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It’s a growing battle: Discs vs. Downloads.

According to NPD entertainment research, discs are still ahead of the game when it comes to home media viewing — but it won’t stay that way forever. The days of physical media are limited. Stephen McGill from Microsoft even went so far as to say that “Blu-Ray is going to be passed by as a format. People have moved through from DVDs to digital downloads and digital streaming…. So, who needs Blu-ray?”

Kaz Hirai from Sony says, “To think everything will be downloaded in two years, three years or even ten years from now is taking it a little bit to the extreme.” There are two sides to this argument.

1. Physical media will be around as long as the generation that used it is still alive (case in point: my great grandmother prefers VHS).
2. The mainstream style of home media viewing could lean in the favor of digital downloads quicker than people think. Just look at how much computers have developed. In 1977 Ken Olson of Digital Equipment Corp. said “There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.” At the exact same time, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak were working on a project that would impact the future immensely with Apple, Inc.

No one can deny that digital media downloads are becoming more and more popular. But there are still some reasons for sticking with disc. Some people argue that quality is better, you can bring it anywhere and borrow them from friends, and what about the special features? These are all concepts that digital downloads will have to address sooner or later.

Click after the break for the top sources of digital media download and streaming.

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The road to Blu-ray was a complicated one for me. I wanted to get the most out of my purchase, especially since I was jumping on this technology-bandwagon so soon. My search began when I was looking for a Christmas present for my husband. I decided I wanted to look into streaming Netflix as a gift for him.

You can stream Netflix without purchasing a Blu-ray player or a streaming box. You can connect a computer to your TV. However, the TV we have is quite old and I would have had to purchase extra equipment in order to connect everything. A variety of ways to stream Netflix to your TV is offered online. The box offered by Netflix to stream video looked okay, and was reasonable in price. But, just below this listing I found some Blu-ray players that also stream Netflix. I appreciate multi-functionality in my electronics so I began my search for the perfect combo machine. I finally settled on the Samsung BD-P2500 for a variety of reasons, including price and availability.

Once the BD-P2500 arrived, it was amazingly simple to set up. As soon as the Samsung was plugged into my network, Netflix appeared upon the menu. The player walked me through activating my account. I used to my Netflix account through the computer and added eligible titles to my instant viewing queue to get movies to show up on my player.

There are quite a variety of titles available for both movies and TV shows. I am pretty happy with the selection but I do have some complaints. I chose a few TV shows to watch this weekend. The two series I chose had several episodes unavailable for viewing instantly. This is especially annoying since you do not become aware of it until you start watching. For instance, the first TV show I picked was missing the pilot episode, number three, and number four. I gave up on that show at that point since I prefer to watch everything in order.

I have to say, overall, that I do like the ability to stream Netflix. It gives me a wide variety of shows to watch and I don’t have to “waste” one of my 3 hard copy choices from Netflix to watch them. I also don’t feel guilty if I don’t like the movie and turn it off. This was a great purchase but do be aware you need a Netflix membership and a wired network connection in order to do this.