Quote Originally Posted by Groundbeef
I think the difference is twofold
1. When you d/l a movie for the 360 it is a RENTAL. You have 14 days to watch, and only a 24 hour window whe you start the initial viewing. So, for $4.00 its not a bad way to decide if the HD movie you are contemplating buying for $34.00 is really worth it. Would have paid off for me a couple of times.

2. With the 360, the d/l is directly to your HD TV. No messing with having to stream from your PC to your TV, or other convoluted methods. Plus, you don't have to worry about returning the film when finished. It just doesn't play anymore. Just delete of HD, and its gone.

Unfortunatly I have become used to paying $15 for a new release DVD. The cost of a new HD-DVD ($34.00) will actually make me more discriminating, and the D/L service will definatly help me seperate the wheat from the chaff as they say.
Could be me, but I see the Rental aspect affecting Blockbuster more than HD-DVD or BluRay sales. Even any reduction in blockbuster copies wouldn't really impact overall sales much. And I expect they'd order the same volume, just see the frequency of rentals decrease somewhat. I order flicks from my on-demand cable provider all the time for a bit cheaper than Blockbuster - and I still rent films too. I'm more discriminating in both purchases AND rentals. I see the ones I'm excited for in theater - if they're good I may buy them. If not, I won't pay to rent them again. The ones I miss, a few I'll rent, most I'll wait to hit the Movie channels, on-demand or otherwise, that I pay a flat rate for. I usually try to buy only discs I know I will want to watch many times.

I'm all for downloading rentals, though in my experience, HD or SD, the disc format is still preferable, for audio and video quality, though I recognize most people probably don't care as much as me. Maybe we'll see a 3 way battle emerge between HD-DVD, BluRay and downloading.

It is a real possibility, I'll concede, that if HD-DVD and BluRay don't resolve their conflict soon, that in a few years many people might just decide to not get any HD player and use these kinds of services. I'm still not sure that addresses the desire people have to own movies in their personal library. Time will tell.