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DVD Sales Plummet.....Blu Ray not enuf to make up

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The article below is copied from a Yahoo tech article.

http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/null/123584

DVD sales plummet, Blu-ray unable to save the day

The numbers for 2008 are in and they don't look good: DVD sales are now showing the first signs that they're about to go into free-fall, just like sales of CDs did a few years ago.

For the second year running, DVD sales have slipped. After hitting a high of $24.1 billion in 2006, the total sales volume his $21.6 billion in 2008, a total decline of about 10 percent off the 2006 high.

DVD's purported savior -- Blu-ray -- has been unable to rise to the rescue so far. Blu-ray (and leftover HD DVD) disc sales hit just $750 million last year, which doesn't nearly make up for the loss in sales of DVD media. Since Blu-ray discs are more expensive than DVDs, the overall unit sales decline is even more worrisome for Hollywood -- and some studios are seeing income plummet accordingly. For example, Fox operating income dropped 72 percent last year after seeing DVD sales fall just 15 percent.

Hits aren't going to save the day, either: Warner Bros. had the #1 selling DVD of 2008, The Dark Knight, but saw overall DVD sales drop 24 percent nonetheless. Disney -- running out of "classics from the vault" to reissue -- had a whopping 33 percent drop in DVD sales last year.

Naturally, the recession is being targeted as the culprit for all the bad news, but pundits say other factors are at play. One big issue? Former Fox and Disney executive Bill Mechanic says that the introduction of Blu-ray media has led studios to radically cut prices on their older DVDs as they attempt to position Blu-ray as a superior good. That plan may have backfired, instead driving consumers to snap up cheap DVDs instead. Says Mechanic, "It’s devalued the libraries. If you can buy Titanic for $4.99 versus $19.99 for a new, but lesser, movie on Blu-ray, consumers will say, 'Well, wait a minute…'"

To be sure, Blu-ray is growing -- up 250 percent since 2007 -- but it still represents less than 3.5 percent of the overall market. Analysts now wonder whether Blu-ray will be able to pick up steam fast enough -- or if the future has already been handed over to online downloading and streaming alternatives. With companies like Netflix rushing into streaming as quickly as possible, that certainly seems like a strong possibility.
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Showing 2 responses by johnnyb53

johnnyb53
3,510 posts
 
I'm 55, have a pretty strong eyeglass prescription, and yet I can easily tell the difference between upsampled 480p and Blu-ray displayed to my 2005 model Hitachi 720p native mode RP LCD display.

And it's nowhere near what you can get with Blu-ray 1080p/24 into a 120 or 72 Hz 1080p display.

1080p/24 not only destroys upsampled 480p, you'll be hard-pressed to find a movie theater with as good a picture. Blu-ray 1080p/24 isn't an incremental improvement over DVD, it offers better resolution than 35mm and is at least competitive with 70mm and IMAX.
johnnyb53
3,510 posts
 
This thread is certainly a study in perceptions and values. Some posters here have much nicer displays than I do but don't think Blu-ray is worth the extra trouble and money. My HD display is a lowly 55" LCD-driven rear-projection 720p Hitachi. I don't have 120Hz refresh nor any way to display 24fps in native mode. And yet, once I saw my first HD DVD (and later, Blu-ray) discs played over my TV, I swore I'd never buy another std-def DVD again, and that's been an easy promise to live up to. I want all the resolution I can get. I pay the extra $1/mo. to have Blu-ray in my Netflix profile, and I have filled my queue with Blu-ray discs.

I can barely stand to watch std-def DVDs on my TV. And I also know that this is nowhere nearly as good as it can get. I've seen 1080p Blu-ray sources played over 1080p displays that can display native mode 24 fps, and it's better than movie theaters. It's also way better than HD cable.

I'm also not set up to decode the lossless codecs yet, but even the Blu-ray's downconverted soundtracks sound better than std-def DVD because of the faster transfer rate.

Some Blu-ray discs have an indifferent digital transfer, and the 1st gen discs (from 2007) were mostly crammed onto 25 GB single-layer discs, but the latest ones have been excellent and some--especially those from Paramount--are breathtaking.

I refuse to half-close my eyes and pretend std-def DVD is as good as the theater or Blu-ray. It isn't.
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