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Blu-ray Year To Date Stats + PC Playback

Saturday, December 6th, 2008

Home Media Magazine last week published year to date sales stats for Blu-ray and DVD. While the year isn’t over yet, they are still worth taking a look at.

Overall, Blu-ray sales accounted for 4% of the market by disc volume (the number of actual packages sold) for the top 20 titles. If you look at dollar volume (the total amount of money taken in), Blu-ray did a little better at 6.11%, which is not a surprise considering that a typical Blu-ray movie is more expensive than a DVD.

If you look at the growth figures, Blu-ray sales are way up on last year, a 233.23% increase to $USD 410.28 million dollars. DVDs, on the other hand, were down 8.47% at $6,306.01 million, taking into account that the YTD figures are only up to 16th November.

With the above set of figures, it is possible to extrapolate last year’s figures, which are as follows:

Blu-ray: $175.91 million (2.5%)
DVD: $6,889.56 million (97.5%)

These figures look right to me, as Blu-ray did have a 2.5% market share this time last year (with HD DVD still holding around 1.5%). It looks like Blu-ray has successfully absorbed the HD DVD market share, and still managed to grow about 2%. This may not sound like a lot, but considering that most of Blu-ray’s growth has been in the second half of the year (and in the last quarter of 2008, which is yet to finish), things are looking pretty bright.

But Blu-ray was brought in make up for the ever shrinking DVD profits, and with the above set of figures, it is now possible to see if Blu-ray has managed to do just this for the studios. DVD sales dropped by $583.55 million from 2007 to 2008 (up to 16th November). However, Blu-ray sales have only increased by $234.37 million in the same period. Since these figures do not represent the entire calendar year, so it’s still a bit premature to provide any concrete conclusions at this moment. Blu-ray sales will increase in the one and a half months left in the year, and the DVD sales decrease will lessen – it will only take a little bit of movement on either front for Blu-ray sales to completely cover any losses in DVD sales, and after that, it’s all extra profit. Of course, this does not take into account the amount of money that studios have spent in developing and promoting Blu-ray, but many of these are once off costs.

To conclude, Blu-ray sales have increased beyond simply absorbing the HD DVD market share, and looks set to at the very least cover any decreases in sales for the DVD format, which was the whole point of having a new format. While there’s still a long way to go before one can say that Blu-ray is competing with DVD, it is already supplementing it quite nicely and perhaps that’s the intentions of the studios all along.

As for the second part of this blog post, as you may be aware, I recently purchased a new C2D E8500 powered computer, with an Asus 4850 as the Blu-ray decoding assisting GPU using the latest Catalyst drivers (8.11) in Windows XP. Desktop resolution was set to 1920×1080, the native resolution for Blu-ray (and my LCD monitor). Audio decoding settings in PowerDVD were set to 6 channel output.

I was interested in CPU usage while playing a H.264 and VC-1 encoded Blu-ray discs, and here are the results.

CPU usage while playing VC-1 encoded Blu-ray in PowerDVD 8 Ultra

CPU usage while playing H.264 encoded Blu-ray in PowerDVD 8 Ultra

As you can see from the above CPU usage graphs, the CPU usage for both VC-1 and H.264 encodes were at a very reasonable 10% on average. ATi’s Avivo HD is doing an excellent job at assisting Blu-ray decoding. It’s unfortunate that PowerDVD no longer allows HD acceleration to be switched off, as I would be interested to see how the CPU handles decoding by itself. It was also interesting that, since I had Intel SpeedStep turned on, the CPU was in power saving mode during most of the playback (CPU multiplier reduced from 9.5x to 6.0x). With this kind of GPU acceleration, you can get away with using one of Intel or AMD’s budget CPUs and still get perfect Blu-ray playback. More sensible though would be getting a silent cooling GPU, with an equally low power CPU part, to build yourself a near silent home theatre PC system.

Posted in Computing, High Definition (Blu-ray/HD DVD/4K) | 1 Comment »

Weekly News Roundup (9 November 2008)

Sunday, November 9th, 2008

CNN's fake holograms were pointless

Obamania is sweeping the world. I watched the election coverage because I love elections, or anything where you get to find out a result at a set date (sports, exams …). I think I can be considered quite knowledgeable on the US election, at least this one, so once I saw PA go blue, it was pretty much all over for McCain. Ohio, Virginia, Florida all going Obama’s way just meant that, as I had predicted, the election will be called for Obama once the polls close in the west. I’m sure the networks would have preferred it to have lasted a bit longer, but there’s only so much one can take in regards to fake holograms. The most disappointing thing for me was that I had put some money on Obama winning between 311 and 338 Electoral Votes, but he got (it looks like right now) 365 EVs – it’s all Indiana and North Carolina’s fault (plus Nebraska’s single split EV). I did put money on Obama getting more than 338 to hedge my bets, so I didn’t lose any money, but I didn’t win any either which was a shame.

Better news is that it seems my third replacement PS3 (fourth overall) is problem free at last. Fingers crossed. I did go computer shopping, but I ended up buying a system that’s totally different than the one that I thought I would buy last week. That’s just so typical, isn’t it. And despite all the distractions, there happened to be quite a bit of news this week, so let’s get on with it.

Starting with copyright news. Following up on last week’s news about MPAA winning against the Chinese DVD manufacturer GoWell. Apparently what happened was that GoWell made a DVD player that played back copied CSS protected discs – not ripped discs, just discs that you copy with Windows Explorer or something which is still encrypted. Normal DVD players won’t play these files, but GoWell made one that did, which is why it got into trouble with the MPAA. GoNotSoWell, it seems.

Real Networks want the public's help in their fight against the MPAA

In the other MPAA case, Real Networks is appealing to the public for support. They are promising free licenses to RealDVD for all trial subscribers once they win the case. If a free license isn’t important for you, then making a stand against the MPAA is. They may have had a case against GoWell, but CSS in itself is a ridiculously crap encryption that can be broken just by sneezing on it, and to see so much money being wasted on licensing and defending just seems like such a waste. Also a waste is all the money the MPAA spends on lobbying politicians, and no sooner had Obama accepted McCain’s concession, the MPAA issued a statement to clarify their intent to work with the new administration on matters of copyright. The kind of people who voted for Obama, especially the younger generation, won’t stand for yet another administration that’s far too friendly and accepting of the MPAA’s position, and I hope President-Elect Obama stands firm on the principle of fair use.

BD+ broken?

Copy protection schemes, like Blu-ray’s BD+, are only effective when people aren’t actively trying to find ways to circumvent it. But people are, and they have, which brings the dream of Blu-ray playback on Linux systems one step closer. Remember that CSS was broken as a way to get DVD video working on Linux, so you would think that the BDA had learnt that lesson and officially licensed a Linux based decryption software to prevent people hackers from doing it the hard way.

There are two schools of thought when it comes to fighting piracy. Stick or carrot. The stick approach, like what EA has been doing lately and getting into trouble with, doesn’t seem to work too well. EA has had to back down time after time, but stories of more snafus won’t help. This time, EA forgot to print one character from the CD key for the game Red Alert 3 and their solution is for customers to guess it by entering all 36 possible options (or send in a picture of their improperly printed CD key for verification). If there was one company that could do without one more DRM related scandal, it was EA. The other approach, carrot, is to not try and prevent people pirating stuff, but work with it for everyone’s benefit. A new technique for online video sharing sites allows ads to be inserted into videos whenever copyrighted work is detected. Not the most ideal solution, but it’s better than having the video removed. One can also fight piracy on the pricing front, and that’s what Warner is doing in China with low-cost online rentals. Why can’t they do low-cost online rentals here? And even the lack of copy protection can be seen as a promotional tool, with DRM-free MP3s now getting a new “MP3 100% Compatible” logo to promote the fact. The anti-DRM movement has helped to fight piracy more effectively than DRMs, it seems.

High Definition Let’s move onto Blu-ray. Sony/Universal are coming out with a vending machines that sells Blu-ray movies and PS3 games. It’s funny that Universal is helping Sony out, because if you look at the companies that have contributed most to Blu-ray, it’s Paramount (Iron Man, Transformers), Warner (I Am Legend, The Dark Knight) and now Universal. All three were HD DVD studios, two of them exclusive until the very end. Interesting.

The Dark Knight on Blu-ray is set to break all Blu-ray sales records

The other HD DVD exclusive party was Wal-Mart, and now they’re bigging up Blu-ray too by devoting more shelve space to Blu-ray for the holiday shopping season. The low cost players that have started to arrive will suit Wal-Mart’s pricing strategy, something that wasn’t possible last year this time which forced them to go HD DVD exclusive for standalone HD players. The lower hardware prices, movie sales and in-store promotions are all part of the big holiday promotional push for Blu-ray, which is set to cost up to $25 million dollars. Money well spent, or waste of it during harsh economic times? Regardless, analysts all predict Blu-ray player prices will nosedive in the next month and a bit. HD DVD’s price crash was seen by probably the very same analysts as a sign that it was doomed, but this time without any real competitors around, the outlooks if fairly different. The Dark Knight on Blu-ray, which is predicted to sell by the truck load, and coupled with cheap Blu-ray players, should see uptake increase. If it works, this could be the most significant holiday season for Blu-ray – the one that decides whether it can replace DVDs, or merely supplement it as a niche format.

And as I normally like to do at the end of the HD section, there’s a bit of news about H.264. DivX 7 is nearly ready for release, with the first beta player being released with H.264 support.

And in gaming, PS3 sales bottomed out last week, but bounced back during the week thanks to GTA IV I think. Just goes to prove that games sell consoles, more than the other way around. Unfortunately for the PS3, it has the lowest attach rate (the average number of games people buy for the console) out of the big 3, with the Xbox 360 way in front followed by the Wii. The Xbox 360 being released earlier helps it, plus the lower prices of the console. The Wii and it’s fun (and hype) factor is helping it too. The PS3’s excellent Blu-ray and media hub functions, is making things worse when it comes to games attach rates. Console manufacturers make money off games more than consoles (that’s if they’re not losing huge amounts of it by selling them below cost, like Sony does with the PS3), so attach rate is everything (especially if your consoles has sold in greater numbers, like the Xbox 360).

In other PS3 news, firmware 2.52 has been released to fix problems with 2.51 which was released to fix problems with 2.50 (which was released to fix problems with …). Sony really need to do better release testing when it comes to their firmware, and there are more reports that 2.52 is borking PS3s by making the not reading disc problem appear after updates. It’s only a matter of time before someone launches a lawsuit, if Sony’s not careful. Sony is also patenting a Wiimote like controller for the PS3.

Will we ever see a slim, sexier Xbox 360?

The NPD October figures should be released next week, and it is widely expected that the Xbox 360 will do extremely well thanks to recent price cuts. But Microsoft is hinting that the last round of cuts will be the last round, period. It was always a matter of time before price cuts are so large that they no longer make any financial sense. The next logical step, at least in my mind, would be for them to make a more reliable and “sexier” version of the 360 – doing that, even for higher prices, will drive sales.

One company not looking to drive up more sales is Nintendo, who thinks they will have enough Wii stock for this holiday season, but you never know. If you want one for Christmas, for yourself or as a gift, please take my advice and buy one today, just to be safe.

And that’s all the news we have for this relatively busy week. Obamania will subside I think, as reality of the current situation sink in (two wars, global economic crisis, terrorism, disease, environmental disasters, and of course the big one, movie piracy). Those of us that have wasted countless hours following the election will now have to find something better to do, so the question is then can we fill our empty lives with something else to worry about? Yes We Can!

Update: The real picture of the Xbox 360 Slim, now that it's available

Update: Seems a lot of people are finding this page on Google or somewhere when searching for pics of the Xbox 360 Slim, so instead of providing just the pic for the prototype one, here’s the real one to the right.

Posted in Copyright, Electronics, High Definition (Blu-ray/HD DVD/4K), News Roundup, Nintendo Wii, Wii U, Switch, PS3, PS4, Video Technology, Xbox 360, Xbox One | Comments Off on Weekly News Roundup (9 November 2008)

Weekly News Roundup (2 November 2008)

Sunday, November 2nd, 2008

Only two more months to go before the year’s out. I just remembered that it’s now more than a year since I started the WNR. I really didn’t think I would keep this going for so long, since my attention span when it comes to these sort of things is pretty short. It’s been far longer than that since my last new computer though, so I’ve decided to get a new one this month, maybe even as soon as this week. I posted my buying specs in the “If I were to buy a new computer today” feature I wrote this week. Yet another refurbished PS3 should be arriving tomorrow, fingers, toes, arms and legs crossed that it’s finally okay this time.

Let’s start with copyright news. The Viacom vs Google legal battle continues with Google claiming that Viacom’s copyright cops are more than capable of controlling content on YouTube, so there’s no need for Google to intervene. It certainly does seem that media companies are surprising apt at providing and controlling content online, mainly for promotional purposes. You can’t really have it both ways though, to use the Net and it’s viral characteristics to promote your stuff, while clamping down on sharing and free expression.

21 months for doing this - fair sentence or too harsh?

Ever wonder what kind of punishment you get for camcording and bootlegging films in theatres? 21 months is the sentence for a guy who did just that and got caught. Was it worth it? Depends on how much money he’s made already and how much of it has been stashed from the sight of the police, I suppose. I don’t mind the authorities going after the providers/source of pirated content, it’s when they go after the users of it that doesn’t sit well with me. Those stupid “you wouldn’t steal a car” PSAs at the start of DVDs also don’t sit well with me, and apparently, it’s not just me. The latest movie length episode of Futurama features a spoof of the well known anti-piracy clips, which is ironic because I suspect these Futurama episodes are one of the most pirated shows around.

Can’t believe that the DMCA is now 10 years old. It seems it was only yesterday that it took its first steps to trample on consumer rights. The EFF has been keeping a document of all the unintended consequences of the DMCA is an updated document, and you can read it here. Lots of stories about how the DMCA has hurt not pirates but consumers, scientists, and legitimate competitors. At best, the DMCA has been ineffective. At worst, it’s one of the worst pieces of legislation to ever come out of Washington D.C, and knowing all the crap that comes out of there, that’s saying something. Digital copyright is an important issue, but surely there must be some common ground between content owners and consumers, because neither group can exist without the other. Will the “Change We Need” feature changes to the DMCA? Doubt it, not as long as Hollywood’s deep pockets are helping those in Washington D.C stay in Washington D.C. But we can always hope …

Further proof of the DMCA’s reach, as Hollywood this week successfully sued Chinese DVD player manufacturers for not complying with CSS copy protection. Now I don’t actually know what was behind all of this, just how a DVD player can help to break CSS. Was it because it upscaled DVDs to 1080i through DVI (against the CSS license)? Was it because it could play copied CSS encrypted discs across a network (also against the CSS license)? Or did it have a hidden menu setting that could allow CSS to be turned off (does nothing really)?

A Digital Copy standard for DVDs on the way?

But even Hollywood seems to be trying to find a way around CSS, by providing digital copies of movies along with the DVD. The DVD Forum is currently discussing this, and I think it’s a good idea. To try and stop people making digital copies is just plain silly and pointless. Might as well cash in and provide them with it in the first place. The problem now is that every studio have their own standard in regards to digital copies (Sony’s one plays on the PS3/PSP, Fox’s one is iPod compatible …). If the DVD Forum can sit down and add digital copy support to the official DVD specs, then that’s a move in the right direction. I just hope they don’t stuff the specs with DRM. At the very least have no more than tagging type DRMs, because anything more, and the digital copies are useless. The next logical step would be to have establish a similar standard for Blu-rays as well.

High Definition Speaking of Blu-rays, the format is apparently dead, according one slightly pessimistic blogger on ZDNet. The last few week’s worth of Blu-ray sales data has been very positive for the format, so I don’t really understand where all these “Blu-ray is doomed” stories are coming from.

Bringing back the free movies promotion may help Blu-ray this holiday season

But I can understand the frustration seeing Sony apparently trying very hard to ruin a perfectly good format, with lousy hardware pricing (only now becoming more sensible), marketing, licensing and many other things which helps to fuel Hollywood’s greed at the expense of actually getting Blu-ray into people’s homes. But I think things have changed a bit recently, and I think the fear that Blu-ray may be doomed has actually forced Sony’s hand somewhat. There are new hardware promotions (free movies are back), pricing deals that bring together studios and online retailers such as Amazon (see some of them here – lots of new hardware deals recently, like the Amazon/Warner $100 off deal). The range of good releases have been very helpful for the format as well. In fact, all of this reminds me of last year, except it was HD DVD doing all of this, which may or may not be a good sign. With the exchange rate problems here in Australia, and local high pricing, I haven’t purchased a Blu-ray movie in ages. The last one I got was the Godfather Trilogy Blu-ray, which I only purchased because the online store I got it from made a pricing error, so I got it for $USD 30 express delivered. Now that’s value for money.

Speaking of value for money, some Netflixsubscribers are not seeing it in the $1 extra per month that Netflix charges for Blu-ray rentals. I don’t rent that many movies, so I can’t comment, but $1 doesn’t seem too much for me.

Also some good news on the H.264 front, as Windows 7 Media Center will natively support the format that is now widely used on everything from cell phone video to HD broadcasts. I’m sure Microsoft originally intended their VC-1 codec to have taken over the industry in the same was as H.264, but it didn’t work out and so supporting H.264 is the only logical step left. It’s not the first time Microsoft tried to get people to use one of their proprietary formats, failing, and then go back to doing what they should have done in the first place which is to support the industry approved format.

And finally in gaming, Sony’s recent huge losses on the market means that the PS3 will not get a price cut, as Sony says they have a business to run. To be fair, the PS3 is selling well enough given the high price, and prices can always come down when desperation calls for it. Sony will just have to hope that by that time, the cost of manufacturing a PS3 will have dropped enough so they won’t have to lose their shirt to provide discounts, to prevent the PS3 falling further behind. In other PS3 news, a new hotfix firmware has been released to fix several problems with the 2.50 firmware. The forced 60 Hz output is what caused people to report the black & white display problem, for TVs that don’t support PAL 60 I guess.

Microsoft’s new Xbox Experience comes out this month, and there are several previews up for it already. One of the new features takes something from the PS3 playbook by offering HDD installs for games, and testing shows that it only shaves a few seconds off the loading time after the several minute long install process (plus all that HDD space used up). I would be more interested to see what effects it has on performance, as streaming from the HDD should be faster than from a DVD right?

So that’s another week over and done with. The US elections this week, so don’t forget to vote, even if you’re not actually a US citizen. Just write who you want to vote for on a piece of paper and send it to “Election Counting Place, Washington D.C., USA” – remember, every vote counts (except ones of this type, possibly). Also, this is the 58th WNR I think, which is just amazing to me because it only feels like the 55th one what with all the fun I’ve had writing it. I’m going computer shopping this week as well, so I may not have as much time to find and post news. At least that’s the excuse I’m going with this week … see you in 168 hours time.

Posted in Copyright, High Definition (Blu-ray/HD DVD/4K), News Roundup, PS3, PS4, Video Technology, Xbox 360, Xbox One | Comments Off on Weekly News Roundup (2 November 2008)

Blu-ray: The State of Play – October 2008

Wednesday, October 15th, 2008

There has been a lot of stories recently about how well/badly Blu-ray is doing, and I thought a post on it to clarify a few things.

There seems to be a lot of negativity surrounding Blu-ray at the moment, which is strange because Blu-ray has just had it’s best ever week in terms of sales, thanks largely to the release of Iron Man. Before we get to the negativity, let’s have a look at the Blu-ray sale stats from Nielsen VideoScan for the “Iron Man Week”:

Period: Week ending 5th October
Top 20 Sales (by disc volume): 13% of market (87% for DVDs)
All sales (by dollar volume): 15.68% of market (84.32% for DVDs)
Total Sales: $26.84 million

The above figures are impressive because if you’ve been keeping track of the Blu-ray sales stats as I’ve posted them in the forum, then the top 20 sales (by disc volume) averages around 8%, and the all sales (by dollar volume) is around 7%. That’s almost double of what normally happens, and it’s all due to one title (the second most popular title on Blu-ray for that week sold 7 times less than Iron Man). With 13 to 15% of the market, either by disc or dollar volume, that’s pretty impressive for a format that’s really only started to compete about 6 months ago (when Toshiba called it a day on their HD DVD format).

Steve Jobs: No to Blu-ray ... for now

So why the negativity? Well, this last week or two, two pieces of news stories did dampen the enthusiasm a bit for Blu-ray. One was Microsoft saying once again they have no plans to add Blu-ray support. This isn’t a big deal really, because the PS3 is the best console/player for Blu-ray, and the Xbox 360 with add-on drive won’t be able to compete on quality or even price. The second piece of bad news, and this is a big one, is Apple’s Steve Jobs calling Blu-ray a “Bag of Hurt” and wanting nothing to do with it until “things settle down, and waiting until Blu-ray takes off in the marketplace before we burden our customers with the cost of the licensing and the cost of the drives”. The high licensing cost of Blu-ray has always been a weakness of the format, but to hear it from someone like Steve Jobs is something else.

So how is Blu-ray doing actually? If I had to give Blu-ray a report card score, then I think at the moment, it gets a solid C, maybe a C+. Why the pessimism, you ask? Well let’s just go through them.

First of all, while the Nielsen VideoScan figures, for the Iron Man week at least, is looking great, those stats are a bit misleading (aren’t they all!). Note that the top 20 sales figures are denoted in disc volume. This favours Blu-ray slightly because Blu-ray sales fall off quite rapidly after the top 20 items, in fact, or sometimes as in the case of Iron Man week, fall off after the number 1 item (7-to-1 sales ratio between Iron Man and second place Forgetting Sarah Marshall). DVDs, on the other hand, is almost the opposite, with most sales coming from the bottom end of the sales charts due to discounting and the larger catalogue of movies.

And if you then look at the all sales by dollar volume figures, that’s misleading as well. Blu-ray movies are priced higher than DVDs, usually $2 to $3 higher than the premium DVD version (2 disc collection, for example), and up to $10 higher than the budget DVD version (single disc version). And so if you compare dollar volumes, then Blu-ray can sell less discs, but still have the same dollar volume as DVDs. And considering that many older DVD releases are on sale for under $10, and that Blu-ray has no titles in this price range, it further favours Blu-ray.

The best way would be to compare disc volumes only, because that’s the only way we can see if Blu-ray is successfully replacing DVD as the home video format. For whatever reason, these stats are not available, or not published, and so an educated guess (not including the Iron Man week stats, which might be a one-off) would be that if Blu-ray holds about 7% of the home video market by dollar volume, then it would translate to perhaps about 5% to 6% by disc volume. That’s not too bad, but for a format that has been the sole HD disc format for 6 months already, the gains, if any, are small to say the least.

DISH 1080p: competition to Blu-ray?

But while Blu-ray has no HD disc format competitors, it does have competition in general, and not just from DVDs. High definition downloads and subscription television are becoming more widely available. While normally A/V quality from these services cannot be compared to Blu-ray, a recent review of DISH’s 1080p service did say they the differences were small. And of course, downloads have the convenience of not having to have a physical disc collection, which while being attractive to many people (me included), does not have the convenience of a digital media collection (and full quality Blu-ray managed copy is nowhere in sight). A VOD type service would be allow for greater access to a larger collection for many people, and traditional non-interactive cable services with 1080p would be cheaper than building a large collection, especially if you only watch movies once.

Then we have DVD upscalers, which can already do a decent job of getting faux HD to your HD panel, and Toshiba’s innovative work on improving upscalers even more so with new techniques. In other words, competition is plenty and one gets the sense that Blu-ray doesn’t have a whole lot of time before it has to establish itself as *the* format for HD. Recent figures in Australia showed that only 17% of HDTV owners had Blu-ray players. The heavy reliance on the PS3 as a Blu-ray player is also shown in these figures, with only 7.5% of Blu-ray players being standalone types (the rest are all PS3s).

And the economic problems don’t help, of course.

But it’s not all doom and gloom. The holiday shopping season is just around the corner, Blu-ray hardware prices are falling already in anticipation, hit titles such as The Dark Knight and WALL-E are coming soon as well, so Blu-ray might just have a holiday season to remember. The timing may not be great, but Blu-ray needs to do well in the next few months and if it can, then its future will be safe.

Posted in Electronics, High Definition (Blu-ray/HD DVD/4K) | 2 Comments »

Weekly News Roundup (12 October 2008)

Sunday, October 12th, 2008

So I sent my PS3 back for repairs on Wednesday. I had to do it because the wireless controller/remote drop-out problem was driving me nuts. My old PS3 didn’t have this issue, so I’m hoping the next PS3 I get won’t have it either. Microsoft’s 6 day turn-around for my Xbox 360 repair is starting to look pretty good, especially considering that I got my own 360 back and not somebody else’s slightly broken, but refurbished, PS3. The news items are a bit light this week, no doubt the focus is still on the economic meltdown that is happening around the world.

And despite the economic uncertainty, I bought myself a new monitor this week, a 24″ entry level model from Dell. It’s not the best monitor, the 16:9 ratio is a bit weird compared to other monitors (as is the only 1080 line resolution), but it does have HDMI, is perfect for connecting 1080p devices such as PS3s and Xbox 360s, and of course, there’s the price. I only paid $USD 160 for it (current price is $399) due to a stuff up on Dell’s part, and for that money, I can’t complain too much about the monitor’s deficiencies (of which there are a few, but nothing that I can’t live with, even at the regular pricing of $399). Bargain hunting is now a small hobby of mine, and it feels great to pick one up.

Anyway, ket’s start with copyright news. The RealDVD vs MPAA case continues, and I wrote what I thought about it in a blog entry mid-week. I wrote my piece after the Judge in the case temporarily suspended sales of RealDVD, pending the outcome of the case perhaps. My opinion was that the case is more about the MPAA (and its members) trying to protect their own future marketing ideas on Managed Copy, and getting peeved because Real Networks beat them to the punch. I also went through the legal arguments about the legality of RealDVD, and I really can’t see why it is illegal at all.

Wal-Mart will have to keep on paying for their mistake of choosing to use DRM

And shortly after I wrote my piece, an article with similar opinions emerged from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, in which they also said that Hollywood’s hate for RealDVD is not due to piracy. I just hope the Judge in the case sees this point of view too, because I think it’s very important that Real Networks win this case. If DRM is really just to protect your licensing cash cow, then that’s more reason to kill it off ASAP.

Wal-Mart’s DRM fiasco, the latest of many, is taking a turn for the predictable. Wal-Mart has backed down and now will ensure their DRM authentication servers are kept online so that people’s DRM-infested files will remain working, no doubt after legal advice from their lawyers. The disadvantages of online based DRM is shown quite clearly here, because it’s not just the consumer that suffers from DRM infection, but the content sellers are obligated to maintain legacy DRM servers forever at a huge cost in the long run (and will have to continue paying license fees for it too, which I gather was the whole point behind DRM in the first place).

High Definition Onto HD news, I found this really interesting article on the process and cost of Blu-ray replication and licensing. What with various licensing fees for the A/V technology involved, the higher cost of replication, the AACS licensing fees, producing Blu-ray discs in small quantities such as 1,000 units could cost up to $14 (for BD-50 discs). This goes down to a much smaller figure for larger quantities, only $2.75, and so you start to wonder why Blu-ray movies cost so much more than their DVD counterparts. One thing is clear though, Blu-ray’s mandatory requirement for AACS (compared to DVD’s CSS and HD DVD’s AACS being optional), plus the higher manufacturing costs, means that Blu-ray is not friendly for independent producers, who will most likely have to rely on DVD even if they shoot their stuff in HD.

The higher cost of Blu-ray is forcing NetFlix to raise their monthly rental fees, but only by a single dollar. But in the current climate, every dollar counts I suppose. And Blu-ray discs could get even more expensive, although with much more storage space, if Sanyo’s 100 GB Blu-ray disc ever makes it to full production.

Iron Man Blu-ray is breaking all records

But cost of otherwise, last week was Blu-ray’s best week since launch, thanks altogether to the movie Iron Man. According to Nielsen VideoScan figures which I have posted here, Blu-ray sales shot up 145% compared to last week thanks to Iron Man, which out-sold the next most popular title on Blu-ray for the week by a ratio of 7 to 1. Blu-ray’s sales ratio to DVD was at a record high 15%, double that of normal weeks. The actual numbers for discs sold is a bit more sober in comparison though. Iron Man on DVD sold 7.2 million copies, while the Blu-ray version sold 500,000 – that’s a ratio of about 7%. This is an improvement compared to when HD DVD was still in the game, and I remember the disc volume ratio being closer to 3% back then. But Iron Man being only a single title, and one that propelled Blu-ray to a record week at that, so the average ratio may be closer to 4 or 5%. The Dark Knight already promises to beat Iron Man’s record, if the Amazon sales charts are anything to go by.

The Australian dollar crashing won't help Blu-ray sales

Not going too well though is Blu-ray sales in Australia. Australia is actually one of the few countries outside of the US and Japan to fully embrace Blu-ray hardware thanks to the PS3’s popularity and relatively low hardware prices (due to our proximity to Asia). But due to high movie prices (at one point, the retail pricing of Blu-ray movies were at $USD 50), importing movies from the US and even UK has been a cheaper way to get into Blu-ray. Not so anymore, after the Aussie dollar crashed this week, and with shipping, getting movies from the US is up from an average of $AUD 23 to now basically the same as local pricing ($AUD 40). A couple of months ago I even imported some Blu-ray movies from the US for sale here in Australia (on eBay), but that looks quite a silly thing to do now. If discussions on this issue in this Australian forum is anything to go by, Blu-ray imports will significantly drop in the foreseeable future. (But as someone who’s income in mainly in US dollars, it’s a good time for me!)

And finally in gaming, it’s another week so we had yet another story on Blu-ray coming to the Xbox 360, and yet another denial from Microsoft about it. I promised several months ago in the forum that I would never post another Blu-ray coming to Xbox 360 story, after the last ten I’ve posted have all turned out to be completely rubbish, just like this recent one.

This pic of an Xbox 360 Blu-ray player is as fake as the rumours about it

But this time I really believe it could be true, and once again, I was fooled. I once again question why people need to make up these stories, perhaps because PS3 fanboys would love the Xbox 360 to get Blu-ray to prove that Sony’s decision to include it was justified (that’s debatable because Blu-ray’s added cost and development time may cause the PS3 to lose the curr-gen console war, or at least not win it as dramatically as the PS2 did last-gen). The Xbox 360 has 11 million users in the US alone, so getting it to support Blu-ray would definitely be a major coup for Sony (but why would Microsoft want that?). I just can’t see it happening though, not until we see a sexier, quieter Xbox 360, because at this moment if the Xbox 360 gets Blu-ray, you only have to compare it to Sony’s effort and there is only one winner – the PS3. Why would Microsoft want to make this comparison anyway, unless they are coming out with a piece of kit that’s better suited to home theatre usage as the PS3. And then there’s the fact that the PS3 uses Blu-ray for games, and the Xbox 360 cannot, so that’s another point of comparison which the Redmond firm does not want. And with Blu-ray’s popularity not exactly making headlines (not the good kind anyway), it feels like Blu-ray needs the 360 more than the 360 needs it. So will Blu-ray come to the Xbox 360? I think it’s wishful thinking on part of many at the moment, but then again, wishful thinking has a way of becoming reality if enough people wish for it.

Okay, that’s all I’ve got this week. See you next week.

Posted in Copyright, High Definition (Blu-ray/HD DVD/4K), News Roundup, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One | Comments Off on Weekly News Roundup (12 October 2008)

DVDGuy’s Blog @ Digital Digest

Archive for the ‘High Definition (Blu-ray/HD DVD/4K)’ Category

Blu-ray Year To Date Stats + PC Playback

Weekly News Roundup (9 November 2008)

Weekly News Roundup (2 November 2008)

Blu-ray: The State of Play – October 2008

Weekly News Roundup (12 October 2008)

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