The researchers say adoption is slow, but in the Sacramento area, there isn’t a BD player to be found on the shelves of the 4 local big box stores.  I’d say folks are wolfin’ em down as fast as they hit the stores…..

They seem to be missing the biggest roadblock to wide-spread Blu-Ray adoption:  The televisions.

The prices of HDTVs are still ridiculously high for mass adoption to occur.  Until you own an HDTV, Blu-Ray is just a nice idea for the future.  Even if you already own a PS3.

Unfortunately, it may be too late too little..

By end of 2009, you will be able to get a fine home theater PC, and using cable or fibre optic (fios) be able to stream high def. movies at 30mbs/sec. to your home very affordably.

Wireless connections from your home theater PC to your flat panel television(s); and there is no reason to buy a stand alone player, and discs, that have to be maintained and stored.

Cost effective and cheap is the way of the future, and streaming HD content to wireless home theater PC’s will obliviate Blu-ray by 2010.

Unless you just like to collect antiques..

maybe for you, Dresden, a HTPC would make sense.  but there are over 6 billion people in the world that probably want something simpler to use.  HTPCs are nice, but Im pretty tech savvy myself…build my own PCs, built my own subwoofer, etc… and even I dont want to deal with the hassle of HTPC software. average joe wants to put a disc in, have it play.  in theory a HTPC can do that.. but in reality, they screw up because they are personal computers at heart.

in regards to FiOS, it wont be that widely available that soon, and it wont exactly be dirt cheap either. VOD has some ways to go with its infrastructure, and people are already accustomed to stand alone media players.