752 replies to this topic

[MACCA350]

Chill, on Nov 9 2008, 09:39 PM, said:

Ok, fair enough, not sure where ?


Iron Man has sold 7,332,332 on DVD (US only) to date according to numbers

Has never been lower that 17% of sales according to Nielsen

Yep looks like 850K  

NOT

http://www.the-numbe...ly/thisweek.php

Chill, Chill.............like I said the info is in the link you put up, Page 8 under the heading "Paramount Financials Lifted By 'Iron Man'"

cheers

[The_Preacher1973]

MACCA350, on Nov 9 2008, 07:07 PM, said:

I see everyone ignored my post

cheers

Macca, it's hard to say what's going on there. I agree with your maths and your interpretation of the article. A 83:17 split on that first week total should have given the BD 1.2M in the first week alone.

The only thing I can say is sometime you have to be careful taking as gospel something said by a PR spokesman and reported by a reporter. One wrong word (such as shipped instead of sold, mixing up first week and first month etc.) and the whole situation changes.

Personally I'm not ready to junk Nielsen, the industry standard for reporting on the basis of one article. Everyone else can make up their own mind.

[MACCA350]

The_Preacher1973, on Nov 10 2008, 08:38 AM, said:

Macca, it's hard to say what's going on there. I agree with your maths and your interpretation of the article. A 83:17 split on that first week total should have given the BD 1.2M in the first week alone.

The only thing I can say is sometime you have to be careful taking as gospel something said by a PR spokesman and reported by a reporter. One wrong word (such as shipped instead of sold, mixing up first week and first month etc.) and the whole situation changes.

Personally I'm not ready to junk Nielsen, the industry standard for reporting on the basis of one article. Everyone else can make up their own mind.

I'd agree with that, and I'm sure Nielsen is 100% accurate for the information that it gathers............but there in lies the problem, they don't gather the total markets information, and it could be that the info that they gather are swayed towards BD simply due to the demographic of their market. eg they include Amazon but not Walmart.........whose sales will most definitely have different demographics and buying habits and hence different figures that Nielson would report.

Our assumption has always been that the Nielson figures are a close representation of the market, but it's quite possible that is not the case simply due to the incomplete information they collect...............but then again, as you mentioned, the reporter could have made a mistake

cheers

[The_Preacher1973]

MACCA350, on Nov 10 2008, 10:45 AM, said:

I'd agree with that, and I'm sure Nielsen is 100% accurate for the information that it gathers............but there in lies the problem, they don't gather the total markets information, and it could be that the info that they gather are swayed towards BD simply due to the demographic of their market. eg they include Amazon but not Walmart.........whose sales will most definitely have different demographics and buying habits and hence different figures that Nielson would report.

Our assumption has always been that the Nielson figures are a close representation of the market, but it's quite possible that is not the case simply due to the incomplete information they collect...............but then again, as you mentioned, the reporter could have made a mistake

cheers

Absolutely. I'd guess that the average BD buyer is probably more likley to use Amazon so yes, the sampling size could definitely skew things one way.

It's why I think you're better to use these figures to look for trends rather than being caught up in them being totally rock solid. At least that way any bias should be consistent.

[The_Preacher1973]

Nielsen Videoscan Results for W/E 2nd November 2008

Top 20 No. Discs Sold

8:92

Total Market Revenue

$12.2M:118M

9:91

Market Share of Individual Titles

Baraka 86%
Casino Royale:Collector’s Edition 58%
300 48%
PE 45%
I am Legend 35%
Transformers 34%
The Polar Express (3D) 26%
Halloween 24%
Dead Space:Downfall 20%
Iron Man 19%
The Shining 18%
The Incredible Hulk 18%
Batman Begins 17%
The Nightmare Before Christmas 13%
Indian Jones KOTCS 10%
Journey To The Centre of  The Earth 10%
Sleeping Beauty 9%
The Happening 8%
The Strangers 8%
Tinker Bell 3%

So a drop in overall market share this week as BD had no big releases. Tinker Bell performed extremely well on DVD yet predictably failed to generate much interest on BD.

Iron Man still tracking along quite nicely compared with the DVD version.

[tonyjg]

The_Preacher1973, on Nov 15 2008, 10:50 AM, said:

Tinker Bell performed extremely well on DVD yet predictably failed to generate much interest on BD.

what ???  you didn't purchase a copy on Blu-ray ?????  

[tonyjg]

The_Preacher1973, on Nov 15 2008, 10:50 AM, said:

Tinker Bell performed extremely well on DVD yet predictably failed to generate much interest on BD.

what ???  you didn't purchase a copy on Blu-ray ?????  


(so good - and slow was my PC that it had to repeat it twice in 10mins -  strange !!)

Edited by tonyjg, 15 November 2008 - 04:24 PM.

[The_Preacher1973]

Quote

‘Batman’ Could Save the Day

By Thomas K. Arnold | Posted: 10 Dec 2008
tarnold@questex.com


Can Batman save the home entertainment industry?

In a season of hit-or-miss theatrical blockbusters, where some of the misses have been by as much as 30% off target, Warner Home Video’s The Dark Knight landed squarely on the hit side, selling more than 3 million units its first day in stores, 600,000 of them on the high-definition Blu-ray Disc format.

That sets the stage for the Batman sequel to become the top-selling home video release of the year, mimicking its performance on the big screen, where its domestic gross of $530.3 million stands unmatched by any other theatrical release in the past decade.

“We were extremely pleased with first day sales, and we now think it will easily be the biggest title of this year in home video,” said Ron Sanders, president of Warner Home Video.

He notes that the Warner number includes sellthrough only in the United States, Canada and United Kingdom; sales to rental dealers are not factored in.

Sanders also projects that the Blu-ray Disc sales tally alone could rise to 1 million units by Saturday. “In the first two days across those three territories, Blu-ray Disc sales are running between 25% and 30% of total sales, which is a massive number,” he said. “We had expected Blu-ray to account for a significant percentage of sales, but not quite this high, which speaks well for the format. It’s really catching on with consumers.”

The previous Blu-ray Disc sales record was set earlier in the fourth quarter by Paramount Home Entertainment’s Iron Man, which sold more than 500,000 high-definition discs its first week. The Dark Knight shattered that record — in a single day.

“Blu-ray is clearly catching on with consumers,” Sanders said.

There are bigger implications as well. For the home entertainment industry, the DVD/Blu-ray Disc release of The Dark Knight wasn’t just about one title, albeit the biggest title of the year. It was more about the short-term future of the business.

Throughout the fourth quarter, studio executives, key retailers and analysts have been closely monitoring sales of the summer blockbusters. With total home video sales projected to be off by as much as 6% this year, the performance of the hits has taken on special significance.

Back when the DVD business first began to slow four years ago, the first cracks to appear were in the sales totals of the megahits, beginning with Shrek 2, which sold phenomenally well upon its November 2004 release — but not as well as DreamWorks had anticipated.

From that point on, the video-to-theatrical ratio for the big-screen blockbusters continued to decline — and, with it, the fortunes of the entire home entertainment business, which, like its theatrical counterpart, had grown increasingly dependent on the hits.

This year the fourth-quarter parade of summer theatrical blockbusters has had a spotty performance. Some titles, such as Iron Man, did exceptionally well; others, such as Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, could have done better.

The day The Dark Knight went on sale, a Wall Street Journal article said the film’s home video sales performance would be a bellwether for the entire industry.

“When the Warner Bros. film The Dark Knight shattered box office records this summer, it was hailed as a sign that Hollywood can repel an economic downturn,” the article said. “But as that latest Batman installment is released on DVD … it could show that Hollywood’s defenses against a recession are crumbling. Batman’s fate in a declining DVD market will be just one way the movie industry’s claim of being recession-proof will be tested.”

Link

[The_Preacher1973]

And some Player Sales from last week's big sales in the US:

Quote

Blu-ray player sales triple Black Friday week

By Danny King -- Video Business, 12/9/2008
DEC. 9 | North American stand-alone Blu-ray Disc player revenue during the week of Thanksgiving and Black Friday more than tripled from a week earlier after Sony and Samsung dropped prices of their entry-level machines below $200 to generate holiday demand, NPD Group unit DisplaySearch said today. Meanwhile, Black Friday TV revenue fell from a year earlier as retailers discounted prices on larger liquid-crystal display sets.

Consumers paid more than $30 million for 147,000 Blu-ray players during a week in which the average price was slightly more than $200, down from about $240 the previous week, DisplaySearch said. About one in four video-disc players purchased for the week ended Nov. 29 were Blu-ray machines. Sales of Sony's PlayStation 3 videogame console, which includes a Blu-ray player, weren't included in the DisplaySearch figures.

Sony and Samsung, selling their cheapest Blu-ray players for $179 and $199, respectively, accounted for 85% of Black Friday week sales and helped unit sales also triple from the week ended Nov. 22.

Wal-Mart appealed to bargain-minded shoppers by offering Blu-ray players for as low as $128.

With continued sales growth through the holiday season, Blu-ray player makers will ship 911,000 machines during the fourth quarter and about 2.2 million for the year, according to DisplaySearch.

"Blu-ray had a pretty good Black Friday," Paul Erickson, director of DVD and HD market research at DisplaySearch, said in a conference call today. "This is primarily due to one factor: sub-$200 pricing."

As Blu-ray player sales tripled for the week, so did sales of standard-definition DVD players, whose average price was about $40. Next year, Blu-ray player sales will surge 76% to 3.84 million units while DVD player sales will fall 24% to about 14 million units, DisplaySearch forecasts.

Meanwhile, Black Friday's trend of falling prices affected TV sales as well. Although sales for Black Friday itself, Nov. 28, were little changed from a year earlier at about 990,000 units, revenue fell 2% to about $670 million as retailers pocketed about the same average price for liquid-crystal display TVs despite selling them at larger sizes. Customers also bought more plasma TVs because they cost less per screen inch than LCDs.

"Black Friday unit volume was on par with a year ago, but it really required a lot of discounting," Paul Gagnon, director of North American TV research at DisplaySearch, said on the call. "It wasn’t as negative as many expected, but it certainly wasn’t a positive result."

With retailers engaging in such discounting, U.S. bricks-and-mortar sales of consumer electronics goods for Black Friday week fell from a year earlier for the first time, NPD said in a separate report today. Electronics spending for the week ended Nov. 29 dropped 8.4% to $2.03 billion after increasing 6% last year and 12% during the Black Friday week of 2006, according to NPD.

Link

From this and a bit of simple maths the revenu from sales of each player can be calculated as:

BD Player Sales = $30M
DVD Player Sales = $18.5M

Of course, SD-DVD players still outsold BD players by just over 3:1 but it is interesting that the BD stand alone player market in the US is now greater in dollar terms than the DVD player market.

Edited by The_Preacher1973, 11 December 2008 - 02:55 PM.

[SDL]

The Black Friday sales says a lot about price point for players I think.

When I boutht TDK from Big W the checkout girl told me she had seen lots of these DVD's sold today and that it was a great movie. When I said this one was a BD she asked about Blu-Ray. I did the 30 second simple picture sharpness great sound explanation and she said she might buy one of them. When I said it won't play in your DVD player she said 'oh well that's a a shame, have to put up with the DVD then as I can't afford a few hundred dollars for a player'. Another person waiting said the DVD looks good enough on their TV anyway and they have a plasma. I think the issue is people still need convincing to part with the money for a player and in the US they might have gotten people to do that at $200.

Edited by SDL, 11 December 2008 - 03:57 PM.

[The_Preacher1973]

SDL, on Dec 11 2008, 03:54 PM, said:

The Black Friday sales says a lot about price point for players I think.

When I boutht TDK from Big W the checkout girl told me she had seen lots of these DVD's sold today and that it was a great movie. When I said this one was a BD she asked about Blu-Ray. I did the 30 second simple picture sharpness great sound explanation and she said she might buy one of them. When I said it won't play in your DVD player she said 'oh well that's a a shame, have to put up with the DVD then as I can't afford a few hundred dollars for a player'. Another person waiting said the DVD looks good enough on their TV anyway and they have a plasma. I think the issue is people still need convincing to part with the money for a player and in the US they might have gotten people to do that at $200.

Absolutely.

The number to remember though is that 60% of sales go to the top 10% of buyers. BD doesn't need to get 50% of the population to get 50% of the sales. The checkout chick above probably didn't own a DVD player in 1999 either.

That being said, I don't actually know anyone outside of these forums that buys BD so we're a long way off that magic 10% here in Australia.

Edited by The_Preacher1973, 11 December 2008 - 05:44 PM.

[SDL]

The_Preacher1973, on Dec 11 2008, 06:43 PM, said:

Absolutely.

The number to remember though is that 60% of sales go to the top 10% of buyers. BD doesn't need to get 50% of the population to get 50% of the sales. The checkout chick above probably didn't own a DVD player in 1999 either.

That being said, I don't actually know anyone outside of these forums that buys BD so we're a long way off that magic 10% here in Australia.

One guy that works for me purchased a Pana BD35 the other day.

[The_Preacher1973]

Some interesting results for the week ending 7th December.

Despite there being no significant releases for the week, BD did approximately $24M in sales. This is its 3rd highest week ever. Last week (the USA's "B;ack Friday sales" were the format's biggest, just surpassing "Iron Man" week.

As reported above, BD sold a significant amount of standalones the week before and this seems to have helped disc sales this week.

The ratio of top 20 to DVD (best ratio, not best sales) is also intersting. Previously once you dropped down out of the top 10 ratios were between 2% and 15%. Have a look at these:

1. Wyatt Earp 89%
2. Galapagos 80%
3. The Road Warrior 80%
4. Trading Places 79%
5. The Ultimate Matrix Collection
6. The Shawshank Redemption 79%
7. Hulk 77%
8. Fighter Pilot 76%
9. Baraka 74%
10. Terminator 2 74%
11. Alexander Revisited 73%
12. Bullit 72%
13. Swordfish 72%
14. Patton
15. Close Encounters 71%
16. Kingdom of Heaven 70%
17. The Omega Man 69%
18. The Searchers 69%
19. The Fifth Element 68%
20. The Shining 67%

Bd is really starting to perform well compared with DVD in catalogue sales.

Of course the down side to this is that unless we get some individual numbers, we won't get a ratio for Batman next week!

[Fouler]

A guy over on AVS has put together a graph of the aggregate Top 20 unit sellers since the stat was published earlier in the year. Sometimes numbers on a page don't mean much but a graphic certainly seems to. Quarter 4 was always touted as the big one.

Aggregate BD Top 20 units

One would expect the forthcoming week with TDK to be be even bigger.

[MACCA350]

Fouler, on Dec 17 2008, 05:30 AM, said:

A guy over on AVS has put together a graph of the aggregate Top 20 unit sellers since the stat was published earlier in the year. Sometimes numbers on a page don't mean much but a graphic certainly seems to. Quarter 4 was always touted as the big one.

Aggregate BD Top 20 units

One would expect the forthcoming week with TDK to be be even bigger.

And just for perspective...........fourth chart down

cheers

[tonyjg]

MACCA350, on Dec 17 2008, 10:12 AM, said:

And just for perspective...........fourth chart down

cheers

are you referring to that MOUNTAIN of Brown (DVDs) vs that small wave of Blu (BD) ???   There appears to be only a slight movement up since November ......   and it has that big mountain of DVDs to compete against.

**  i'm starting to get over Kosty's graphs spread over the various forums.

[The_Preacher1973]

Quote

The Dark Knight Blu-Ray Sales Shatter All Records
Sales of Over 1.7 Million Blu-ray Discs™ Worldwide After One Week

Last update: 12:00 a.m. EST Dec. 17, 2008
BURBANK, Calif., Dec 17, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- --Over 1 Million Blu-ray Discs™ Sold in U. S. Alone
The Dark Knight took the world by storm on Blu-ray and DVD, breaking records for 2008. The blockbuster hit from acclaimed director Christopher Nolan became an instant must-own classic with Blu-ray sales of over 1.7 million units and total DVD and Blu-ray sales of 13.5 million worldwide*, including consumer sales and rental sales, in one week. Brisk consumer sales - totaling over 10 million with one week of sales reported - are expected to continue through the holiday season. The Dark Knight is the best selling Blu-ray title in history and will become the best selling 2008 title overall this week. The response to the digital copy offering included on the Blu-ray and Special Edition DVD has been remarkable with the number of consumers activating their digital copies approaching 300,000. The Dark Knight is already the number one movie for the year on the iTunes 2008 Chart.

LINK

EDIT: For reference, those BD sales are more than twice what The Matrix did on DVD in its first week when it was released (780k).

Edited by The_Preacher1973, 18 December 2008 - 08:09 AM.

[The_Preacher1973]

tonyjg, on Dec 17 2008, 09:57 AM, said:

are you referring to that MOUNTAIN of Brown (DVDs) vs that small wave of Blu (BD) ???   There appears to be only a slight movement up since November ......   and it has that big mountain of DVDs to compete against.

**  i'm starting to get over Kosty's graphs spread over the various forums.

Yes. He's referring to that little blue line that used to be around 200K per week a few months ago and is 1.5 million now.

Sales are up 800% year on year.

Is that the "slight movement up" you're referring to?  

Of course BD sales should have been XXX (insert impossible target here) so anything less is a sign of BD's imminent death!

Edited by The_Preacher1973, 18 December 2008 - 07:59 AM.

[MACCA350]

The_Preacher1973, on Dec 18 2008, 08:59 AM, said:

Yes. He's referring to that little blue line that used to be around 200K per week a few months ago and is 1.5 million now.

Sales are up 800% year on year.

Is that the "slight movement up" you're referring to?  

Of course BD sales should have been XXX (insert impossible target here) so anything less is a sign of BD's imminent death!

My point was that DVD has seen a similar percentage increase in the lead up to Xmas. What may be more telling is where they fall to on the months following the holiday season, hopefully Xmas player sales will show an increase overall in BD media sales during next year, would be somewhat disappointing to see BD sales to drop to the level they were this year showing no real increase in takeup.

cheers

[The_Preacher1973]

MACCA350, on Dec 18 2008, 08:31 AM, said:

My point was that DVD has seen a similar percentage increase in the lead up to Xmas. What may be more telling is where they fall to on the months following the holiday season, hopefully Xmas player sales will show an increase overall in BD media sales during next year, would be somewhat disappointing to see BD sales to drop to the level they were this year showing no real increase in takeup.

cheers

For sure. Q1 next year will give a real indication as to how many new adopters have actually bought into the format during the fourth quarter.

Still, last year, titles such as Casino Royale, 300 and Transformers (on HD-DVD) struggled to do 100K in their first week.

Now we have TDK doing more than twice the numbers The Matrix did on DVD in its first week combined with the news that according to NPD the value of BD players sold during the Black Friday sales was greater than the value of DVD players. I see those to events as significant. BD isn't going to surpass DVD next year but hell, DVD didn't pass VHS until the end of 2002:

Link

Anyway, the best market share of Top 20 Titles BD has ever had is 12%. I'll be interested to see how it fares this week.

[The_Preacher1973]

Quote

JAN. 7 | DEG: The Digital Entertainment Group said today that U.S. consumer spending on packaged home entertainment fell by 5.5% in 2008, to $22.4 billion.

The total encompasses rental and sales of DVD and high-definition disc formats.

High-def disc spending, primarily Blu-ray Disc, almost tripled during the year, however, reaching $750 million, according to DEG figures compiled with input from all the major studios.

Blu-ray software shipments grew 250%, to 63.2 million units in 2008, from 18 million units in 2007, DEG said.

Sales of Blu-ray players, including videogame consoles, meanwhile, grew to almost 10 million units since the format’s launch, according to DEG. In the fourth quarter alone, 3 million devices were sold, the trade group said.

Consumer spending on DVD purchases fell more dramatically than the total, declining by 9%, to about $14.5 billion, according to DEG, while rental spending including kiosk transactions, was flat. In total, consumer spending on DVD rentals and sales combined fell 7.3%, to $21.6 billion, according to DEG.

DVD shipments also were down during the year, declining to 1.4 billion units, an almost 15% drop from 2007 unit shipments.

Link

[trofius]

local video ezy BD rentals have atleast tripled in the last 3 months....sales are very slowly increasing, prices are still too high.

[Chill]

BD market share 16% - I believe that is a record - interesting result going into 2009 - perhaps a lot of new BD players for Xmas ?


http://www.nxtbook.c...DC/index.php#/0

[davep]

no doubt blu-ray would have been a popular christmas present, it was a present to my brother from me for his new 50PZ800 and im sure in the States where they are cheaper again thet would have been selling well,it would be interesting to see some hardware sales figures though.  I hope Blu-Ray really takes off this year.  I also hope for cheaper catalogue releases too

[tonyjg]

further..

Quote

The Digital Entertainment Group released a few numbers from 2008 that caught our attention. The most notable is that while the shipment of DVD units -- whatever that means -- was down almost 15 percent in 2008 to 1.4 Billion, Blu-ray shipments were up 250% to 63.2 million. Overall this still only works out to about 4.5 percent market share for Blu-ray in 2008, but this is still moving in the correct direction for HD fans. This works out to about 6.3 units sold per player since the DEG also says there are now 10 million Blu-ray players (including PS3s) out there with 3 million of them being sold in the 4th quarter.

http://www.engadgeth...-units-in-2008/


still... its all about PRICE PRICE PRICE.   Lets see what 2009 brings.

Edited by tonyjg, 10 January 2009 - 02:51 PM.