Oh noes teh sky is falling!

[Jutty]

Originally Posted by Infrared Sight

Wait just a darn minute here. Who the hell didn't tell me that DVDs didn't need to be re-winded?? I thought that was a new feature with Blu-ray. I have been using this for years.



And yeah, that person is an idiot.

Oh wow,,where can i get one of these,,ive just been doing a fast rewind all this time to get my discs back to the beginning,, and i see it does MP3 too.

[AKORIS]

Just thought I'd mention that TARGET just doubled their space of blu-rays today-- there used to be a 12 foor section-- now there is another side as well making it 24 feet and 2 endcaps--

blu-ray is doing just fine thank you!

[Propellarhead9]

I think the fact that companies like Disney are bundling the DVD in with their releases is helping some people make the transition to blu easier. More so for families that travel a lot so their kids can still watch their favorite movies in the car.

[madmojo]

Ya know, I'm getting mixed signals on this topic. The Wal-Mart in my town only has one endcap to a row for Blu-Ray, and they stopped getting new releases about a month ago. Also they are not restocking sold out blus. Maybe they won't stock more til they sell the few Lionsgate blus they have left?

However, my nearest Best Buy just went from one side of one aisle of blus to three full aisles, getting rid of two DVD rows.

Now, my town is pretty podunk, whereas the Best Buy is in an actual city, but it's still rather confusing to me how one Brick and Mortar will have tons of blu, and another one down the road (even the same company sometimes), will have next to nothing.

[krazeyeyez]

Originally Posted by madmojo

Ya know, I'm getting mixed signals on this topic. The Wal-Mart in my town only has one endcap to a row for Blu-Ray, and they stopped getting new releases about a month ago. Also they are not restocking sold out blus. Maybe they won't stock more til they sell the few Lionsgate blus they have left?

However, my nearest Best Buy just went from one side of one aisle of blus to three full aisles, getting rid of two DVD rows.

Now, my town is pretty podunk, whereas the Best Buy is in an actual city, but it's still rather confusing to me how one Brick and Mortar will have tons of blu, and another one down the road (even the same company sometimes), will have next to nothing.

Corporations go to a lot of trouble to monitor and research what will be most appropriate to stock in limited space based on what their customers seem to buy. That can shift greatly even in small areas

[DetroitSportsFan]

Originally Posted by madmojo

The Wal-Mart in my town only has one endcap to a row for Blu-Ray, and they stopped getting new releases about a month ago. Also they are not restocking sold out blus. Maybe they won't stock more til they sell the few Lionsgate blus they have left?

I saw on a news report that Wal-Mart is concentrating more on their top selling items - the basics - food, clothing, household items, etc. They're scaling back on selling luxury items, because their typical customer goes there for the necessities.

Ironically, they're getting an exclusive release of Transformers 2. Go figure.

[tvine2000]

Originally Posted by Propellarhead9

I only bought 3 Blus that I paid more than 15 bucks for. Granted I buy a lot of mine used.

i do the same thing. i buy used unless its something i have to have on a tuesday new release day.

[kefrank]

Originally Posted by Terjyn

6% is consistent with an article which has Blu-Ray at 8%, and is from 3 months ago and it's been going up monthly? And was written from a positive perspective towards Blu-Ray?

You don't have the same definition of "Consistency" that I do.

The article clearly shows Blu-ray with 6% of sales:
Blu-ray sales = 407 million
DVD sales = 5 billion
Digital revenue = 968 million

407m/(5b + 968m + 407m) = 6.38%

Or, if you consider sales to be total revenue (which is probably what the author intended):
Blu-ray sales + rental = 610 million
DVD sales + rental = 8.2 billion
Digital revenue = 968 million

610m/(8.2b + 968m + 610m) = 6.23%

The only way you can get close to 8% (7.5% to be more exact) is if you ignore the Digital revenue and then you're not longer fitting with the author's statement, which was 6% of [overall] home entertainment sales.

Again, if you can point to numbers which show that Blu-ray's sales are now 12% of home entertainment for the year (as you stated that it was double the author's 6% figure), then more power to you, but I can't find any data to support that number. I think it's perfectly reasonable to attack the way in which she uses or interprets that number, but to suggest that the number is based on significantly dated or wildly inaccurate information is misplaced criticism.

The real problem with her 6% figure is that she compares it to DVD's 20% in 2000. Comparing those percentages doesn't tell much of a meaningful story, since DVD literally transformed the home entertainment market and significantly boosted the revenue from sell-through. For DVD to get 20% of the overall home entertainment revenue wasn't that difficult since the starting total was much lower. Blu-ray on the other hand isn't expected by anyone to be the same kind of transformational medium. The desire is that it will simply be a revenue fill-in now that the DVD bubble has popped and studios are used to that higher total revenue.

One needs only to look at the delta percentages for Blu-ray rental and sales in that pie chart to see that Blu-ray is not exactly struggling to find customers.

[Terjyn]

Originally Posted by kefrank

The only way you can get close to 8% (7.5% to be more exact) is if you ignore the Digital revenue and then you're not longer fitting with the author's statement, which was 6% of [overall] home entertainment sales.

Fair enough, I missed this point.

However two problems with your math, DVD was "slightly less than 5 billion", which could be a big difference, and 968 million was Download rentals + buys, and they didn't say at all how much of that was buys.

However, I'm not the one who said that it was double her figures(12%), you can't attribute that statement to me.

*EDIT*
Using the combined total of 5.4 billion for Blu + DVD, and splitting rentals/buys in half of digital download (although personally I believe it leans towards rental because it includes Satellite/Cable-on-demand, which have no equivalent for purchase that I'm aware of), you get 407/(5400+484) = 6.9%.

[TTC1984]

Originally Posted by AKORIS

Just thought I'd mention that TARGET just doubled their space of blu-rays today-- there used to be a 12 foor section-- now there is another side as well making it 24 feet and 2 endcaps--

blu-ray is doing just fine thank you!

Thanks for that piece of info, maybe I'll hit up Target on my way home from work today.

[Luis_A51]

Another sham article by a sham journalist. Seriously these people make no attempt at any real thought or analysis. They just like complaining and criticizing, since that gets hits. Im tired of Perez-Hilton wannabes.

[Anthony P]

Originally Posted by KrugStillo

I'd like to say hello to all being that I am a first-time poster. I have a few comments to make that I'm not sure if I've ever come across after hours of reading these forums.

Let me just state that I do have a blu-ray player and a collection of 150+ blu-rays yet I still don't see the death of DVD the way that many see it. I do however see the co-existence of DVD and blu-ray for an indefinite amount of time and let me tell you why I think this.

I am a huge collector of horror/sci-fi/cult movies and I know there are alot of us out there. In my prefered genre there are alot of movies that are shot on DV or worse VHS. These movies cannot be transfered in High-Def. The masters themselves are the definition of standard-def. Yes they can be upconverted but why would one bother to upconvert quality that low.

Let's face facts companies like Something Wierd Video (they may not even exist anymore but you get my point) and Troma (they still haven't released anamorphic widescreen releases of some of thier movies) are not going to be able to afford or even see the need to go High-def.

I just hate the fact that people assume the only movies that people watch are modern movies with the capability of High-def. I admit anything on 16 or 35mm film can be transfered in High-def with superior results. Bring it on, I want more movies on blu-ray. I just don't see one format winning over the other because they both have very specific needs. Yes there are major similarities between the 2 but let's remember everything can't be High-def. You can't polish a turd.

I just think the supposed war between DVD and blu-ray can't really exist for the above reasons. Blu-ray is a format concieved primarily for providing High-def whereas DVD is there for any-def you want to put on it. Not everything is capable of High-def. Would you really want to watch The Blair Witch Project in High-def. The movie was shot with High-8 video cameras. Yes it does have 16mm in it but the bulk is video, I just don't think it would matter and it would technically be fake High-def.

Anyway, I think the OP is way off the mark because I don't feel one can compare the 2 for the reasons I have stated.

Let me end by saying I love this site and have learned alot from these forums so thanks and I hope there are others out there who can relate to my opinion.

the issue with what you say is two fold,
1) everything benefits from being on BD, even if the original material was filmed on an SD cam (and not film because the film element could be scanned at HD resolution) it can still be much less compressed, audio could be uncompressed....

2) you are missing the obvious. Let's make up a hypothetical example, jb replication has a room that can hold 5 replication lines, he decided last year to replace one of them with BD, so now it is 4-1, he is now looking at adding more BD lines, which means removing older DVD lines, and by mid next year it will be 2 DVD & 3 BD. in a bit more time it will be 1-4 and then 0-5. How will JoeBlow studio replicate DVDs there when all he does is BDs? Why would jb maintain the same number of DVD lines when every year the demand for DVD decreases?

there is an other part to this as well, but I could probably show it better by going slightly OT, many years ago I used to buy diskettes, if there was data that needed backing up (like pics, emails, documents...) eventually CDs became cheap so I did not bother with diskettes any more but I bought CDs for everything. Eventually DVDs became cheap enough and I did not bother with CDs any more but I bought DVDs for that job of archiving data, even if most times a CD would do, the complexity of buying both, deciding if the data would fit on a CD… was not worth the benefit in price. And my guess for mostly everyone else it is the same with disks at home for burning and the same applies to replication. As the difference between BD and DVD replication shrink (after all, it is mostly the same materials) sooner or later studios will look at the price of BD and DVD and say it is not worth it going with a DVD. (which will help the replicator to decide to get rid of DVD replication lines and that will force people that don’t think that way).

[Rojas]

Originally Posted by Jutty

Oh wow,,where can i get one of these,,ive just been doing a fast rewind all this time to get my discs back to the beginning,, and i see it does MP3 too.

I'm not sure but i think it may work with audio CD's as well

[KrugStillo]

Originally Posted by Anthony P

the issue with what you say is two fold,
1) everything benefits from being on BD, even if the original material was filmed on an SD cam (and not film because the film element could be scanned at HD resolution) it can still be much less compressed, audio could be uncompressed....

2) you are missing the obvious. Let's make up a hypothetical example, jb replication has a room that can hold 5 replication lines, he decided last year to replace one of them with BD, so now it is 4-1, he is now looking at adding more BD lines, which means removing older DVD lines, and by mid next year it will be 2 DVD & 3 BD. in a bit more time it will be 1-4 and then 0-5. How will JoeBlow studio replicate DVDs there when all he does is BDs? Why would jb maintain the same number of DVD lines when every year the demand for DVD decreases?

there is an other part to this as well, but I could probably show it better by going slightly OT, many years ago I used to buy diskettes, if there was data that needed backing up (like pics, emails, documents...) eventually CDs became cheap so I did not bother with diskettes any more but I bought CDs for everything. Eventually DVDs became cheap enough and I did not bother with CDs any more but I bought DVDs for that job of archiving data, even if most times a CD would do, the complexity of buying both, deciding if the data would fit on a CD… was not worth the benefit in price. And my guess for mostly everyone else it is the same with disks at home for burning and the same applies to replication. As the difference between BD and DVD replication shrink (after all, it is mostly the same materials) sooner or later studios will look at the price of BD and DVD and say it is not worth it going with a DVD. (which will help the replicator to decide to get rid of DVD replication lines and that will force people that don’t think that way).

Thanks for the thoughtful response. You brought up a few things I hadn't thought of. I just hope that when things switch over completely people are more accepting of the lower quality that the small companies will produce. I also hope it doesn't become a monopoly for the major studios to weed out the smaller independant ones. I already see it a little bit because I can go to every store in my area and not find certain titles from the more obscure labels (Blu Underground, etc.). If I want them I have to order them online. That's fine and all but I used to be able to find thier DVD releases at most major outlets but now I can't seem to get the blu-ray releases by these companies as easily. I guess it's just the changing times but we do have to remember why we collect movies in the first place for the actual movies.

[ryoohki]

LOL appartement, shmappartement. I'am in one. I'am have a 106' pulldown screen with a Projector and a 7.1 system (currently without sub, but my speaker can do plently of .1 by themselve).

You can have a very descent system even in Appartement. Off course you can't watch a movie at 80db but you can still appreciate the technology

[kefrank]

Originally Posted by Terjyn

Fair enough, I missed this point.

However two problems with your math, DVD was "slightly less than 5 billion", which could be a big difference, and 968 million was Download rentals + buys, and they didn't say at all how much of that was buys.

If you assume the rest of the numbers are exact, including the total, the DVD sales number would be 4.952 billion, which is not what I would call a big difference (percentage-wise).

However, I'm not the one who said that it was double her figures(12%), you can't attribute that statement to me.

That's cool - I really didn't bother to look back at the names.

*EDIT*
Using the combined total of 5.4 billion for Blu + DVD, and splitting rentals/buys in half of digital download (although personally I believe it leans towards rental because it includes Satellite/Cable-on-demand, which have no equivalent for purchase that I'm aware of), you get 407/(5400+484) = 6.9%.

Sure, you can make assumptions about the digital split and use the exact DVD number from above, but as your calculation shows, a reasonable best case puts Blu-ray at ~7% if you're excluding rentals. That number supports my original point which was that suggesting the author's number was wildly inaccurate or extremely dated is simply misplaced. And I would wager that her use of the term "sales" was referring to "revenue" - two words that get confusingly interchanged all too often by authors looking at these numbers. But to quibble over whether it is 6% or 7% seems silly. Her number was just fine. It was the comparison she made with it that was bogus.

[Afrobean]

Originally Posted by KrugStillo

Let's face facts companies like Something Wierd Video (they may not even exist anymore but you get my point) and Troma (they still haven't released anamorphic widescreen releases of some of thier movies) are not going to be able to afford or even see the need to go High-def.

In time "not being able to afford it" won't be a legitimate excuse. As technology advances and is accepted, old technology dies.

Think about 3.5mm floppy discs. Used to be everywhere. They were ubiquitous. Then eventually technology outstripped 3.5mm floppies. But 3.5mm floppies hung around because the technology wasn't accepted widely. Then we get common CD burning and cheap CD-R technology. Look around modern computers and see how many floppy drives you see.

Even files which are small enough to warrant floppy disc space are put on larger capacity mediums like CDs or flash drives. It's not because the additional disc space is warranted, it's because no one uses floppies anymore, no companies really make floppies anymore.

Given enough time, DVD players will no longer be made, and given even more time, DVDs themselves will likely stop being made as Blu-ray disc duplication becomes cheaper and cheaper to the point where DVD's cheapness of production is no longer a noticeable advantage in DVD's favor.

But yes, DVD and Blu-ray will coexist for quite some time. Then again, it took DVD about a decade to completely finish off VHS, so time of coexistence is inevitable. It's just a question of how long it lasts.

ps regarding market penetration: we're used to the per software comparisons we get from Home Media Research weekly sales figures & other software sales data. When you figure TOTAL DVD sales versus TOTAL BD, it tints the statistics against BD. BD might make up for 6% total compared to DVD's total, but on individual releases, it easily ranges from 10~20%, particularly on new releases, particularly on action titles. Watchmen sold 37% of its total on BD during its first week, and just this past week, Snow White made it as the TOP SELLING packaged media OVERALL when it was ONLY released on Blu-ray. It's that sort of thing that makes me feel like saying 6% is greatly misleading to the sort of success Blu-ray has had thus far.

[Suntory_Times]

Originally Posted by ryoohki

LOL appartement, shmappartement. I'am in one. I'am have a 106' pulldown screen with a Projector and a 7.1 system (currently without sub, but my speaker can do plently of .1 by themselve).

You can have a very descent system even in Appartement. Off course you can't watch a movie at 80db but you can still appreciate the technology

You can with sound proffing.

[Musashi]

Originally Posted by Suntory_Times

You can with sound proffing.

I'd like it if I could sound proof my apartment; As a non-owning tenant I can't renovate the unit. I imagine it's the same with other apartments.

When I move into an actual house though, it's on.

[KrugStillo]

Originally Posted by Afrobean

In time "not being able to afford it" won't be a legitimate excuse. As technology advances and is accepted, old technology dies.

Think about 3.5mm floppy discs. Used to be everywhere. They were ubiquitous. Then eventually technology outstripped 3.5mm floppies. But 3.5mm floppies hung around because the technology wasn't accepted widely. Then we get common CD burning and cheap CD-R technology. Look around modern computers and see how many floppy drives you see.

Even files which are small enough to warrant floppy disc space are put on larger capacity mediums like CDs or flash drives. It's not because the additional disc space is warranted, it's because no one uses floppies anymore, no companies really make floppies anymore.

Given enough time, DVD players will no longer be made, and given even more time, DVDs themselves will likely stop being made as Blu-ray disc duplication becomes cheaper and cheaper to the point where DVD's cheapness of production is no longer a noticeable advantage in DVD's favor.

But yes, DVD and Blu-ray will coexist for quite some time. Then again, it took DVD about a decade to completely finish off VHS, so time of coexistence is inevitable. It's just a question of how long it lasts.

ps regarding market penetration: we're used to the per software comparisons we get from Home Media Research weekly sales figures & other software sales data. When you figure TOTAL DVD sales versus TOTAL BD, it tints the statistics against BD. BD might make up for 6% total compared to DVD's total, but on individual releases, it easily ranges from 10~20%, particularly on new releases, particularly on action titles. Watchmen sold 37% of its total on BD during its first week, and just this past week, Snow White made it as the TOP SELLING packaged media OVERALL when it was ONLY released on Blu-ray. It's that sort of thing that makes me feel like saying 6% is greatly misleading to the sort of success Blu-ray has had thus far.

I completely understand your point but maybe I didn't state myself clear enough. It's a different situation then just putting smaller files on larger medium. We are talking about the ability to actually provide 2 or 4K High-Def transfers. There are many companies that don't even have source material good enough to support that. If you can't clean up an old print it will look atrocious in High-Def. Now granted it's kind of like if you snooze you lose but every upgrade in home theater technology has made it easier to aquire older films, this particular technology may render certain older films obsolete. I love blu-ray don't get me wrong but I would hate to see piles of movies from our film history just gone because the current format can't really support. Even if they wanted to put this stuff in low quality on blu-ray people will then ***** and that company will probably go out of business. I'd just hate to see more movies disappear rather than gaining even more films in the process.