Nielsen VideoScan/Home Media Magazine: Blu-ray/DVD/HD DVD Stats (Updated Weekly)

[dr_ml422]

Jesus. Well so much for advocacy. That's a real shame. So much $$$ they're making.

Called Time Warner for mom's. They won't give you the guide option if you just have basic. Wanted $4 more a month. My sis said thank you. Click. They're one of the worst.

Prolly call Verizon soon see how much longer they'll be here on my block. Moms wants them too. Asked me today. Even she's fed up w/Time Warner and she never really complains. Lol...

[doctorhardware]

Take a look at At&T, their advanced TV, they have a DVR box will record 4 program at once.

[dr_ml422]

I would have to really check it out good because At&T not what it used to be. I don't even know if it's them making their products. Most I've used since breakup is their land line slim corded phones and their digital answering machine.

They goofed up big time w/the I-Phone. If you lose your i-phone they'll cut off the service so no one can add to your bill, but the chip can be used in another At&t cell to make calls. The internet and all the other options won't be on as those are extras, but the calls will go through. How they let this pass is beyond me. Prolly so quick to take the contract from Apple they didn't do all their homework.

So you're out of a phone and need to get another one, but some lucky joe can use the chip on another At&t phone. This doesn't mean of course anything they're still making, if anything is no good. Their cell service from what I hear is lousy.

[admin]

For the week ending 1st February 2009, here are the stats:

Percentage of Top 20 titles by disc volume:
Blu-ray vs DVD: 14% vs 86%

All sales by $ volume (Percentage of Total Sales):
Blu-ray sales down 34.42% compared to last week, total spending: $10.27 million (8.17%)
DVD sales up 5.87% compared to last week, total spending: $115.36 million (91.83%)

You can read the latest digital edition of HMM (February 9 Issue) with the above stats here:

http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/questex/hom376425RTC/index.php?startid=3

HMM has published some different stats this week, so I had to do a bit more math myself to get the above numbers (if when you find any errors, let me know). A fairly average week for Blu-ray, as DVD has a little comeback.

HMM's new stats are interesting though, as it compares the same time last year to now. The stats showed that Blu-ray sales for the week compared to the same time last year are up 61% (up $3.91m), which is not a huge surprise considering HD DVD was still alive, albeit hanging on by a thread, at that time and that the cheapest standalone cost twice as much. What is surprising, or rather more shocking, is that DVD sales are down 24.39%, which translates into about $28.14m worth of lost revenue. Again, the pattern we're seeing is that for every extra dollar the Blu-ray earns, we're a much much larger loss in DVDs - for this week at least, every extra dollar earned by Blu-ray, there was a a $7.20 loss by DVDs.

As to the actual Blu-ray releases for the week, they were obviously not as good as I thought it would be. The Bourne Trilogy as expected topped the sales charts, closely followed by the the month old title Eagle Eye, but both titles barely outdid Iron Man, which is even older (but the rise may be due to a price drop). TDK was in 4th. Over the last few weeks, we've seen Blu-ray's market share (all sales by $ volume) surge above the usual 8 to 10%, towards 12 to 15%, but how much of this was fueled by TDK, and how much of it was down to actual progress being made by the format, this week's figures at least show that the correct theory is the former, not the latter, despite having a release that was exclusive to Blu-ray for the week (Bourne).

For the BD market share, the stats have been tweaked again to now only include releases that has a DVD equivalent (makes sense, since The Bourne Trilogy otherwise would have been at 100% since there's no DVD equivalent being released for the week). This makes the data much more useful, and we see Iron Man again topping the charts at 64.64% market share, again possibly thanks to a price drop. Eagle Eye did well, at nearly 48%, again a bit strange (though I hear reports that it was bundled with Transformers in a pack, so that might explain why a release from more than a month ago came back to the charts). TDK still as a respectable 28%. People may not be buying DVDs, especially at full price, but they're still buying Blu-ray's regardless of the price it seems. That's good, but as mentioned above, not nearly good enough to stop the rot in terms of home movie sales. The complete BD market share chart can be seen here:

http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/questex/hom376425RTC/index.php?startid=9

The big release for next week include Madagascar 2, Zack and Miri Make a Porno. Catalogue releases include Clerks II, Little Miss Sunshine, Napoleon Dynamite, Office Space (great movie) and Sideways.

[dr_ml422]

Admin you hit it right on the button. It was the former that made this week's stats and prolly other great releases this year higher. Also people may not be buying DVDs at the full price cause they're not that expensive anymore, and those who are buying Blu-ray have no choice but to pay their price. Which they'll do as I do when I like something.

I think their whole approach while having a great format and all, was too hastily taken. Lucky they're a large company w/big $$$ and could take a loss like they did. You know in the end the ones that lost the format war might actually come out winning. They not only saved by not losing $$$ like Blu-ray, they probably going to make it up some how w/another format, whether optical or not.

[admin]

For the week ending 8th February 2009, here are the stats:

Percentage of Top 20 titles by disc volume:
Blu-ray vs DVD: 7% vs 93%

All sales by $ volume (Percentage of Total Sales):
Blu-ray sales up 61.03% compared to last week, total spending: $11 million (7.2%)
DVD sales up 23.19% compared to last week, total spending: $142.11 million (92.8%)

You can read the latest digital edition of HMM (February 16 Issue) with the above stats here:

http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/questex/hom185788FDV/index.php?startid=3

Once again HMM's published stats has focused more on comparisons with last year. As expected, DVD sales are down while Blu-ray sales are up. While it was interesting to see those stats last week, there's nothing to be gained from them this week as DVD down/Blu-ray up is not surprising to see. There are many reasons why DVD revenue is down compared to last year, lower average DVD pricing, less top releases, Blu-ray taking away sales from DVD (this has to be expected) and of course the economic climate. And Blu-ray couldn't go anywhere but up from last year as well, so those stats are largely pointless. I just don't see the point of publishing these results other than to make Blu-ray look better than it is.

Even with the gloom and doom surrounding DVDs, DVD sales were actually up again compared to last week, which was also up compared to the week before. If anything, DVD is thrashing Blu-ray at the moment (relatively speaking, as Blu-ray's figures are back down to pre-Iron Man times). As Doom9 mentioned in his 9th February news post, the actual figures (7.2%) is really reflective of the number of discs being sold, just the total revenue. As Blu-ray is more expensive, the % of BD vs DVD discs sold is actually more in DVD's favour. Doom9 says 12.5% revenue for BD translates to 8% discs sold for BD, so 7% is actually 4.5%?

Madagascar 2 was this week's top seller, following by Zack and Miri Make a Porno. TDK is third. As the figures showed, it was a quiet week for Blu-ray, as none of the new releases were aimed at the core Blu-ray demographic - no action, sci-fi => no Blu-ray sales.

For the BD market share, the Madagascar 2 did not make the top 20 (so under 11.45% market share), while Zack and Miri was at number 20 with 11.45%. These results are better than last year's, but nowhere near other "core demographic" releases such as TDK or Iron Man. The complete BD market share chart can be seen here:

http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/questex/hom185788FDV/index.php?startid=11

The big releases for next week include W., Pretty Woman, Donnie Darko, the Oscar winner Amadeus, Raging Bull and Doom (let's see if this video game related sells well to the PS3-Blu-ray crowd).

[dr_ml422]

I see Doom kinda just went straight ahead and figured that those really were amount of discs sold, although I think we kinda new that. Sony's crazy continuing their quest to integrate Blu-ray as the new replacement for DVD's, and for not figuring a way to lower their prices on the PS3 or w/e else they use to view them. It's reminded me of a saying which says "They're only switching seats on the Titanic". Either way you'll drown.

I didn't see you post a take on the previous post about that new Terra Optical format. What's your insight on it and maybe anything else that's for sure going to pop up pretty soon? Thnx.

[admin]

Terra optical format? You mean terabyte discs? Blu-ray can technically go to many layers, and so you can have a disc with much more than the current 50 GB storage. However, there doesn't appear to be a need for such space on a single disc, certainly not for gaming or movies at the moment. For backup, HDD arrays are more economical and reliable, then solid state drives will take over. As for increasing quality of movies, I think with Blu-ray, there will be diminishing gains from increasing bitrate and resolution further (for one, no TVs to take advantage of 1440p/2160p). Until 100" screens become commonplace, 1080p is good enough and a 50GB Blu-ray disc is big enough, 100GB would be plenty.

[dr_ml422]

I understand about the not so need for anything more than what Blu-ray's offering right now, I'm more concerned w/a format in the works like the terabyte discs or w/e that'll prolly be cheaper etc... Were you meaning that there isn't a need for the terra, or that Blu-ray's suffice for now but really not practical because of exaggerated storage and Hi-Def capability? Maybe I misinterpreted you. Thnx.

[admin]

I was just saying that I don't think there's demand yet for terabyte optical disc format, mainly because there's no content that comes in TB sizes that needs distribution. There's barely any need for Blu-ray's 50 GB right now other than for movies. I was just arguing that for video, 50 to 100 GB is enough already, and while you can use up more space by increasing resolution/bitrate, there's very little actual perceivable improvement by doing this.

For backups and other stuff, yes, a TB disc might be handy, but it's also quite a bit of information to put onto a single, easily lost or damaged, disc.

And Blu-ray can scale up to multiple layers to get to multi-hundred GB storage, so I don't think there is a risk of a new disc format replacing Blu-ray, even if it is a TB format.

If something will replace Blu-ray, I think it will be a non optical format such as flash memory drives or solid state disk technology. Flash memory can now already go up to 64GB and 128 GB soon after. Why use re-writable Blu-ray discs when you've got flash drives with faster access/write speeds (USB 3.0?), better durability and portability, and no need for special hardware reader/writers?

[doctorhardware]

It would be nice to have terabyte optical disk for backup storage. Then there would be no need to span disks. I have it when I have to span disks.

[dr_ml422]

I got you now. Well the Terra discs if implemented might not have to be Terra. They could come out w/a lower storage limit that's cheaper and more conducive to what's out there apart from PS3's and Blu-ray players.

Yes I've seen the USB flash drives at 32 n 64GB respectively. How would you plug that into a standalone other than a PC? You mean Hi-Def players whether Blu-ray or w/e and even regular dvd standalones have USB ports, including the PS3? Doesn't the PS3 have restrictions on what can be played there also? Thnx.

[admin]

It would be nice to have terabyte optical disk for backup storage. Then there would be no need to span disks. I have it when I have to span disks.

I don't think I will use such a disc for backup - what if it gets damaged or lost, then you lose 1 TB of data just like that! Losing 1 TB basically means losing all my digital data, and so I won't trust an optical disc as my only backup option. I would much prefer a HDD array (RAID 1 mirroring at least), where storage can be expanded easily, and bad disks replaced without losing data. I would then probably use optical discs to further backup the critical data, and store off site or something.

I got you now. Well the Terra discs if implemented might not have to be Terra. They could come out w/a lower storage limit that's cheaper and more conducive to what's out there apart from PS3's and Blu-ray players.

Yes I've seen the USB flash drives at 32 n 64GB respectively. How would you plug that into a standalone other than a PC? You mean Hi-Def players whether Blu-ray or w/e and even regular dvd standalones have USB ports, including the PS3? Doesn't the PS3 have restrictions on what can be played there also? Thnx.

Movie playback wise, Blu-ray is still the way to go for now. Flash drives (and download kiosks) will come into play when downloads/streaming become more of a possibility. BD-Live enabled Blu-ray players can be easily turned into streaming players (see new Samsung, with Netflix integration). Standalone BD recorders with HDDs are then perfect for integration with movie download services, and USB ports can be easily added (actually, the HD DVD specs had USB ports as mandatory). The PS3 can already do all of this (including USB ports), all it needs is the software to be produced to take advantage.

[doctorhardware]

I still would use it if it was available. I don't have a problem loosing disks.

[dr_ml422]

You mean that the software to make the USB n streaming available is not yet out, or by produced you mean one has to implement it? Also BD recorders as I'm totally green to, aren't they also risky whether on a standalone or burner, as to also mess up a $20 to $22 blank BD? If we goof up on regular DVD's then the odds of goofing up a BD blank are right there also.

When you post about the streaming capabilities or even playback w/the PS3, are you saying that it's backward compatible to DVD's? I thought PS3's were for Blu-ray only?

If you could plug a Flash Drive into a USB port in a PC can't you stream video onto it or download already? Possibility in regards to the Kiosks? There's streaming all over the net now, unless you're talking better quality, which not only is determined by the source n streaming service, but also the type of internet connection one has. IE; FIOS.