Yeah I can see downloads eventually taking over..especially for standard DVDs. As mentioned previously, the download speeds do make a huge difference.
I logged into my Netflix account at my brother's home. He has one of his PCs wired to his 46 inch flat panel in the living room(guess where he got the idea from..lol). We sat down and watched a couple of TV shows. I also tested several movies.
I must say it looked darn good! It looked better than normal cable broadcast,but not Blu ray however. It would easily compete with or surpass SD in picture quality. Just no 5.1 audio at the moment.
I think for casual enjoyment, the ease of watching movies and TV shows at will..it is terrific!
For serious movie watching, Blu Ray is the king of the hill IMO...at least for the time being.
I just gave my sister my Denon DVD player. I have no use for it now. Just get a Mac or HTPC and not be worried about what format will win or lose..you can play them all. ;-)
At least the HTPC can..not sure if Macs can do Blu ray or not yet. To use Netflix with Mac..you would need to load a Windows OS and boot up on it when downloading/veiwing from Netflix..it's not compatible with the Macs OS.