But I also wanted to say that the VOD providers need to be more competitive. Comcast in my area is now renting me TV shows for the same price I can buy them on iTunes (yes, these are NBC shows so I can no longer get them on iTunes so I think this may more corectly be an issue with NBC). If VOD get more competitive with their own offerings plus enable higher transfer speeds they’ll get the best of both opportunities for making money.

Actually a typical download of a movies takes between 25-to-40 minutes even on my connection, because of the limitations on the server side and network congestion. 12 Mbps is more theoretical speed. just like 768 kbps is theoretical speed. one of the main reasons why broadband service providers say: up to X Mbps.

great idea in theory but my experience with progressive download has been a bit of a blah. I think download and playback is much better experience. Of course, one can just download now and watch later. you point is well taken.

I think the move towards metered broadband is going to take sometime. Again, this will be a tactic to get people to pay more for higher speed, unlimited broadband, and basically red lining the broadband demographics along the lines of premium buyers and discounters.

Still as of today, do you know any U-verse or FIOS TV user that also downloads movies from iTunes?
Although it is changing, where do people watch movies today? in the PC or in the TV screen?

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Mpeg4 simple profile or h264 encoding makes DVD quality possible from around 1.5mbit/s, most so called DVD rips on the Internet are even at lower bitrates, and those are at perfectly DVD quality like qualities.

The Archos 605 WiFi playsback DVD quality streamed from the Internet in Mpeg4, WMV, H264, Realvideo instatly at DVD quality as long as you have got at least 1.5mbit/s download bandwidth. The Archos 605 WiFi is $199, much better then the iPod Touch, that’s for sure. Also Archos is compatible with real DVD resolution playback unlike the iPod Touch which is below VGA resolution. And Archos supports all Internet codecs such as DivX, WMV, Realvideo, H264 and even DVD rips in Mpeg2 or .vob container (just simple copy and paste of ones Netflix movies onto the Archos up to 160GB of storage).

Hopefully, the ISPs are chatting it up with the studios to get this same privilege on their movie-rental services, as well. I’d rather rent the movie than buy a digital copy, anyways, but that’s me. Now, if I can buy the digital version for $20-25 and have a physical DVD shipped to my door to arrive later, THAT’S something. I get instant satisfaction AND a more permanent product.