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Tag: discs

  • Consumers Prefer Discs Over Downloads At Home


    Watching movies and other video content on DVD and Blu-ray Disc accounts for 88 per cent of home entertainment spending – even although newer digital methods are beginning to gain a foothold in the consumer market.

    The average US home video consumer reported spending an average of USD $25 per month on all types of home video purchases and rentals, according to NPD Group.

    The researchers found that when it comes to spending on home video content: 63 per cent was spent on DVD purchases; 7 per cent on BD purchases; 18 per cent on DVD/BD rentals from retail stores, subscriptions or kiosks; 9 per cent on video on-demand (VOD); and 3 per cent on digital downloads and online streaming.

    Most consumers don’t use digital options to watch a full-length movie, although the numbers have grown over the last year.

    Digital movie downloaders also tend to buy and rent Blu-ray Discs more than the average consumer: 25 per cent of them bought or rented a Blu-ray Disc in the last three months, versus 5 per cent overall.

    Russ Crupnick, entertainment industry analyst for NPD, said discs are still and by far the dominant way Americans enjoy home video.

    "But there is an increasing appetite for digital options," he said. "The good news is that the consumers engaging with digital video today also tend to be heavy consumers of DVDs and Blu-ray Disc, but it remains to be seen just how long physical discs and digital formats can co-exist."

  • Europe's HDTVs "Starved of HD Content"


    FutureSource Consulting has produced an interesting chart (see below) that highlights the gulf between HDTV ownership and the penetration of Blu-ray disc players in Europe.

    It shows that there are 69 million HD-ready TV sets but just 8 million Blu-ray players,including PS3 consoles – prompting the title: "61 million TVs starved of HD content".

    While HD content is obviously available from other sources – such as VOD and HD broadcasting TV stations – the chart clearly shows how much work remains for backers of Blu-ray to get the high-def format into the mainstream.

    The UK tops the chart with 42 per cent of households owning a HDTV and 9 per cent a Blu-ray player.

    Germany comes bottom with 24 per cent with HDTVs and 3 per cent with a Blu-ray player.

    FutureSource is bullish that the numbers of HDTVs seemingly devoid of HD content will soon be reduced.

    It forecasts a strong rise in Blu-ray Player sales – up to 19 million in Western Europe for 2009 and 45 million players by the end of 2011.

  • Panasonic's VHS/Blu-ray Combo Upconverts SD Video to 1080p


    The world’s first Blu-ray-VHS dual player is to go on sale in the US from next month.

    Made by Panasonic, the DMP-BD70V has a multi-format playback that allows users to play VHS, CD, DVD and 1080p high definition Blu-ray Discs.

    It also allows standard DVDs and VHS tapes to be up-converted to 1080p resolution.

    While the picture quality of VHS tapes obviously doesn’t rival Blu-ray, it does produce an impressive picture – something certain to appeal to the many households with stacks of VHS tapes lying around.

    The DMP-BD70V has been available in Japan since last year.

    The combo VHS/DVD/Blu-ray/SD Card Player is to be priced at USD $399.

  • Can Blu-ray Now Be Regarded As"Mainstream"?


    Sales of Blu-ray discs have climbed to such an extent in Europe that the high-def format is now officially "mainstream".

    At least that’s according to the cross-industry trade body, Digital Entertainment Group Europe(DEGE).

    Funded by the major Hollywood studios, the group says sales of Blu-ray software – which doesn’t include PS3 games titles – has increased five-fold in Europe, from 1.7 million units in 2007 to almost 8.5 million in 2008.

    This has no doubt been helped in part by the falling price of the discs, which are now approaching the level of DVDs.

    But the rising number of Blu-ray disc player owners is also fuelling demand for the software.

    Dedicated deck sales in the UK reached 100,000 in December.

    According to the DEGE, there are now over 2.1 million Blu-ray capable games consoles and standalone players in the UK, almost 1.4 million in France and over a million in Germany.

  • Sony Plans Movie and Game on Blu-ray Disc


    Sony is planning on creating a hybrid Blu-ray – with a game and movie on the same disc.

    The move is being viewed as a way to boost the appeal of the Playstation 3 in the face of falling prices for Blu-ray players and the increasing popularity of games consoles such as Wii and XBOX 360.

    The company is currently working on making the most of Blu-ray’s 50GB capacity by basically burning a full-length feature film to the empty space on a game-disc, which typically only uses around 30GB.

    Sony’s director of hardware marketing, John Koller, said that there will be as many as two or three releases of the new hybrid discs this year.

    "There are a lot of developers who say, we have this game based on a movie, wouldn’t it be great to marry these concepts? We will definitely see this stuff this year," Koller told VideoBusiness.

    Whether there is sufficient appeal in movie-based games remains to be seen – especially if Sony refuses to drop the prices of the PS3.

  • Sony Takes On Pirates By Opening Blu-ray Plant in China


    Sony is turning its sights on the growing high-def market in China with the opening of a Blu-ray manufacturing plant in Shanghai.

    The new plant will produce 500,000 of the high-def discs per month specifically for the domestic market.

    With bootlegging a major problem in China the move by Sony is certainly bold.

    Not least because there are strong doubts over whether Chinese consumers are willing to pay the price premium for Blu-ray.

    Illegal DVDs fetch USD $1 compared to official Blu-ray discs that could cost up to USD $30.

    If successful, the rewards are certainly appealing.

    Blu-ray is growing in China with three Chinese manufacturers making the high-def players and Pioneer, Sony and Panasonic importing devices.

    Sony expects to add around 100 new Blu-ray titles by the end of the year to the 32 currently available in China.

    The company already has Blu-ray disc plants in the United States, Japan and Austria.

    By having a manufacturing plant in China, Sony should be better placed to combat piracy by avoiding import permits and taxes while also releasing movies to consumers faster.

    Sony just reported its first annual operating loss in 14 years and announced that it plans to close one of its two television plants in Japan – Ichinomiya TEC – and cut 2,000 full-time jobs.

    The cutbacks follow last month’s announcement that 16,000 jobs were to be lost.

    Sony is targeting a global headcount reduction of approximately 30 per cent across its TV design operations and related divisions by the end of the fiscal year ending March 31, 2010.

  • Netflix Beats Blu-ray Target – Hopes High For 2009


    Netflix has reached its target of 500,000 Blu-ray subscribers ahead of schedule.

    The retailer’s chief financial officer Barry McCarthy said subscribers had added the option of paying an extra USD $1 to receive Blu-ray Disc titles at a quicker rate than Netflix forecast in October.

    While prices of Blu-ray players have dropped sharply recently, the same has not been true of disc prices. This may have benefitted Netflix’s HD rental service as new Blu-ray player owners look to rent moviest rather than buy them.

    Netflix expects the Blu-ray service to help boost total subscribers to about 9 million by the end of the year.

    To continue its high-def push, Netflix will promote Blu-ray inside its mailing envelopes next year.

    As well as providing the Blu-ray option, the company has boosted subscribers by offering its listing of over 12,000 video-streaming titles available for TV viewing through TiVo digital video recorders.

    Last week, Netflix also began offering an HD download service on two Samsung Blu-ray players.

  • Japan Grasps Blu-ray – US Starts To Get Taste


    Blu-ray players bucked generally weak Black Friday sales in the US – helped considerably by average prices dropping to USD $200, according to DisplaySearch.

    Stripping out sales of Sony’s PlayStation 3, the researchers report that US Blu-ray Disc player revenue "more than tripled from a year earlier" during the week of Thanksgiving and Black Friday .

    Over USD $30 million was generated on sales of 147,000 Blu-ray decks.

    With Sony and Samsung leading the charge by dropping the price of their entry-level machines to below USD $200, overall costs averaged half the $400 price tag of a year ago.

    Coupled with the strong BD player sales, retailers have been reporting sales of HDTVs have been similarly buoyant despite the economic difficulties.

    If the US – finally – appears to be on the cusp of grasping Blu-ray, take a look at the Japanese market.

    BD recorders now account for half of all DVD recorders in the country – up from just 10 per cent last October.

    Even if this phenomenal rise is down to price drops it must still make for cheery year-end reading for the Blu-ray Disc Association.

    Now maybe it can turn its attention to the price of Blu-ray Disc prices.

    While the release of The Dark Knight is expected to boost the high-def format’s disc sales, the general perception is that the movie studios need to cut prices to ensure Blu-ray really does take off.

  • Blu-Ray Takes On Pirates And Old HD Rival In China


    Blu-Ray discs will go on sale in China for the first time today – officially that is.

    While it’s been possible to buy dubious pirated version of the high-def format for some time, today marks the start of what is expected to be a major push by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment into the vast Chinese market.

    Discs will be priced in the region of RMB200 (USD $30) and will be available online and in-store.

    The initial movie offering isn’t extensive – just 30 titles will be available – including Hancock, the recent Spiderman movies and classics including Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

    To coincide with the introduction of the discs, Sony is also launching its BDP-S350 Blu-ray player into the Chinese market.

    It’s an environment where rampant piracy of high-definition discs, among other things, is already an issue.

    Authorities in China recently seized over 800 illegally pirated Blu-ray titles. The discs contained movies ripped from Blu-ray to DVD using AVCHD compression.

    The fakes, seized in Shenzhen, were packaged in realistic-looking Blu-ray boxes, complete with authenticating holograms.

    The bust has highlighted flaws in the robust copy-protection that Blu-ray is supposed to have, although the Motion Picture Association International said this was the first ever seizure of this type of disc.

    Sony Pictures is the first Hollywood studios to release films on the high definition format in China but both Warner Brothers and Disney are in talks with local replicators and distributors in order to release their Blu-ray titles in the country as well.

    But pirates aren’t the only opposition Blu-ray is likely to face.

    Production of China’s self-developed high-definition optical disc format – China Blue High-definition Disc (CBHD) – is expected to begin production before the end of the year.

    Shanghai United Optical Disc has completed its first production line for the modified version of the Toshiba-supported HD DVD format that lost out to Blu-ray.

    But with no Hollywood studios on board, it faces an uphill battle with (at least) three studios now preparing Blu-ray releases in China.

  • HDTV Owners Prefer Blu-ray….They're Just Not Buying Them


    The latest survey from SmithGeiger shows that HDTV owners would rather watch movies on Blu-ray Disc than stream content directly to their TV.

    Well, hardly any surprise there. There’s never been any doubt about the phenomenal quality of Blu-ray images – but that still doesn’t seem to be translating into sales.

    Even with price drops in the US of between USD $200 and $300, the HD players aren’t rushing off the shelves.

    Texas superstore Bjorn’s and Pennsylvania-based Gerhard Appliances reported no sales change after Sony and Samsung cut USD $100 off their respective BDP-S350 and BD-P1500 models to USD $299 at the end of September.

    US consumer electronics retailers are hoping the fast approaching Black Friday – the day after Thanksgiving Day and traditionally one of the busiest shopping days of the year – will prove to be a sales bonanza even with the current economic troubles.

    Yet, while SmithGeiger’s survey of 1,600 HDTV owners revealed a 10-to-1 preference for Blu-ray over streaming content it underlines Blu-ray’s problem.

    Too many consumers seem happy with their DVD players and appear unwilling to fork out for another machine – even if Blu-ray prices are now dropping rapidly.

    This reluctance is a barrier that the consortium of companies behind the HD technology have so far been unable to overcome.

    So perhaps the news that the movie studios and consumer electronic makers are going to begin a USD $25 million advertising promotion for Blu-ray is a step towards addressing what could be a fatal flaw.

    Especially since more set-top boxes are focussing on offering streaming digital content, with the cost of the services decreasing.

    A monthly subscription fee to Netflix is seen by many as a cheaper alternative to purchasing a Blu-ray player and discs, not least if you already own the movie on DVD.

    Streaming content is going to continue to expand and will become more lucrative, especially as a wider library of TV episodes and movies becomes available.

    Blu-ray beware – time is running out.