Home Media Magazine

[dialog_gvf]

Might as well have a thread for articles from this excellent source of HD info.

Latest issue

(Hint: The date frequently works days before they update the link on the web site)

Article on Managed Copy

Technicolor is setting up infrastructure now. But, we probably won't see anything until the beginning of next year (that's almost two years late, for those keeping track).

"We really want to enable the content owners to experiment"

In addition to the copy capability, they want to allow for things like upgraded and new extras.

Gary

[dialog_gvf]

See the supplement on Warren Lieberfarb.

The History of DVD

Some events (+ months after launch)

March 1997 (L+0): DVD launches in North America
Feb 1998 (L+11): Air Force one becomes first DVD title to ship 100,000 units
Aug 1999 (L+29): Titanic becomes first DVD title to ship 1 million units
Sep 2002 (L+66): Monster's Inc. first DVD title to exceed VHS sales in first week

For HD discs we have:

April 2006 (HD+0): HD DVD launches in North America
June 2006 (BD+0): Blu-ray launches in North America
March 2007 (BD+9): Casino Royale becomes first HD disc to ship 100,000 units

Gary

[phloyd]

I though that the launch + 11 had been corrected.

IE, Air Force One was released 11 months out but took 9 months more to ship the 100k units. Or something in that order.

It took like two weeks for CR to ship 100k iirc.

[Deciazulado]

Originally Posted by phloyd

I though that the launch + 11 had been corrected.

IE, Air Force One was released 11 months out but took 9 months more to ship the 100k units. Or something in that order.

It took like two weeks for CR to ship 100k iirc.

So it should be like this?:

March 1997 (L+0): DVD launches in North America
Nov1998 (L+20): Air Force one becomes first DVD title to ship 100,000 units
Aug 1999 (L+29): Titanic becomes first DVD title to ship 1 million units
Sep 2002 (L+66): Monster's Inc. first DVD title to exceed VHS sales in first week


mmm

them maybe the future be like this?:

For HD discs we have:

April 2006 (HD+0): HD DVD launches in North America
June 2006 (BD+0): Blu-ray launches in North America
March 2007 (BD+9): Casino Royale becomes first HD disc to ship 100,000 units
Dec 2007 (BD+18): Spider-man 3 becomes first HD title to ship 1 million units

[theknub]

sounds reasonable to me

of course pirates might change that too...

[dialog_gvf]

Originally Posted by phloyd

I though that the launch + 11 had been corrected.

IE, Air Force One was released 11 months out but took 9 months more to ship the 100k units. Or something in that order.

It took like two weeks for CR to ship 100k iirc.

Yeah, I keep reading that. I don't know where that came from. But, it's wrong!

I think people misunderstood Sony's original announcement that said it took Air Force One 11 months to achieve the same thing. They interpretted that to mean 11 months after it was released, rather than 11 months after DVD was released.

Feb 1998 from Video Business:

Record shipment for Air Force DVD

In the latest sign of DVD's continuing progress toward becoming a mass-market format, Columbia TriStar Home Video will ship more than 100,000 copies of the Air Force One DVD to retailers. Columbia executive VP Paul Culberg called the supplier's planned 112,000-unit shipment a "benchmark" for the fledgling DVD software business and attributed the shipment size to the format's rapid growth. "I think it's a bull market," he said, noting that hardware makers have shipped 350,000 players.

The Digital Bits archive:

Studio News - Columbia / TriStar

PREVIOUS NEWS (3/4/98)

Well, word is that Air Force One has sold more than 200,000 copies on DVD, ranking it with Goldeneye and Twister as one of DVD's best sellers.

[phloyd]

Originally Posted by dialog_gvf

Yeah, I keep reading that. I don't know where that came from. But, it's wrong!

I am happy to stand corrected

All things considered, the CR result is stunning.

Most of us expected BD to catch on much slower than DVD did.

I guess the PS3 thing has had a strong effect in getting the hardware out there...!

[dialog_gvf]

Originally Posted by phloyd

I am happy to stand corrected

All things considered, the CR result is stunning.

Yes, this does not take a thing away from Casino Royale. It is still an amazing achievement. And it was done with a competitor suppressing format adoption somewhat, and far more big titles coming out around it.

Originally Posted by phloyd

Most of us expected BD to catch on much slower than DVD did.

I guess the PS3 thing has had a strong effect in getting the hardware out there...!

It will be interesting to see the curves. It looks to me that Blu-ray got far faster early adoption than DVD, obviously thanks to the PS/3. But, the DVD transitioned to general adoption and then mass adoption very quickly.

I don't think any of this has official milestones, but we could agree that the 1 million player point is the transition to general adoption and the first 1 million unit title as being the indication of mass adoption.

The PS/3 muddles things since only a percentage of units are actually in use as players. But, that number is at a minimum now and will tend to grow with time. So, as more PS/3 sell, and more previous buyers adopt BD, the growth will accelerate faster than sales of PS/3 would seem to indicate.

I guess the thing would be to find out what the biggest title of Nov/Dec 1998 was, and set that count as the next milestone to reach, since it independent of the player sales argument.

Gary