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Jay Gladwell wrote on 8/27/2007, 8:27 AM

Disc Sales: Hard Numbers in for First Half of 2007
Wed Aug 15, 2007 at 01:45 PM ET

New data released Tuesday by Home Media Research provides a first look at actual disc sales numbers for the first half of 2007, and it's more good news for Blu-ray.

The research arm of Home Media Magazine says total sales of Blu-ray discs for the first six month of 2007 totalled 1.6 million units, compared with 795,000 HD-DVD discs sold in the same time frame.

While Blu-ray's 2-to-1 disc sales lead over HD DVD in 2007 has been known for months now, these figures are the first hard look at exactly how many discs have been sold by each format so far this year.

Of course, these numbers remain tiny compared to standard-def DVD sales. Both high-def disc formats combined have reportedly accounted for only 2.5% of overall disc sales so far this year.

Still, with overall DVD sales in a continued slump, high-def remains the one clear growth area for the home entertainment industry. As such, retailers are said to be making more room for both next-gen formats as we head into the crucial fourth quarter holiday shopping season.

What effect the increased shelf space, a packed release slate, and lower player prices will have on disc sales for the second half of the year remains to be seen, but needless to say, we'll be tracking developments as they happen. Stay tuned!

Source: http://www.highdefdigest.com/tags/show/Disc_Sales



blink3times wrote on 8/27/2007, 9:46 AM
Would you expect anything less??

Come on, let's be honest here. At this early stage of the game if the consumer wants to watch a 1/2 way decent movie...they have little choice but to go BD. The playing board is extremely lop sided and studio heavy on the BD side. The paramount decision has helped and there has not been any serious ripple effects against BD (so far anyway) I believe it was The New York Times (or LA Times can't remember which one) that stated they were pretty amazed that HD DVD was still alive with the board tilted so far over to the BD side. They went further to state that if everybody was to be really fair and truly allow the consumer to choose, then the playing field would have to be leveled and everybody would have to go neutral.

Of course that's the LAST thing BD wants! :)

HD DVD however is still counting on the fact that surface HD market has not even really been scratched yet. From the reading I have done thus far (just opinion) Toshiba/Microsoft do not seem too phased or upset.

Ahead or behind though... I will continue to vote for HD DVD because it's just plain better for editors.
blink3times wrote on 8/27/2007, 11:42 AM
Oh... and BTW... I just heard back from Buddy Zarco (Dave) who I mentioned in the above posts was now making money with HD DVD. It seems his client came back to him and wanted a LOOPING hd dvd. Dave was a little bit nervous because he had never done it before. He was assured though that anything you could with DVD can also be done with HD DVD... and sure enough:

George,

What do ya know...a looping HD DVD (3x dvd) for what... a couple of bucks maybe?
apit34356 wrote on 8/27/2007, 1:12 PM
While, I "believe" that HD DVD is a lost cause for studios for many reasons....... but I think 3X DVD is a hot issue for product displays and similar areas, that could be a great 1-3 year market with great cost effectiveness for the HD DVD players to drive cheap HD displays, .... just think, every car dealer showroom, every grocery store, drug stores, medical clinics.........
fwtep wrote on 8/27/2007, 9:56 PM
They went further to state that if everybody was to be really fair and truly allow the consumer to choose, then the playing field would have to be leveled and everybody would have to go neutral.

Um, well, the BD versions of movies that are also out on HD-DVD are outselling their HD-DVD counterparts by about two to one. So don't tell me it's a matter of what's available and what's not. Consistently-- there's not a single exception, when a movie is out on both formats, the BR sells better.

As for Toshiba/MS not being upset, um, someone was upset and concerned enough to put pressure on Paramount.
apit34356 wrote on 8/28/2007, 1:12 AM
"As for Toshiba/MS not being upset," well, their investors are not pleased with slow advancement of HD DVD vs research investment. But Toshiba really is in a good position if both formats fail or are very slow developing because they still have all the royalties from DVD licenses. My friends at Philips electronic complained that Toshiba has been extremely slow at paying them their part of the DVD royalties the last two years.
blink3times wrote on 8/28/2007, 2:52 AM
"There's not a single exception, when a movie is out on both formats, the BR sells better."
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Players and disks kind of go hand in hand... one is no good without the other. If you out weigh one side with disk selections you will also out weigh it with players. At present (including the PS3) there are more BD players out there than HD DVD... naturally you will sell more of the BD disks. And let's not forget about Blockbuster playing a roll in this. Who knows how much they are resposible for falsely unbalancing the numbers by supporting only one side. They are not GIVEN those disks.
We''ll see what happens when the bigger HD DVD only movies start coming out.

And if that's how HD DVD gets upset, then you had better hope they don't get upset again. :)
blink3times wrote on 8/28/2007, 2:55 AM
"well, their investors are not pleased with slow advancement of HD DVD vs research investment."
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Much the same can be said on the Sony side.... investors are not at all happy about the rather dismal PS3 sales.
apit34356 wrote on 8/28/2007, 3:35 AM
"investors are not at all happy about the rather dismal PS3 sales." There's a lot of noise by the want-to-be-important crowd, but the investors that I know, one's that trade in the daily 7digits, are trying to acquire more Sony stock, IBM,TI and a few others in the consumer electronic manufacturing. The last year has seen a lot of movement of monies from land to consumer electronics, but not retail big boxes. Which means manufacturing is expected to recover sooner than later for consumer electronics( its like rolling dice). I guess the new models of income spending expect that individuals will spend on gadgets, TVs, music, cell phones vs homes and home improvement projects for the next 2 years. The US has new bankruptcy laws which changes the credit card debt issue, these changes has required a re writing of the business and investing models, one reason why the current mortgage market is viewed as less stable in debt collects vs credit cards vs wages. A quick summary is, credit for consumer electronics is stronger than home line of credit.
apit34356 wrote on 8/28/2007, 3:47 AM
"And let's not forget about Blockbuster playing a roll in this. Who knows how much they are resposible for falsely unbalancing the numbers by supporting only one side. They are not GIVEN those disks." Wow, you really miss the point on the volume concerning Blockbuster, BK actually takes away numbers of sales on new releases, the only benefit the studio gains when the movie prices drop to a point where the BK customer decides to buy vs rent. Actually HD DVD may have gain some sales that would have been a rental of the big releases.
blink3times wrote on 8/28/2007, 4:00 AM
"Hear-say" at this point.... did not find a link to support it... a bit lazy this morning. But for what it's worth, this from the AVS forum:

HD DVD SURGE - As of 8/28/07, 3 of top 13 DVD's on Amazon are HD DVD's
apit34356 wrote on 8/28/2007, 4:12 AM
I expected a boost in sales for HD DVD from the BK announcement more immediate that from the Paramount. I would buy a movie vs. using "Netflix" because I'm too impatient to wait. Individuals using these services are less likely to be retail buyers of first releases in big box stores.
blink3times wrote on 8/28/2007, 4:22 AM
"BK actually takes away numbers of sales on new releases, "
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I'm not talking about what happens with BK internally.... who cares. I'm talking about total disks BOUGHT by BK and shipped TO BK for rental purposes. That greatly outweighs total HD DVD purchases by BK.

Now I don't know for sure but I would hazard to guess that when total disk sales are calculated the final equation does NOT read "total sales MINUS bk purchases" for both sides.
blink3times wrote on 8/28/2007, 4:37 AM
'Individuals using these services are less likely to be retail buyers of first releases in big box stores."
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But the point is that we're beginning to see a reaction from the CONSUMERS, now that the playing field is a LITTLE bit more leveled. My guess is that these number will continue to grow.

What I would really be interested in seeing is consumer reaction if the playing field was COMPLETELY leveled.

apit34356 wrote on 8/28/2007, 5:07 AM
"playing field was COMPLETELY leveled." what product ever is on a level playing field?

"Now I don't know for sure but I would hazard to guess that when total disk sales are calculated the final equation does NOT read "total sales MINUS bk purchases" for both sides." Without a doubt, those listings with volume sales include rental stores sales until less stated in the disclaimer. Some listings do exclude contractual distribution volumes, but they state so.

"I'm talking about total disks BOUGHT by BK " Example,-------- If Bk buys 30 copies per store, rents all copies 24 the first month = 720 viewings of the month per store. a low estimate of p.buyers that are renting is 20% = 144 copy sales lost to rentals in the first month. 144-30=94 lost sales per store. Xstores x 94=, the numbers add up fast for lost sales. For unknown productions, rental stores and libraries are a god send.

blink3times wrote on 8/28/2007, 5:40 AM
"the numbers add up fast for lost sales."
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Yes, I understand that...and it would be a really great point to make if you were talking about DVD's or CD's.... some market that the average consumer had their teeth buried in. But here for the most part what you are dealing with at present are Connoisseurs of video, and cutting edge technology... hardly the average consumer Most people in this category will own as opposed to rent. This can be easily seen by going on to the AVS forum and seeing those that proudly boast of their HD collections thus far in their signature section..... and their are A LOT of them.
Jay Gladwell wrote on 8/28/2007, 6:23 AM

But here for the most part what you are dealing with at present are Connoisseurs of video, and cutting edge technology... hardly the average consumer.

As mentioned in the article above, this segment of market "accounted for only 2.5% of overall disc sales so far this year," and thats' both BR and HD DVD!

Based on that, it appears that the vast majority of folks are waiting to see who wins this "war."


apit34356 wrote on 8/28/2007, 6:44 AM
But the AVS forums will not determine the winner, the general market will. Today, Sony, Disney, Fox, Philips ,etc all have big brand names with good market image. Sony been heavy attacked but still has the best brand name as of today by a wide margin, by all published marketing surveys and this must drive the HD DVD crowd mad. SO many people have tried to fix the image of betamax to the Bluray name that it is funny and a sign of how weak the marketing position of the HD DVD is. These individuals fail to understand that most of the market does not remember Betamax and this "buying crowd" is this still struggling to remember VHS and CDs in the early 90's. Electronics are constantly changing, now TVs are too, forcing the average consumer to make more complex decisions than ever before, brand names and cost rule the market, not blue-screen-death MS and Toshiba. More people have a negative image of MS and a "Who's that" reference to Toshiba. The sad fact is that Apple or google would be more important as a "positive" marketing partner in HD DVD than MS. Paramount and Universal can survive an 18 month contract with HD DVD using box-office earnings if they have any big hits. But if they struggle in the first 6 months, capital for new movies will be come harder to get from the the parent companies. This is where a re-alignment in the studios in the near future, 8 to 10 months, concerning directors, etc can possibly create some new studios, producing smaller budget films(this could a good thing). Hopefully, All the talking heads will be gone and be working for MS ;-)
blink3times wrote on 8/28/2007, 6:45 AM
"Based on that, it appears that the vast majority of folks are waiting to see who wins this "war.""
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Yes, I know. If you look above SOMEWHERE,you will find an article I posted stating that TOTAL combined hi def sales have now finally surpassed that of VHS for the first time. Really quite funny if you think about it... who still buys VHS???
fwtep wrote on 8/28/2007, 10:41 AM
Blink, sales to rental stores (for discs used as rentals) are NOT counted in the Nielsen stats. So saying that a big sale to Blockbuster would make it appear that BR is selling better is false. And the other folks are right that rentals cut into the sales. And to say that that would only be by a small amount is false. Blockbuster is obviously renting quite a few discs or else they wouldn't even be bothering.

As for Amazon, their sales get reported to Nielsen, so we'll see on Sunday if HD has really had any kind of surge. My guess is that BR will still have about 64-66%, which is what they usually have. (Last week's 71% was an anomaly that I've only seen one other time in the past four months.)

And I find it really odd that the HD crowd has been crowing forever about how HD players are outselling BR players, but now they say the opposite. Then they say that PS3 was a failure for Sony, yet still say that it tips the balance in player sales.

And for some unknown reason, the HD crowd still acts like PS3 shouldn't count, or is some kind of freak, whereas it was always intended as being part of the BR family. So it's not "yeah, if you factor in the PS3 systems" any more than it should be "yeah, if you add in the Onkyo HD-DVD systems." People do, contrary to what the HD crowd claims, buy the PS3 intentionally as a combo games/BR system. So stop singling out the PS3 like it's some distant cousin of BR and that "ya kinda sorta shouldn't really count it in with player sales but OK I will."

And I wouldn't count on those instantly updated Amazon ranks as anything indicative. Depending on what time of day and what day of the week it is, a sale of 30 discs can bring something up. Even my movie would fluctuate between the 100's and the 1000's on a daily basis. Plus, the BR folks already bought "300" remember? Maybe the HD folks finally decided to buy it now. More importantly, that's a DVD/HD-DVD combo, so there's no way of knowing whether it's HD folks who are buying it. Right now it's at #3, but the BR version, which IS just for BR users, is at #7. That's not too shabby for something that was already a big seller last month. Out of the top 25 discs (as of when I'm writing), 5 are BR, 3 are HD, and one is a combo.

Doesn't matter though, because it's the number of discs sold that counts, not the ranking. And since Amazon doesn't show the number sold we have no way of knowing how far the spread is. For example, as far as we know, the #3 spot might have sold only 5 more copies than the #7 spot. Considering how few people own high-def players, that's probably pretty likely too (well, slightly more than a spread of 5).

And "most popular items in Electronics" doesn't mean sales, as far as I'm aware. It means that a lot of people have been looking at it.
apit34356 wrote on 8/28/2007, 11:14 AM
Blink's Amazon posting was interesting, I expected a small sales spike for HD DVD after all the news posting. But Like you, I expect Amazon lists are being driven by spiderbots and the HD DVD crowd cruising the HD DVD listing looking for market moment, creating a larger spike than actually sales. There's probably a few that have they browers constantly updating the amazon pages, pushing the numbers.
apit34356 wrote on 8/28/2007, 11:34 AM
Fwtep, "DVD/HD-DVD combo" I believe that it does help the sales numbers. I think a closer look at the Paramount contract is needed, if the new releases can only be HD DVD that could be a $$ problem in sales, but if DVD/HD-DVD combo is permitted,(which is the better option) then the contract impact in the market will be less immediate in increasing HD DVD player sales. I just don't see enough (movies) volume to save the HD DVD player collapsing to a reasonable price dual player product. Tho, Toshiba sells TVs, the HD DVD crowd doesn't have enough money to flood the market with HD DVD and HD TVs packages to get the market attention, at this time.
blink3times wrote on 8/28/2007, 1:12 PM
"Blink, sales to rental stores (for discs used as rentals) are NOT counted in the Nielsen stats."
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Mmmm... Nelson Stats... these were the same numbers you were using to predict the BD landslide a short time ago.... yes? ;)

I'm well aware that they are not included. That does not discount from the FACT that Amizon is showing DEFINITE signs of increased HD DVD activity. The top ten movies on amazon in the last 24hours as indicated by them are HD DVD's This has not been seen in some time on amazon.... it's something new. The Toshiba players are also being noted as the top sellers now. Not withstanding, Blades of Glory comes out today which will be a fair seller, Shrek and Transformers are coming out soon... and more. I'm pretty confident that your Nelson nmbers will increase.

As for the PS3... it may actually HELP hd dvd in the long run. Contrary to what you may think, the PS3 is not really being looked at seriously as a "player". As I stated above, my newspaper carried the Paramount story, and when you first opened the article, waht you saw right away, was a lrge pie chart showing HD DVD taking up 61% of the chart (they were talking about "players sold in the second quarter of 2007. The PS3 is simply NOT taken seriously by a lot of the number crunchers... and it just happens to be the best playback device that BD has at present.

"And to say that that would only be by a small amount is false. Blockbuster is obviously renting quite a few discs or else they wouldn't even be bothering."
Really? I would have guessed quite the opposite. I think that Hi def rentals are so low that BK simply made the choice to side with the majority format (BD) and lose the rentals wit HD DVD.

And I wouldn't count on those instantly updated Amazon ranks as anything indicative.
I do tend to trust tha Amazon sales.... they haven't looked like that for Amazon in quite some time. Why would they fake it now??



Ranking at Amazon IS sales.

You can believe what you want FW... but there IS a DEFINITE increase in HD DVD activity. Having said that though, I still maintain that anything is possible because this war is FAR from over.
apit34356 wrote on 8/28/2007, 1:47 PM
4eyes posted an interesting process for HD video files with menus for the PSP3 and other computer DVD players on another threadl
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Laurence,
This is the directory structure of my avchd disks that I create that have menus & chapters. It's also the same directory structure used on the Sony handycams avchd mini-dvd high-def recorders. It's also similar to the same directory structure used when creating a Blu-Ray Disk BDMV format on the harddisk, although a BDMV disk has more directories than the avchd disks.

I've burnt dvd's using this BDMV directory structure to dvd's and they play in the PS3 in UDF 2.5 or 2.6 mode (Only Vista will read the 2.6 udf disk on the computer) Pretty sure you can read the 2.5 udf formatin XP if you have packet reading/writing software installed.
Note: The default udf mode in Nero doesn't work, need to use 2.5 or 2.6.

Using Nero I burn the BDMV folder to a dvd in UDF mode only (2.5 or 2.6)
------Nero DVD-ROM (UDF)
------Nero Multisession Tab = No Multisession (close this disk)
------Nero UDF Tab | Options = Manual settings (advanced users only)
------UDF partition type: = Physical Partition
------File system version UDF 2.5 or 2.6
------Label = AVCHD

BDMV/
------- /BACKUP
------- /CLIPINF
------- /PLAYLIST
------- /STREAM/ - (Files under the Streams Folder)
------------------- 00000.m2ts (Video File H264)
------------------- 00001.m2ts (Video File H264)
------------------- 00002.m2ts (Video File H264)
------------------- 00003.m2ts (Video File H264)
------------------- 00004.m2ts (Menu File - The very small files if more then one are the menu files)

If you have the same directory structure and files this should work and play in the PS3 with the last file (smallest one) being the menu file. The disks I've made also play in the Sony Blu-Ray Players.

Just duplicate the BDMV folder to a dvd in the udf 2.5 or 2.6 format. i would use 2.6 because that is what most avchd disks are created at. Sometimes the files have a .mts extension for harddisk creation and .m2ts for optical media. I don't know the difference why the 2 different extensions.

Subject: RE: OT: Sony CX7 AVCHD camcorder
Reply by: Laurence
Date: 8/27/2007 12:44:13 PM

Wow does AVCHD render slow! I'm rendering a little three minute project that I edited pretty easily using Gearshift proxies. Now I'm doing a render and it looks like it is going to take several hours. Ouch!

Edit: Render done in about half the estimated time, but still quite a bit slower than HDV.


Subject: RE: OT: Sony CX7 AVCHD camcorder
Reply by: 4eyes
Date: 8/28/2007 11:43:02 AM

Laurence,
This is an example of a cool device that the PS3 can connect to and playback the media. Has it's own built in nPnP server & ftp server. 2 drives max and flexible configuration. Pioneer's Blu-Ray player (expensive) is also uPnP DLNA compliant to receive streaming media.

I'm running a uPnP server (windows based). So all I do is render the files directly into the uPnP's shared directory and view them immediately on the PS3 via the network. I play full 25MBS just fine via the network, haven't tried wireless.

Dlink uPnP Media Server:
www.dlink.com/products/?sec=0&pid=509

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