure upon which our regional and national data networks receive upgrades that will enable the transfer of high-quality video at reasonably fast speeds. The question to ponder is this: Which will come first? The popularization of Blu-Ray, or the delivery of the high-def download to the mainstream?\nIt might be more reasonable to presume that the latter will become commonplace soonest. Why? Because, if we\u2019re to take an elementary viewpoint of the present situation, we know that Blu-Ray was contrived nearly from scratch. So it requires substantial investment on the part of the developer of the technology as well as on the part of the adopter(s).\nThe Internet, on the other hand - and the protocols which function at its core \u2013 already exists. Its various \u201Cconnectors\u201D only require regular upgrades as advancements in the industry are made; which, despite their substantial cost, are necessary for ISPs to install in order to sustain and grow their respective markets. For survival\u2019s sake, they will have to invest accordingly. And because those technologies employed by ISPs are obviously used by services like iTunes to function properly, these games of chance and change must, on the whole, appear to weigh in the favor of wholly intangible media, almost by default.\nThere are certainly many variables to consider, of course, and Blu-Ray\u2019s future, when all is said and done, may be a long one, despite steadily growing consumer demand for downloads. (Though perhaps not as long as DVD has been for us. Moore\u2019s Law still has some merit.) But that doesn\u2019t seem too likely at present. What seems likely is another impending loss for Sony. And we must say that\u2019s too bad. The company just started to see a winner after having dealt with a number of losers."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2008/01/05/blu-ray-after-besting-hd-dvd-may-soon-contend-with-hd-downloads/>