Next physical media

[doodab]

For high value content, hard disk is already an option. I know of large sample libraries and similar that are 100s of GB and ship on a USB drive.

[Ticktock]

Was that two dual layer blurays ?, that could be up to 100gig of data

I dunno. Here's an example: Play.com - Buy The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy: Extended Edition Box Set (15 Discs) (Blu-ray) online at Play.com and read reviews. Free delivery to UK and Europe!

From the Special Features tab "Each film is spread across two Blu-ray discs in order to present them in the highest possible picture quality. "

[VectraMan]

I think it is usually 720p you are watching rather than the full HD BluRay experience, but I imagine we will get there in good time.

It's more about the data rates. HDTV (i.e. Sky/Freesat/Freeview) is essentially the same format as BluRay, but the data rates will be lower on average and peak less, but the average viewer isn't going to know the difference. If I download an HD programme from iPlayer on my Sky box, it typically reports the size as about 3.5GB for an hour, so that works out about 4.5Mb/s, which I think is about half you get from a proper HD broadcast, and about half again as Blu Ray. But clearly that's a choice made by the BBC on how the likely speed of the end user's broadband, and how much they want to spend on their servers and links.

[OwlHoot]

Flash cards of some sort?

Sapphire disks or memory cards? They can make pure sapphire crystals the size of a bucket these days (literally), and at the end of the day it is only a fancy form of aluminium oxide.

Another advantage is that it is very hard, and so can be kicked around all over the place without being scratched.