This is amazing news, as for most people and web-developers it means that the web will start becoming a serious contender for HD video distribution using H264. Many people have predicted the Blu-Ray format will die, but obviously I really think that the sheer bitrate of a real disk is always going to be better until we all have total fibre-optic based networks all over the country connecting us directly to the web.
So its great news for Video On Demand and the future of services like You-Tube.
Of course its bad news for ISPs who get charged for bandwidth by BT Wholesale - but that's another story.
If you're producing large screen videos for playback at exhibitions like we do at Red Digital its great news - smooth displays become possible without judder, and in theory it also means you don't need an "uber powered" killer PC and graphics card - just a half decent graphics card - so it will lower the overall cost of kit to display the video.
Of course a Blu-Ray player is still a lot cheaper if you want to do non "interactive content" - But Derek I hear you ask, why not author a blu-ray interactive disk instead rather than all this Flash nonsense? Well if you've ever used a blu-ray disc and endured the loading times, then you know the answer to that question already.
I'm getting a lot of Deja-vu recently with HD content - it reminds me of when DVD video came out and hardly any PC kit would play the videos properly - hell even hardware players were jerky when the camera pans down the building on the intro to the Matrix!
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