Blu-ray disc sales on the increase
The Blu-ray Disc, the high-definition successor to the DVD, was one of the few products that did well in the just-ended holiday season, with sales tripling from the previous year. The figures were released this week at the Consumer Electronics Show, which last year was the scene of what proved to be a decisive victory for Blu-ray over a rival format, HD-DVD. Just before the 2008 CES opened, Warner Bros. withdrew its support for HD-DVD, giving Blu-ray a strong majority of support among Hollywood studios. A few months later, Toshiba, the creator of the HD-DVD, said it would stop making players for the discs. That left Blu-ray as the lone high-definition disc. U.S. consumers bought 28.6 million of them in the fourth quarter of 2008, according to The Digital Entertainment Group, a consortium of movie studios and electronics manufacturers. That’s up from 9.5 million in the previous year.
The biggest seller was “The Dark Knight,” which was also the first Blu-ray disc to sell more than 1 million copies, said Andy Parsons, president of the Blu-ray Disc Association, which promotes the format in the U.S. By Parsons’ count, Blu-ray is showing a faster adoption rate than the DVD, the CD, high-definition TV sets and several other common household technologies. At the end of last year, 2½ years after they first became available, there were 10.7 million Blu-ray-capable players in United States, according to research firm DisplaySearch. Three years after the DVD launched in the 90s, there were 5.4 million DVD players.But the 10.7 million Blu-ray players includes more than 6 million Sony PlayStation 3 game consoles, bought mainly for gaming. With those taken out of the comparison, sales of standalone Blu-ray players are similar to those of DVD players at the same point.
Source: Mercury News
well, i bought a ps3 cause i got it for 20% off and it was far cheaper than any other blu-ray player at that time. its an utter POS for gaming!
zomfg hi def cheesecakes
Have you seen the garbage being released on Blu-ray @ premium prices?
Sorry, but watching sh!t movies @ higher resolutions does NOT make them better.
Great movies, on the other hand, can be enjoyed on ANY format.
"Sorry, but watching sh!t movies @ higher resolutions does NOT make them better.
Great movies, on the other hand, can be enjoyed on ANY format."
Ditto… Who wants a physical optical disk anymore?
Good now maybe these little "analysts"( accountants, I have not heard one reputable technology analyst say anything bad) can stfu about blu ray failing within a year. Its the next form of media people need to accept it. Even if they do stop putting movies on blu ray its still one heck of a storage media and will not fade away for at least 10 years.( not saying they are going to!) 400gbs a disc YES PLEASE!!!
Blu ray is the future whom ever says it isnt is way to attached to their dvd collection. Actually its probably the VHS collection they are clutching if they are so opposed to change even if it is for the EXTREMELY better.
@#3 have you seen the garbage being released on DVD at full prices? its the same thing friend no difference there's crap everywhere we just have to wait for DVD's to be taken off the shelves and watch the blu ray prices fall to what dvds are now. To say blu ray is crap because of all the old garbage some would call "classics" is just silly i think because its gonna come out sooner or later just seems like they have been pushing for sooner.
I hate Blu Ray, a movie isn't worth $30, a blank dvd isn't worth $25-$50 and a burner isn't worth $350. Plus downloading 7-9gb for a single movie.
I've watched Blu Ray and it doesn't look THAT much better.
Actually, Time is running out for Blu ray format. Even after a good year of sales..
From an online report by UK business paper The Times, on the 10th Jan 09:
Time is running out for Blu-ray discs, the high definition (HD) format that are supposed to be replacing the DVD.
Despite the launch of new Blu-ray players and talk of rising sales at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, manufacturers know they are in a race to make a real impact on the market before the new kid on the block, downloading or streaming HD films directly from the internet, consigns the format to a footnote in video history.
Blu-ray discs have the same physical dimensions as a DVD, but provide better quality sound and pictures for HD movies, thanks to more expensive laser technology. They were launched nearly three years ago but only became the preferred medium after winning an HD format war a year ago.
Blu-ray has just had an impressive year of growth. Consumers are looking to take advantage of the rise of HD TV programming by broadcasters before the coming switch to digital TV and in the US they are buying more HD TV sets than standard definition sets.
At the Blu-ray Disc Association press conference at CES, chairman Andy Powers listed the US Blu-ray statistics: with more than 1,100 movie titles now available, 24.09 million discs were sold in 2008 compared to 5.67 million in 2007.
The Dark Knight batman movie was the standard bearer for the format, becoming the first million-plus seller on Blu-ray in America.
Sales of Blu-ray players are also climbing fast, helped by huge Christmas discounts in America which saw the cost of players drop below $200. Eight per cent of US household are now estimated to have Blu-ray hardware, including Sony's Playstation 3 consoles which can play the discs.
But the problem for Blu-ray is that these figures still mean that Blu-ray is a high-end niche product, bought mainly by early adopters who can afford to pay the higher prices of the discs and the players - still about three times the price of a DVD player
Full report here: http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/personal_tech/article5484923.ece
It's all in the numbers.
http://www.the-numbers.com/dvd/charts/annual/2008.php
Dark Knight sold almost 12 Million copies on DVD (that does not include Blue-ray according to the site - they only carry standard DVD figures at the moment)
Dark Knight sold just over 1 Million on Blu-Ray? That's 1 Blu-Ray disc for every 11 or 12 standard DVDs sold. I don't see "market penetration" in those figures, do you?
I'd like to see "Market Penetration" the pr0n movie, but that's another story altogether.
What I'd REALLY like to see is multi-episode standard DVD formats put on a single Blu-Ray disc. Like the entire series of Firefly on 1 disc. All LOTR movies on 1 disc. All Carl Sagan's COSMOS on 1 disc. An entire series of Blackadder on 1 disc. That sort of thing.
Then more people may think of buying into Blu-Ray. Not only for the quality (which is of questionable value), but also for the convenience. Who wants 100 DVDs taking up space? Have all your precious series' and epic films on single discs!
If they gave us the ability to COPY direct from DVD to BluRay (ie. insert DVD#1 -> insert BluRay to burn -> insert DVD#2 -> insert BluRay to burn -> etc until BluRay disc is full) then that would make me buy one. To consolidate my huge DVD collection and save space!
What I'd REALLY like to see is multi-episode standard DVD formats put on a single Blu-Ray disc. Like the entire series of Firefly on 1 disc. All LOTR movies on 1 disc. All Carl Sagan's COSMOS on 1 disc. An entire series of Blackadder on 1 disc. That sort of thing.
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they won't do that is that will make the prices alot cheaper.
when DVD was new, they were advertising it that it can hold bajillions of hours of video on 1 disc. same with Blu-ray. BUT THEY'RE NOT DOING IT!
IIRC, they still release trilogies and such in box sets. I know they could have just packed everything on 1 disc. but more discs for them means more money e.g. 1 disc = 1 movie as they usually price it per disc and not per series or per set. screw them.
Cheddar said: "Blu ray is the future whom ever says it isnt is way to attached to their dvd collection. Actually its probably the VHS collection they are clutching if they are so opposed to change even if it is for the EXTREMELY better."
You're a n00b. Optical media IS NOT the future. Physical drives are, anyone who says it isn't is following out of date technology like blu-ray! You're the one clutching on to the past i'm afraid.
@STFU, your absolutely right there, physical media is well in the past, it's all HDD or solid state. I have a 2 TB drive filled with thousands of TV shows/movies in one convenient place hooked up to the computer -> HDTV, that is the future. no more space filling DVD's or blu-rays. You need to have at least a 60inch or projector to see any difference between 720p and 1080p, and most consumers cant tell the difference between 720p and SD. why? because so many people have 32-40inch HDTV's (there the many ones that are cheap at the moment) and those TV's arent full HD. another big problem is that upscaled DVD's look just as good as blu ray at 720p, which is why so many people aren't upgrading to blu-ray and with the reasoning about not seeing any difference. This is all fact btw. if blu ray had appeared ten years ago then it may have had a chance, but too many people I KNOW use HDD's either in PS3's, Xbox's, computers, or plain old external jobbies to watch stuff.
Blu ray is so 3 years ago…..
@Elliot: "many people I KNOW use HDD's either in PS3's, Xbox's, computers, or plain old external jobbies to watch stuff."
Yeah but the average consumer doesn't know squat about that stuff, they can hardly use Windows. If they knew all about using HDDs and PCs, they'd be downloading Ubuntu and/or the free antivirus stuff instead of buying Windows and Norton AV.
Most consumer want a box they can push buttons on that has a little blue "on" LED and looks good in their hifi cabinet. The most complicated they wanna get is a TIVO/HDD recorder.
As if we can expect balanced view about BluRay in a "scene release"-blog forum
Of course the people here will be pro download and HDD solutions. But whatever you say BD is gonna grow and it will escalate now. And the prices for discs will drop accordingly.
Of course I'm sure most of the people posting on this site are too young to remember when DVD was the new kid in town. I paid over $400 for a player when the format was introduced. I heard the same arguments, can't see a difference in quality etc. You have to remember the vast population does not know anything about streaming video. And with the cable companies trying to throttle the amount of bandwidth you can download who is going to pay 100+ to download a TV program? Remember most people do not even know how to check their e-mail.
Blu-Ray and it's will always co-exist with digital/streaming means because there are those (most) who will always prefer physical media (even if just as a backup) that cannot be deleted or corrupted
Once you go HD you'll never go back, BluRay is here to stay. The "future is physical drives" argument isn't valid, that's like the old arguments of ebooks vs. paper print or CDs vs. MP3. Sure the tech seems like the obvious way to go, but the fact of the matter is that no matter how clever it is the vast majority of consumers don't understand the digital world and prefer physical packaging. That ensures the longevity of optical media, though as the newer generation grows older we'll see a very slow adoption of digital as the mainstream form of delivery. It's not happening any time soon.
Obviously some of you argue that 1080p doesn't look THAT much better, but the majority of current BluRay releases are of older movies that were filmed with lesser technology. If you check out the latest films, like The Dark Knight, then you'll see what all the fuss is about.
Ok you go stream ALL your video online. Got a bandwidth cap ? have fun hitting it in 2 hd movies . You people that say its all gonna transfer over to online forget how big an hd movie is how ignorant the general public is and how much room and bandwidth it takes to store and download a HD movie.
There is to much emphasis on this "Internet streaming" bs its never gonna take off. Look at the ps3 there movie service has been live in the states for 6 months or more still hasn't crossed over to Canada yet. The reason why is our copyright laws are different and thus is why its so hard to control digital media. What stops me from dling a movie for 9.99 and burning 100 copies for all my friends so they don't have to buy them.
And for the record I also run multiple hard drives with huge amounts of storage and stream all my media to my ps3 via tversity. Im still not gonna go out and spend money to get no sort of anything in my hand.
When I purchase things i want something physical in my hand not something i can lose if my comp crashes. To say they are going to do away with physical media is really really stupid. Exactly what #16 said cd vs. mp3 e-book vs. news paper.
People need to stop assuming everyone knows everything they do and start looking at the world the way it is!!! filled with freaking idiots that still don't realize its the 21st century
I only own 3 blu ray movies. They simply have to be classics, and they have to look good enough to even be worth buying on an HD format int he first place. Doesnt matter if its a popular movie or not, if the transfer is bad, or its not a great looking movie to begi with, whats the point?
Thing is. Sony and company are eventually going to cut the price by half, around DVD price. Ive read in a few places that the target date for that is by the end of 2010. They are also planning on having studios re release BR movies that have been out for over 2 years by that time, for $10.
Where are all you guys shopping for your Blu-ray movies anyway? walmart has a few movies in the $10 to $15 range and Amazon.com has THE BEST blu-ray movie deals around.
Amazon.com go there, they've got a buy two get one free sell going on RIGHT NOW and the CONSTANTLY have sales so the price argument is pretty null when you can buy three movies for $40 (about $13 each) on amazon with NO TAX and FREE (super saver) Shipping.
I've got 28 Blu-ray movies and ive only spent over $20 on ONE of them.
http://img213.imageshack.us/img213/3193/pict1311lq0.jpg
http://img213.imageshack.us/img213/7540/pict1314qy9.jpg
http://img71.imageshack.us/img71/1328/pict1317ik3.jpg
IMO solid state media will eventually replace all Blu-ray and HDD alike, it will take a while for the industry to achieve capacity of the HDDs avaliable today but once they reach 100+ Gb capacity on a piece of "plastic" size of an SD memory card that cameras use (for example) that you can simply (and litterally) plug and play like nowadays USB drives people will start discarding old (and space wasting) CD's DVDs and Blu-rays. with SD's (again as an example) reaching around 32Gb already the future of any physical media (again IMO) is already outnumbered. (let the flaming commence)