According to Samsung UK's director of consumer electronic Andy Griffiths (that name made me laugh), Sony's Blu-Ray won't last five years, let alone the 10 years that the company had hoped for. Samsung seems to think that in five years time, digital downloads will surpass traditional physical media as the preferred method of watching movies. Some have considered this move to be inevitable. However, given Hollywood's resistance to digital music, I highly doubt that this will happen. Digital downloading also has numerous problems for the consumer. While there is nothing physical to store, HD movies will still require a lot of hard drive space. Many people also find it unsettling to store their investments on volatile storage, since hard drives fail. Digital media also isn't vary portable. Where as a BD will play on any BD player, DRM locks in digital downloads to one single player. Lastly, internet service providers cannot or are refusing to provide these kinds of services. While MP3 downloads are relatively small, HD movies are over 10gb in size. In attempts to combat piracy, ISPs have been imposing stricter download caps, which will severely limit how many films can be downloaded. Download speeds also haven't caught up to the point where HD video can be streamed, meaning long download times. I personally can't see this changing dramatically in the next five years given that broadband internet hasn't changed much in North America in the last five years. To stream HD video, download rates will have to be at least 30mbits/s for 1080p video unless tight compression is involved, which will ruin the HD experience. This will probably require expensive infrastructure upgrades, or vary costly monthly plans. It may come in five years but I can't see it becoming mainstream in that period. I wouldn't hold Samsungs revelations to be true. At least not from what I'm seeing now. If anything, the future will be video-on-demand from cable or satellite providers. If you have or are considering a BD player, there's nothing to worry about.

Source: PSU