State of the HD Market in France

[Elandyll]

I have browsed some data from the French Amazon, and I believe with other reports that this is a fairly accurate summary of the state of the HD market currently in France.

Best Sellers in DVD section (includes DVD, Blu Ray and HD DVD)

1 - BR - Ratatouille Rank # 6
2 - BR - Cars # 102
3 - BR - Pathfinder #130
4 - BR - Die Hard 4 # 135
5 - BR - The Simpsons Movie # 158
6 - BR - The Day After # 330
7 - BR - HP:OOTP # 339
8 - BR - Spiderman3 # 447
9 - HDDVD - Triplettes of Belleville(fr) # 493
10 - BR - Blade Runner # 489
11 - BR - Shakira OFT # 537

The following HD DVDs can't be linked to relative BR positions, as they are too far down the drain:
#2 HD DVD bestseller - HD DVD - Hot Fuzz # 616
3- HD DVD - La Haine # 1018
4 - HD DVD - The Puritans(opera) # 1128
5 - HD DVD - King Kong # 1270
6 - HD DVD - Bourne Ultimatum # 1354
7 - HD DVD - The Big Lebowski # 1398
8 - HD DVD - Smokin Aces # 1504
9 - HD DVD - The Bourne Trilogy set # 1507
10 - HD DVD - The Bourne Identity # 1539

Sad to see that the French movie distributors didn't take the Blu Ray market seriously early enough to have good French titles (such as "La Haine") titles available in Blu Ray. They would be doing sooo much better.
With a market like this, it's only a matter of time though. Canal Studio and now Bac Films turned Blu, they'll go exclusive eventually.

Hardware:
2 different listings (like in the US one depending on how you get there).

Lisiting #1 of all DVD player sales has the Sony BDP S 300 at #23, and the BDP-S500 at # 27 and 32 (two SKUs). No other HD units, not even Tosh, in the top 100.

Listing #2 (all DVD players, best sellers) has the Toshiba HDEP30 (the A3) at #23, followed by the Sony BDP-S300 at #60, the S500 at #69 and 80 (two SKUs). The toshiba XE1 makes the top 100 by a hair at position #100.

Prominently figured, on the right side of he high def pages (both Blu Ray and HD DVD) is the ratio of all HP:OOTP bought.

Blu Ray: 67% - HD DVD: 33%

To confirm those results hugely in favor of Blu Ray (more so than I expected), I checked the Fnac page (major vendor of audio/video discs in France), and here is the result of their bestselling of High Def:

#1 - BR - Die Hard 4
#2 - BR - HP:OOTP
#3 - BR - Sunshine
#4 - BR - Blade Runner
#5 - BR - 300
#6 - BR - HP Box set
#7 - BR - The Good Shepperd
#8 - HDDVD - HP:OOTP
#9 - BR - POTC3
#10 - HDDVD - Hot Fuzz

Yep...

[Joe Cain]

Belleville Rendezvous on HD DVD? Tragique!

[Azumi]

Originally Posted by Elandyll

I have browsed some data from the French Amazon, and I believe with other reports that this is a fairly accurate summary of the state of the HD market currently in France.

Truth be told, the HD DVD people did a good job in France. They managed to get early on one top company (Studiocanal), a few other reputed publishers and quite a few post houses as well. With France being #2 Europe's video market, there was definitely a strategy to secure this stronghold.

In retrospect, it was almost amazing that they got so much studio support, aside from Canal (who was definitely a Top Tier partner). HD DVD made a "strong" showing at a local PEVE conference back then, and I think there was a lot of kool-aid drank by the French publishers.

Some of them were convinced that Toshiba could pull it off, especially with a big marketing push that was expected to take place during Q4 2006 - and ultimately didn't. I have also the impression that a lot of people discounted the PS3 factor.

It's also likely that some of them went along with HD DVD for pure short-term business considerations -- getting aid from HD DVD, grabbing as much market share as they could, getting lots of media exposure, but in the end keeping their options open.

Right now the winds are definitely blowing towards Blu. Lots of them wisened up last year when they looked at the PS3 numbers and at the worldwide market share.

[Grubert]

Also garnered support in the French enthusiast community (such as the homecinema-fr.com forums), which hates region coding with a passion.

[Blaumann]

Originally Posted by Grubert

Also garnered support in the French enthusiast community (such as the homecinema-fr.com forums), which hates region coding with a passion.

A sentiment, frankly quite a few of us Europeans share. I only got into blu after i had a solution for that "problem".

(Reason is simply, that many Blu-rays here are 25 Euros, 30 Euros, even 35 Euros. So it is cheaper to import. Also many titles are not available at all or are released with a delay, even catalog titles.)

[dobyblue]

Whenever I see HP:OOTP I always think "Out of Print" immediately.

[Elandyll]

Originally Posted by Grubert

Also garnered support in the French enthusiast community (such as the homecinema-fr.com forums), which hates region coding with a passion.

True
I do remember not being too fond of the zones back in DVD days in France.
Which is why I had a player with no zone and imported titles hehe.
This being said, zones exist for a reason from a studio perspective, and hopefully their use won't be too generalized aside from the big blockbusters which often have an international release not too far appart.

It is also true that HD DVD had a serious head start in France (anda few other European countries), which makes it all the sweeter to see how Tosh was flipped on its back last year hehe.

[TheTenth]

the evolution in shops is positive :
- Gibert (more a books specialist but sells DVDs too) : have a small display for HD movies, some time ago, about 40 movies : 25 Blu-ray, 15 HD DVD ; now : 50 Blu-ray, 11 HD DVD (sales assistant said they could send them back to supplier)
- FNAC (great multimedia shop, considered a reference in quality) : one big display with 8 rows : 4/4 until january, now 5.5/3.5, the sales assistant informs the customers of the situation (studio advantage for Blu-ray) and thinks the HD DVD display will disappear with time.

[181]

9 - HDDVD - Triplettes of Belleville(fr) # 493

that is one scary movie. I saw it late night on tv back in college. I thought I was in some messed up lucid dream watching a horror show cartoon.

look at this

[Joe Cain]

Originally Posted by 181

9 - HDDVD - Triplettes of Belleville(fr) # 493

that is one scary movie. I saw it late night on tv back in college. I thought I was in some messed up lucid dream watching a horror show cartoon.

Strange but brilliant, in my opinion. Any film that opens with a surreal homage to Django Reinhardt and a topless Josephine Baker is okay in my book. Besides, it has almost zero dialogue: I have a special respect for stories that can be told exclsuively with pictures.

[Blaumann]

Originally Posted by Joe Cain

Strange but brilliant, in my opinion. Any film that opens with a surreal homage to Django Reinhardt and a topless Josephine Baker is okay in my book. Besides, it has almost zero dialogue: I have a special respect for stories that can be told exclsuively with pictures.

The film is absolutely recommended for friends of, erm, surreal animation and storytelling. The pq is good (but not as great as let´s say the Simpsons).