Blockbuster exec: High def movie downloads not ready yet

Blockbuster Chief Executive John Antioco said as much at the Reuters Media summit recently, indicating that packaged media is going to remain the best way to get movies, especially in high definition, for a long time. He anticipates DVDs will remain the best way for studios to profit from their releases and high definition formats will increase that over the next few years. Given recent events, we can't argue that digital distribution might not be fully baked just yet; but the ongoing format war makes us think the possibility of downloadable HDTV content catching up before consumers get comfortable with either Blu-ray or HD DVD is a bit higher than Antioco lets on. He did note that Blockbuster would be getting into the download business, possibly as early as next year.