A still skeletal Steve Jobs today made a bunch of ho-hum MacBook introductions, most notable for killing off Firewire and introducing a new manufacturing process. 

Along the way, though, he said something interesting about Blu-Ray HD DVDs:

“Blu-ray is just a bag of hurt,” said Jobs. “It’s great to watch the movies, but the licensing of the tech is so complex, we’re waiting till things settle down and Blu-ray takes off in the marketplace.”

In 2007, we suggested that HD video via the Internet was going to beat both HD DVD and Blu-Ray:

Internet TV is plagued by the same problems as Blu-Ray and HD DVD: limited content, complex setup and high cost for hardware. Nevertheless, Internet TV is already good enough to make users realize that high definition video discs are a tangent to the real future of video delivery – Internet TV.

It looks like Steve Jobs & Apple are betting on Internet HD TV delivery. 

“We have the best HD movie and TV options in iTunes,” noted Apple Senior VP Phil Schiller. 

I currently regularly watch several television shows and podcasts via the Internet in HD video. The image quality is not perfect, but good enough enough for most people, and will only get better. 

At this point, does Blu-Ray even matter?