I"m cool with that. I'm just going to call a spade a spade when I see it is all.

Sales are very low, yet we still have Criterion and Kino announcing BD plans. Sales are very low, yet Universal and Paramount are going to spend the money to produce on BD. They're not going to enter the market unless their research has told them that they can make money off of BD. Universal are even going back and redoing some titles previously released on HD DVD. They are not simply porting over everything. They are going to spend money to correct some of their bad releases.

Let's wait and see how BD can do this Christmas with 0 HD competition. I have no doubt we'll see some extremely aggressive marketing and promos. I'm going to believe all the insider posting saying 2009 is when the big push begins. I am not thinking for 1 second that BD can't be successful. I don't want BD to fail.

We still don't have all studios releasing titles yet. Universal and Paramount will provide BD a big boost. This Fall/Winter, the BDA will be able to use Iron Man, The Dark Knight, Indy 4, Incredible Hulk, and Prince Caspian to help push the format.

Why wouldn't any studios not want to join in? They hope sales pick up and they can make as much as possible because they know there are many early adopters will gladly hand over $35 for junk on Blu-ray. But, as I said earlier, if sales do not pick up several times over and somewhat big catalog titles like Predator don't sell, they may pack up their toys and go home. You can spin it anyway you want, but looking at the numbers posted for April 27th...sales were just plain bad. A direct to DVD release like Day of the Dead probably sold more copies then all of Blu-ray combined that week.

As for no HD competition
Most people tend to forget about AppleTV, VuDu, Xbox 360, PS3 (soon), Amazon Unbox, and all the other HD in you're living room solutions either available now or very soon. While its not a physical disc, for many, they don't care. Blu-ray will probably be (unless VMD decides to come out?) the only HD disc solution this Holiday season, but there will be plenty of ways to watch HD content without buying a Blu-ray player. Thats why I shake my head when Panasonic launches the first 2.0 Blu-ray player at $699 and Phillips raises the price $50. They need to be lower, not higher. We all want Blu-ray to succeed now that there is no other option...but with the way things are going its got a huge mountain to climb.

HD I refer to is full 1080p and lossless audio. If no one buys players at certain prices, the prices will drop. No one is forced to buy a standalone. There will be more HDTV and player bundles later this year. And you can always pick up a PS3 for $399.

I just think it's too early to hit the panic button.

Of the HD "competition" you mentioned above, do any of those offer full, uncompressed 1080p video and lossless audio and allow you to own the movies forever?

720p is HD. 1080i is HD. Most people do not have 1080p TVs. Most people do not have any type of surround sound system (and if they do its most likely hooked up incorrectly). Most people are happy watching 4:3 content stretched to fit their 16:9. Most are happy with DVDs upconverted. Unless you can produce a Blu-ray SA figure sheet, I'd be shocked to see more then 5-6k Blu-ray SA players sold a week. There are reason why we don't see that sheet like we did when it was BD vs. HD...because the numbers are so low no one wants to talk about it. And those sales are at current $399 pricing. We only now have 1 sub $299 player and its store branded player (Magnavox, Funai, Insignia whatever). Everything else is $349-$699. Just to find a player thats full spec is going to cost you $699!

As for buying a PS3...I don't even want the one I have now. I just want a stand alone that plays all discs, doesn't take a week to load a disc, and does not need weekly firmware updates. Analog outputs would be nice as well. As soon as one comes along (S550...please) I will dump my PS3 on Craigslist. For many, a PS3 is not a solution.

We can argue back and fourth but it won't go anywhere. As I said from the start, I can't see studios support a format where they may not even break even. They may hold out as long as possible in hopes of it happening...but it may turn into a UMD-like format (yes, I know UMDs can only be played on PSP...bla bla bla but ones sales stopped, the studios pulled out almost over night).


Most people don't care about owning them. Its a rental. AppleTVs are not selling because you can stream music to them. Once Apple started the Movie rentals/purchases through AppleTV a few months ago they started flying off the shelves. VuDu is apparently doing ok, and we still have the mystery Blockbuster box and Netflix to 360/PS3 streaming coming soon. Lots of ways to watch HD content without paying $400 for a player and $30 a disc. I, like you, would rather pay and keep a disc. Others...well, they might just be happy with DVDs and renting HD content.

I'm not worried about Blu-ray dying, but with catalog titles and arthouse fare selling especially poorly, I am a bit concerned that we'll see less of that in the short term. (As an early adopter, the short term is really all that matters to me. I'll worry about the long term down the road when it starts to become the short term. ) With as many studios are diving in, I don't think those sorts of movies will be in any short supply, but I am wondering if we'll see fewer titles per studio.

The only thing thats really selling right now is Day and Dates...even if the movie sucks (AVP2). They could release Gladiator and Prom Night on Blu-ray the same week and Prom Night would sell 5-6x more copies then Gladiator. It seems the average folk are either not interested in "old" titles or don't want to upgrade there DVD (with possible more extras then the Blu is offering). I've so far enjoyed most of which has come out, but then Sony goes ahead and announced I Know What You Did Last Summer I and II as well as Urban Legend. There surely must be better films to release then that, right?

Has there every been a catalog title in the Top 3 before (not something that was given away at every store like when The Wild was at Best Buy)? That may change with Paramount (Bee Movie, Blood, Cloverfield), but there closer to Day and Dates then Catalog titles at this point.

FWIW The BD30 had it's first firmware update in 3 months last week. Certainly not weekly.

Samsungs....well....

I was referring to the PS3 with its weekly firmware updates that add usually add nothing.

Actually not. Here is what a combined DVD/BD chart would look like for last week:

1. 27 Dresses 100.00
2. The Golden Compass 71.38
3. Juno 26.23
4. Cloverfield 25.24
5. Alvin and the Chipmunks 15.20
6. Charlie Wilson's War 13.09
7. Alien vs. Predator: Requiem 8.70
8. Enchanted 7.42
9. I Am Legend 7.31
10. The Water Horse: The Legend of the Deep 6.15
11. The Golden Compass 5.55
12. There Will Be Blood 5.05
13. Bee Movie 4.75
14. Sweeney Todd 4.42
15. No Country for Old Men 4.22
16. One Missed Call 4.17
17. In the Name of the King 3.77
18. The Orphanage 3.45
19. Casino Royale 3.11
20. Indiana Jones: The Complete Movie Collection 3.07

Maybe you have a different PS3 then the rest of us do. The last firmware upgrade was April 15th, about a month ago.

Here's another interesting data snapshot from Amazon.com:

Title/Blu-ray Sales Rank/Overall Sales Rank (Movies & TV)

National Treasure 2-pack 1/6
Batman Begins 25/200
Die Hard w/Vengance 50/536
Die Hard Collection 75/954
Patton 100/1,455

More percentages. Meaningless, and total spin. Give me numbers.

Don't plan on seeing it.

Nice deflection. You said that the 500th best selling DVD likely sells more than that top BD on any given week. Didn't you?

Whereas last week the eleventh best-selling DVD sold less than the top BD.

Eleven. Not five hundred.

Therefore you were utterly wrong. Now that you are proven wrong, you say it doesn't matter anyway if you don't have the numbers. Well if only the numbers mattered, then why did you make such a bold statement regarding rankings?

Is Blu-ray.com down or something? While most of us know the 500th DVD is still not going to outsell the #1 Blu-ray, the numbers still suck. I'm sure there are many titles that didn't sell more then 10 copies last week on Blu-ray. The 27th numbers speak for themselves.

You should know - you go there to steal (your words) the sales figures from my posts.

Wait, 27 Dresses outsold The Golden Compass on DVD? Really?

Really. From Home Media Magazine:

Do I really have to go find the PS3 update dates? We both know it's not weekly.

I don't get the "gloom and doom" over the prospects of Blu-ray Disc. Mass market type players were just introduced last week. Last week! They could be priced under $200 by Fall.

No, BD isn't likely to ever achieve anything close to the market penetration that DVD did, but it is sure to grow substantially over the next year or two.

As for the low sales numbers of discs in recent weeks, given the slate of titles available, is that really a surprise? If we were to see the same sort of numbers next Fall when the popular summer movies get released on BD, THEN would be the time to hit the panic button for the format. Until then, I prefer to think of it as the "Spring doldrums".

Catalog titles may be slow in coming, but I think that there will be some trickling out. Give it some time.

With only 5 million BD capable players in US homes, how many copies should the top selling titles sell? I still don't understand the point of wanting to compare dvd sales against BD sales. If a high selling title like I Am Legend sells 5 million copies on dvd to a user base of 130 MILLION players, then how many titles should the BD have sold to a user base of 5 million players?

Well of course BD sales are going to be much lower than dvd, given the user base. And they are priced alittle higher than dvd.

What percentage of DVD owners bought I Am Legend vs the percentage of BD owners? Anyone know?

Who cares about percentages? I would say 100 people bought D-VHS and 90 of those people bought Alien. Whoopiee doo.

The studios.

Of course, that fact probably doesn't mesh to well with all the angry vitriol on display around these parts, so I suppose it will be dismissed as either incorrect or irrelevant.

I think what matters most to the studios is how many units of a given title actually sell.

I don't know how much it costs to release any one title on Blu-ray, but there is some minimum number required to be sold in order to break even for title X or Y.