Blu-ray (you know, that recent World Champion of high def DVD formats) is getting dealt severe blows by the economic downturns hitting the US this season. Industry speculators suggest that Blu-ray may have been hatched at just the wrong time, leaving the company in an eternal infancy known as having a “niche product.”

My concerns with Blu-ray don’t lie in the recession or adoption strategy that must take place to make the technology mainstream; I just don’t think there will be any room for this inside of a “what else can you do” technology magic show called 2009. All-in-one. One-for-all. Army-of-one? No matter how you slice it, Blu-ray does DVD media for movies. That’s it.

Digital video is slowly becoming a shareable, mobile media; it can’t be cooped up inside of that plastic casing. The CD is on its way OUT for this same reason. MP3s can be shared, transported, transferred, mixed, enhanced, tagged, ringtoned, and anything else a millennial brainchild will want to do with them. Video is too closely related to the audio media format in terms of consumption.

Blu-ray will die to digital video consumption where high-def video feeds are delivered instantly to your 46inch LCD screen, mobile device, computer, and wife’s forehead. This battle will be relatively swift (a few years) and tied directly to a US bandwidth upgrade.

I’d recommend buying a blu-ray player to a friend who really just wants a Playstation 3 or has enough cash to burn to throw the discs on a dusty top shelf somewhere in their 2011 basement.

Original Article: PC World – Recession Hits Blu-Ray Where it Counts.