Will there be another physical disc format to follow Blu-ray?
Or are we in the last days of physically owning films?
As Nigella might say (appropriately enough) you eat first with your eyes.
So it is, perhaps, with digital downloads of motion pictures.
Would I just be falling foul of cheap sentimentality to paint a digital-only future as a grave new world?
Is Blu-ray really going to be the last hurrah for the library-building, package-loving movie buff?
Videos were boxy beasts, though, right down to their squarescreen pan and scan pictures.
The arrival of DVD was the moment when home entertainment sprouted legs and pushed itself onto the land.
But somewhere along the line, things started to go wrong for physical media full stop.
It would be easy to blame Sean Parker.
Hes certainly part of the story.
And it only took increased bandwidth for the same virtual vice to start to tighten around the movie industry.
Amazon and its ilk also took a baseball bat to our collecting habits.
Id expect that Blu-ray is the last, mass-market physical format for the purchase and consumption of movies.
Its possible this will ultimately be a good thing.
Perhaps theres no simple archive solution.
Maybe wed be best off burning our downloads to discs (while discs are still being manufactured).
Consider, for example, your plannedRockymovie marathon.
Netflix does, however, haveHouse Of Cardsin 4K, albeit compressed 4K.
In a sense, this just suggests how tightly-squeezed and data-starved our UltraHD future might be.
Slowly, rights will lapse at the big subscription services and the movies will go home to roost.
Or maybe Im being overly optimistic here.
I mean, honestly, Im not even sure were going to have electric lights in ten years time.
Perhaps what follows Blu-ray is something more likeFahrenheit 451or Anne WashburnsMr.
Every cloud…
*Other murder-free, protein-plentiful meal constituents are available.
