It's tough to find unbiased numbers with regards to the sales of Blu-Ray vs. DVD.

Here is what I found on the Dark Knight: http://www.cdfreaks.com/news/15323-T...ray-sales.html

Blu-Ray 1.7 million copies vs. 11.8 million for DVD. It's still approx. an 11:1 ratio even for a popular title like Dark Knight.

I seem to recall Pirates of the Caribbean 3 from Dec '07 was more like a 30:1 ratio, so it is on the increase.

POTC3 was a crap movie so that's not really a good way to judge BD vs DVD sales.

Actually, your understanding is incorrect, and if you follow Home Media Magazine - a source that tracks a large number of the sales (BD vs DVD) - then you should know that BDs performance at large retailers has been terrific.
With other words, what is being offered as data at the moment is mostly courtesy of one independent source. Which you could research.

Furthermore, since you admit that you have not done any market research, how do you know that people aren't buying into Blu-ray. A quick comparison between last year and this year clearly shows that people are buying into the format - I would post a graph here that shows it but our censors will likely delete it ASAP.

Pro-B

Of course, you failed to mention the reason why sales might be increasing is because 2 major studios joined the fold (Paramount/Dreamworks & Universal), several smaller studios (Criterion, Blue Underground, Weinstein) and people rebuying previous HD DVDs films on Blu-ray. But shhh...

I haven't read Home Media Magazine but I imagine its editor and publisher are strong advocates for Blu-Ray which may not make them the most unbiased source either.

No, I don't have any formal research to back anything up other than noticing things such as the scaling back of Blu-Ray ads for both players and software in the local electronic store flyers. I think little things like that are telling evidence that a store would rather spend its advertising dollars and use its flyer space for items that are the most profitable. Blu-Ray doesn't appear to be one of them as of now. Then again, it's just a hunch, not fact.

I personally agree with you there! I was just trying to compare two financially successful summer blockbusters that arrived on the home video market at the same with one year separating them.

Is that an implication that more studios supporting Blu-Ray is bad? Um, what??
I have yet to rebuy an hd-dvd almost a year after going purple.

VOD and HD over the internet both already exist. They'll grow in prominence, but it's likely that physical disc formats and downloaded/streamed content will co-exist for many years to come. If you think BD is likely the last major physical format, that's all the more reason to adopt it.

Video game systems have had a steady release cycle for decades now. The fact that a video format takes a long time to become widely adopted means that nobody's apt to be releasing new video formats ever 3-5 years. Even if they do, there's no guarantee that their format will succeed in any way.

As has been pointed out, most people don't have an HDTV yet.

The market also shows that BD is growing just fine, on rate with how DVD performed, and that's impressive given the extra technological hurdles BD has over DVD in terms of hardware requirements.

Don't know nothing about cars. But I imagine the Porsche 911 sells well enough to keep being made, and probably some 944 owners do upgrade.

In contrast, I'm not sure what your point is here. HD video delivery is already here, in online streaming/download, VOD, cable, satellite, OTA, and BD.

OK.

It's the portability factor that's really helped MP3, and the fact that CD isn't copy-protected, leading to easy conversion of ones existing collection. The video market for portable devices isn't quite as big, it's dangerous to watch a video while jogging or driving, and also studios are at least embracing the digital conversion moreso than the record companies did at first, with "digital copies" being offered with certain DVDs and BDs.

The cost has dropped, and will continue to drop. DVD was too expensive for most when it first came out too.

Well, the "harm" on a personal level is that you sacrifice the benefit of experiencing better video and sound because of unreasonable fears of what the "future" may hold. So it is a lose situation, at least in the sense of audio/video quality. Whether one is fine with that is up to the individual.

On a more global level, if too many people always refrained from buying into a new format for fear of what's next, no new format ever would succeed.

No, of course not, just saying with 2 major studios joining the fold and Para/DW/Uni have some of last years biggest hits helped Blu-ray sales where they would have helped that other format.

*pops in to see if everyone is still arguing* Yup.

Does being on blue ray somehow make it a better or worse movie? If not, then the quality of the film itself doesnt matter in the comparison.

The source publishes sales data. So, perhaps it is a good idea that you read it and see for yourself that your observation is incorrect.

Well this is ironic, because elsewhere, on different forums, people are noting precisely the opposite trend (take a look at the latest Target flyer for example). This being said, the BB I frequent on the Northwest side of Chicago have been expanding their Blu-ray shelves.

Again, I would recommend that you do some research since our censors do not allow posting articles anymore.

Pro-B

Comparing a film like POTC3 to TDK does matter. Shall we compare Iron Man to The Love Guru?

Try telling that to the poor guys who left their "unreasonable fears of what the future may hold" behind them & jumped into HD-DVD too soon.

People will buy into a format when they feel it suits their needs and price is right, as with any product on the market.

I wasn't arguing about usability, I was disagreeing with your statement that upconverting players were cheaper because they didn't do analog conversions. Since every player has this capability, even if it isn't usable to its fullest extent on many discs, the players couldn't be cheaper because of a lack of analog conversion capabilities, as you claimed. In fact, the upconverting players cost more because they had to have both analog and digital output capabilities, in addition to upconversion.

The original quotes, for reference:
I remember when I got my upconverting player that the "analog only" DVD players were a fraction of the cost, and I got one of the cheaper upconverting players at the time.

I modified mine for free with a remote hack.

I never said it was; I was countering your claim that they were cheaper than DVD players with only analog outputs. I bet even that one Oppo could output analog 480i.

I guess it depends on what you determine to be "good" quality. You can still get $800+ DVD players if you're going for the maximum in quality. However, there were decent $100 progressive players out there when upconverting players were $200.

Well, steelpotato doesn't seem to feel to bad about it. As he points out, it's not like his HD DVDs stopped working:
As for anyone else feeling burned: at least they knew that a competing format already existed, and was either already in the market or only months from release. They also knew the other format offered the same maximum resolution, and near the same video/audio codecs. They also knew that the format they were buying only had limited studio support, with other studios supporting only the other format. So a person looking to buy HD DVD, or even BD, when both format existed at the same time and were competing for dominance, had completely reasonable concerns, and I wouldn't fault anyone who sat out the format war.

What I find unreasonable is the idea that one shouldn't buy BD now for fear of a currently non-existent format that has no manufacturer or studio support (because it doesn't exist). Talk of "Ultra HD" and holographic discs are all about ideas and technologies that only exist in the lab at this moment. Studios and manufacturers are greedy, and they do want to get your money. However, they're also not stupid, and they know that they can't introduce a new format every 6-7 years like video game systems do. Both manufacturers and studios found ways to sell and re-sell their DVD products until it hit saturation levels; they'll do that with BD as well.

Right, and more and more people are buying into BD as it fits more people's needs (after getting an HDTV), and the price keeps lowering.

I don't know why its any different way to judge than any other movie. It was a huge seller whether it sucked or not.

According to Home Media Magazine, DVD sales are down 2.08% from last year at this time. Blue Ray sales are up 5.09% from this time last year. Something that has to be considered in to this is that HD DVD had been averaging around 37% of all HD disc sales until the bottom fell out and the format war was resolved.

Just for fun, here is Blu Ray's percentage monthly of the disc market going back over 6 months- a completely random pick from around the middle of each month.

01-19-09 13%
12-14-09 11%
11-16-08 8%
10-12-09 13%
09-14-09 12%
08-17-09 7%


As of the end of March Blu Ray was 9% of total home video disc sales, a pretty respectable number given its only been about a year since it became the "sanctioned" HD format in the marketplace.

I'm sure a more detailed view will be more revealing regarding sales gains by the format. It appears to be a stable, if slow climb.

Blu-ray
B l u - r a y

If you can't bother to spell it correctly then do not even try and argue.

That was stupid and pointless...and weak. Its a typo. As you should have noticed, it is spelled correctly in other parts of the post.

Hopefully you can do better than that.

We have deferring opinions here because for an analog player to compete with an upconverting player it has to have high quality DACs. The type of DACs found in the typical upconverting player are low quality that's why they aren't more expensive, because they really don't care about the analog capabilities. In the end, it is actually cheaper to produce a quality output digital upconverting player with low quality DACs then an analog with similar quality output. Back when the upconverting Bravo D1 first came out for around $199 it was competitve with the $1000 - $2500 Denon analog only players in video output capabilities. This is verified by "Secrets" DVD player analysis from back at the time.

I'm not saying straight analog players can't be cheap. Same can be said for upconverting players. What I am saying is that when you compare the quality of the video output between the two, it cost more to get an analog player to match the capabilities of an digital upconverting player. This is also why you don't find top of the line analog only players anymore because they all moved over to digital.

Just curious, were you shopping for DVD players before and around the time that upconverting players first hit the market?

Which player was this? Most of the players I recall at the time required very expensive SDI hardware modifications to pass a digital signal across component output.

The Oppo DV-981HD has only an HDMI output, no component output at all. It can do 480p but not 480i. As stated above, it is not just a comparison of what they can output but comparing how well they output for the same $'s. In all the tests I've seen an upconverting player best a comparably priced analog only player. I don't think they even make high quality analog only players any more. All the top players are digital with upconverting. If you want to show me a specific example countering this view, feel free.

No it isn't. It's Blu-ray, not Blu Ray.

How about BLUE FUCKING RAY. Will that work here?

Who is comparing pirates of the caribean to the dark knight?
What was said was that there was a 30:1 ratio of dvd sales to blue ray sales of pirates, to which you said "we shouldnt use pirates because it was a crap movie". My point still stands, why does it matter if it was a crap movie when comapring dvd sales of a movie with blue ray sales of the SAME movie? It is not a better or worse movie because it is on blue ray.

Feel free. It would have nothing to do with the topic at hand, but have fun.

The least you could do is spell it correctly. Blu-ray. It's alright man...calm down. We could meet at Famous Daves and talk it over (you are my neighbor after all in Simi )