Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha .... Thats the sound of “Future file” laughing in his cave.
He doesnt mind the huge amount of macroblocking and HD lite (1440 or 1220 instead of 1920 res or just 720p) he gets from his downloded HD.
Jeff K is right. Would you trust a company and your hard drive over a medium already proven to be much more reliable (optical discs).
There simply is no better way to view HD now and for the next few years. BD will have a big foot in the door before downloading is fast and reliable enough for the masses.
I agree that eventually we wont use physical media someday but I truly believe that Bluray will be the last BIG provider of HD movies. The next step would be to completely re-design TV (maybe 3D or hologram etc etc I ).
Bottom line, watch a BD vs a download on a TV bigger than 32’ and you will kick your computer :-)

Phil: Not sure about most people, but I’d guess people who are buying HDTV’s probably have home theatre setups so they are in fact running audio to their receiver. 

And I think you’re right, you’ll need to run HDMI to your receiver to take advantage of DD+, TrueHD, etc from blueray.  HDTV is only dolby digital tho which you can run thru coax or fiber (spdif) without loosing anything, and normal blue ray players can put out regular old DD/DTS streams if need be thru spdif, so I’d imagine this combo could do it too if you have an older receiver or don’t wanna buy hdmi cable.

One thing the EH article did not say is that Sony is planning on putting Blue Ray players/recorders in their new sets…that’s a little different than just a combo-TV.  This technology will most likely appear in their VAIO computers first.
RavenZero - I like your idea about the flash memory cards as storage/playback.  I think it makes more sense than being at the mercy of a computer storing my media. And, as long as the disiplay devices are equipped with readers, we’ve got it made!

Future,

It is going to be funny when your HD crashes or you get a virus or other bug and end up losing everything on your HD…  ;)

Ha Ha Ha.

I hear the gurgling of a drowning man.

BluRay is a dinosaur, and sony is making desperate pleas to the less informed folks.

The future is NOW, direct download of HD movies to your home computer, which are then broadcast wirelessly to any television in your home.

Samsung already has wireless HDTV’s avialable. 
In two years it will be common on plasma’s and lcd’s.

I don’t need a pricey stand alone player and costly discs when I can just store my HD movies on my hard drive like everything else!!

Of course some folks like driving antique cars…..