Michael Patrick Brady

My article on the current state of Blu-Ray ran today at Forbes.com.

There’s a lot of discussion about Blu-Ray’s eventual demise, some of which is coming from within the companies who are supposed to be the format’s biggest boosters. High-definition streaming video looks poised to make physical media obsolete in the relatively-near future, perhaps 5 years from now. While downloads are most likely the future, I’m not so certain it’s as clear cut as everybody’s making it.

That really depends on a number of variables, such as the spread in adoption of broadband Internet, increases in bandwidth and transfer speeds over said broadband, and consumer acceptance of a non-physical product. The foundation of the latter is already well-laid by MP3s, but I fear that movie studios will waste a lot of time with DRM as the RIAA did, before moving to a more open, more agreeable system.

I picked up a PS3 a while back, mostly for Grand Theft Auto 4, but its integrated Blu-Ray player (still considered the best value Blu-Ray player on the market), made it a smarter buy than the X-Box 360, for me. I’m not committed to the format (my collection is small), but I expect that coupled with a Netflix account, it could be very worthwhile.

Update: Linked at Engadget HD.