overrated and underrated tech products

over the weekend i had the opportunity to check out a list of the 10 most over and under rated products according to tech.msn.com.  two really caught my attention - both highlighting the difference between streaming vs. local access.  the two broad categories were video and music.  the specifics were streaming video (overrated) vs. blu-ray disc (underrated) and drm music downloads (itunes specifically) vs. music streaming (examples of which were slacker or pandora).  i like having access to content from anywhere anytime which makes streaming a great option, but there are situations where having a local copy is helpful (whether it's video of music).  i started using amazon's unbox service for video downloads for a couple reasons 1) local access on pcs or my tv and 2) purchases can be downloaded onto two devices at anytime in the future.  within the last month or so, amazon adding a streaming option and rebranded unbox as amazon video on demand.  as high definition becomes more prevailent i like options like blu ray or purchased downloads that are available when i would like to view them.  having to store even more large files permanently isn't something i'm really interested in doing.

music has been a different story.  i have been listening to much more than a single cassette or cd worth of music for years at home, in the car, at work, etc.  streaming from a central collection is great, i really enjoyed having xm radio for a year (before finding the price of the option on my prius) as well as digital (mp3/wma support) options to listen to something specific immediately.  my entire music collection in digital format is very small in comparision to my partial digital video collection of purchased shows and personal movies.  digital music file sizes haven't gotten significantly larger to stream or download where as the better the quality of digital video, the larger the file size.