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Some Blu-Ray, HD DVD Discs Sell Only 200 Copies
An anonymous reader writes "Much has been made of the strong sales for some recent high-def disc releases (such as 'Casino Royale' on Blu-ray), but a new Sony research report reveals some startlingly low sales numbers for other titles released on the next-gen formats. When disc sales of under 1000 can land you on a weekly best-sellers list, you know your format is in its infancy."
FTA: "While we should note that the VideoScan numbers are not all-inclusive (for example, they don't include discs sold at Wal-Mart or some online merchants)"
Yeah cause it's not like Walmart or some online merchants contribute much to home video sales...
I hate to break it to anonymous submitter, but depending on when a disk was released, it may have -zero- reported sales when a summary report like this is generated. And said movies may very well suck anyway, and not be selling for that reason alone.
So much for the sensationalist submission title.
"Casino Royale" is being sold in a bundle with the PS3 in my country. Could this be where many of the sales of that particular movie are coming from?
At the store where I work, BluRay has outsold HD-DVD 8-1 during the last few months.
We have sold 8 BluRay discs and only one HD-DVD disc.
On the other hand, we usually sell at least 50 DVDs on most days.
People aren't buying into it in droves, because the previous thing they used works well enough for them and the new features offered by it aren't enough of an incentive to 'upgrade'; on the other hand, it is laden with DRM that the previous thing wasn't.
DRM is only a concern to maybe 0.01% of the market (roughly the # of slashdot posters to bitch about it). The key limtiation in install base not DRM. DVD had stronger DRM then VHS. almost no one cared. Ditto with blu-ray/HD DVD vs DVD. People do not tend to try to copy their DVDs, those who do will eventually go with the method to do so with Bluray-HDDVD. Everyone else will shrug.
As a few analysts and Sony markettign pointed out, Bluray is catching on faster then DVD did.( Although only by about as much as the pop has grown). So it seems Bluray is going to be the next major format. Don't kid yourself, your concerns are not shared by even the general slashdot populace.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
It doesn't look like these titles are all so new that you'd be correct (and anyway, new releases nearly always have greater weekly sales than ones that have been around awhile). The real story here is in comparing the HD/BD sales to regular DVD sales--the low rate reported here would probably remain quite low.
Even if Wal-Mart isn't on the list, weekly sales of less than 1000 copies isn't good news for the next-generation titles (particularly because all the HD/BD discs I've seen tend to be the "money makers"--not box office flops). Lots of the movies do suck, but that never stopped people from buying them in massive quantities on DVD or VHS.
The more pressing problem is that no one really needs these discs. There are about 30 million HDTV sets, which is still a small fraction of all televisions in this country. Of those, most people think DVDs look good enough. Why buy an expensive player with wacky DRM schemes and maybe-HDCP and all kinds of other bogus crap, only to have to buy more expensive movies that are presently nowhere NEAR the quality difference that DVD had over VHS? I have an HDTV, and I've seen some amazing HD-DVD content, but I was an early adopter of DVD players and I'm just not doing it again for HD/BD players. It's someone else's turn to fund the birth of this industry.
Wake me when I can get the player for $100 and the disc gives me something better than "great high-definition video mastering" on one of my TVs. I can play my DVDs anywhere, and they mostly look pretty good with progressive scan. Maybe that whole "multiple camera angles" vaporware from DVD would be a good thing to include so I could have some fun with my movies.
People are concerned about the effects of DRM however.
My Mum doesnt care about DRM at all but she refused to buy any DVD player which wasnt Region 0.
What about the music market? Would you say the same thing? I'm guessing that number is going to jump.
If only such a small percent of the market is concerned about DRM, then why has adopting it been such a problem for the entertainment market?
DRM isn't a concern to me only because it's so easy to crack.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Call me a luddite, but I don't really care about the quality of the sound and image. I just like entertaining movies. And I can get movies that I like in the 5$ bin at Wal Mart. Who needs to spend the money on a new TV, new player, new library of discs, and assorted cables and gadgets, when my computer and a handfull of old movies suits me just fine.
"DVD had stronger DRM then VHS. almost no one cared."
When DVD finally took off here I dont think you could find a player that actually wasnt region free. And as half the DVD's available were other regions, you'd certainly find every salesperson and every consumer review saying that you should make sure you get a region free player.
"People do not tend to try to copy their DVDs"
Until they get a media center of some kind. In which case physical media becomes a pita that you dont want to deal with.
HD media simply doesnt have any major compelling qualities over the current format. Heck, I dont even bother keeping DVD's in full quality on the mythserver; much as I'd want to I cant say I notice the difference between full quality DVD and a good 1200 kbit xvid encode with a moving picture on a 32" TV from six feet away, so why bother with a format that gives me little but a bunch of extra pixels I dont have the visual acuity to see anyway (unless I pause the picture and put my face to the screen, which isnt exactly how I usually watch TV).
Maybe it'll become interesting when they release those high definition cybernetic eye implants. Until then, the offerings on the table get a big and heartfelt meh.
Ah, come on, some good stuff will slip past the guards ;-)
A DVD like "The Corporation" is quite amazing for how much is jammed on it -- 6 hours of interviews plus a 2 hour movie, all on a "2 hour" DVD. And recently companies are putting out 2 movies on one DVD -- "48HRS / Another 48HRS" comes to mind. In an HD world this could be "Batman 1 2 3 4 5" on one HD disc. Sure it wouldn't be the special editions, but it would still be handy for a Batman marathon (even though I only really like the first and last ones. I'm more likely to have a Lethal Weapon, Robert De Niro, Mel Gibson or David Fincher marathon.)
I see the movie studios responding to the market better than the record companies. Yes DVDs started off ridiculously expensive, but now they are ridiculously cheap (unless you like the BBC). Also, the special editions have become the standard editions in many cases. Called double dipping when done too soon after the first release, this is a huge value add and I love it. Run a search on Amazon (I did 500 such searches recently when I was updating my favorite movies page) and you will be amazed at the value.
Like buying a new machine in 2006 to forestall having Vista rammed down their throat, now is a great time to stock up on DVDs. And I think the same will be true with HD discs in a few years. No they probably won't be unencumbered, but they will bring value and I will probably get an HD player. Beethoven's 9 symphonies alone were enough to get me to buy a CD player.
I still like the idea that some portion of HD content is unencumbered. I think it is natural that the more time-consuming stuff to listen to (face it, you never need to watch the extras) like "Making ofs" and director commentaries be available in MP3 form. Make it 24kbps or something, I would be more than happy with that. While you are at it, ban the group commentaries -- those truly suck. If someone has something to say, use all that space to put it on a separate track, or at least manage it like the excellent Bond Double Oh 7 editions do.
I come here for the love
When The Matrix came out on DVD it was a big factor to getting people to finally switch formats. Lots of people who didn't previously buy DVDs picked that one up first.
A movie with the potential to do the same would probably be 300. I'll be very interested in seeing if it doesn't kick start this format war into the next level.
Sigs are awesome huh?
I wonder how Netflix fits into all of this. For no extra charge, one can have bluray and HD-DVD versions of movies sent to their home. I've never bought a HD-DVD but I am a rather heavy consumer of them. I have rented 34 titles so far from them. All of my friends that have HD-DVD and BluRay players do the same thing. The cost of the movie is prohibitive, but Netflix charges no more for the privilege.
It's also laden with high prices. The most expensive conventional DVD's (with few exceptions) are priced in the $18-$22 range. The average price of DVD's I pick up are under $12 each.
A good many of those have poor transfers also. In fact, after recently purchasing a hi-def television, I've begun to notice drastic differences in picture quality between different dvd's. The tendency seems to be $10 for crappy transfers, $15-$20 for hi-def remasters. Of course, nearly any DVD from Criterion will be around $30. So, the price isn't that big of an issue for me.
I stopped by Blockbuster the other day for the first time in years (a few kids will do that to you). Asked for a movie, and did my usual "is it widescreen" because some are not marked, and I hate chopped-up movies even on my old 3:2 TV. A few years ago the answer would have been "we only have fullscreen, customers keep accidentally renting the widescreen and complaining".
But this time I got "when there's a choice, we only stock widescreen now. Corporate says it's "truer to the director's vision". I was shocked because they are doing the right thing. My guess is that people with snazzy new sets complained about fullframe on their 16:9 (be it pillarboxed or stretched) and complained. After all, they have more money!
Well, I don't give a crap about the director's vision (read: George Lucas) but I surely want to see ALL of the movie. Actually, I have confidence that this will aspect ratio crap will fix itself in a few years as we phase out 3:2, broadcasters get smarter, and and better auto-detection electronics is built in. It's insane watching HDTV now- cut to commercial filmed in 16:9 and it's freaking pillarboxed AND letterboxed! What are the broadcasters smoking?
But yeah, most people can't tell the difference between a clean 480p and HD. Sad, isn't it?
We geeks have to improve the technology so it works better with no configuring. For the folks who don't like pillarboxing because they think something's missing (duh, but that's how people think), the solution is the fill the empty spots with something. Many ideas come to mind. How about two 3:2 PIPs on one side? An extra tuner to full it, snapshot frames into it randomly, or a button to explicitly do it. Put the subtitles/captions there instead of over the content. How about a nonintrustive TV or visual chapter guide? During a sportscast, I also saw a nice effect where they simply repeated the same content in the extra areas, but faded/blurred out, to make a nice algorithmic background. Or put some graphics there. There's just so much that can be done.
I can explanate how to administrate your network. You must configurate and segmentate it, so it can computate.
A good many of those have poor transfers also
D _CD_(Pink_Floyd)-prod-29774059-38976525?sourceid=2 98 Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon. Now $32.99 was $47.38
5 357 Beatles White Album Your Price: $28.99
0 000OAN Queen Night at the Opera Price: $10.47 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25.
d p/B00005N7YZ Fiddler on the Roof 17 used & new available from $16.95
c h_constraint=0&search_query=star%20wars%20dvds&adi d=0100000031361378202498 Star Wars trilogy 3 movies for about $10 each. List Price: $49.98
6 5&Ne=160#Budget+DVD's
I've notice that for older films. This is especialy true for DVD's under $2. As a collector of the cartoons I grew up with, 2 hours of early animation at $99cents a copy is a much better value to me than 1950's rock and roll at $12.95 for 48 minutes of stuff.
Let's face it. I can buy a fairly recent (less than 5 years old) DVD for less than $6 new. Ice age and Ever After I just picked up at the grocery store for 5.95 each. Have you checked the price on 20 year old music on CD's? The RIAA hasn't got a clue. I do buy something other than overpriced CD's.
http://www.shop.com/op/~Dark_Side_of_the_Moon_SAC
http://www.towerrecords.com/product.aspx?pfid=101
http://www.amazon.com/Night-at-Opera-Queen/dp/B00
Now some older classis movies for comparison;
http://www.amazon.com/Fiddler-Roof-Special-Topol/
http://www.walmart.com/catalog/search-ng.gsp?sear
Our Price: $33.88
The RIAA can't figure out why I don't buy CD's..
More hints.. here is a list of DVD's at 5.99 Page 1 of 756 titles.
http://www.jr.com/JRSectionView.process?N=13326+1
Of course, nearly any DVD from Criterion will be around $30. So, the price isn't that big of an issue for me.
There are people who do pay premium prices for premium content. There is a market for Cadilacs and Mercedez Benz, but the real money is in Wal * Mart. Trying to make a Mercedes the standard car of choice is going to have a tough run against the Toyota's.
The HD DVD manufactures are seeing this right now. Hummers were a hot item as was the Escalade. Casino Royale is a hot item, but it's not overtaking conventional DVD's anytime soon much like Hummers and Escalades are not overtaking Accords and Camerys. This is reflected in the number of unsold high priced titles.
The truth shall set you free!