Did you know that Blu-ray.com also is available for Canada? Simply select the
flag icon to the right of the quick search at the top-middle.
[hide this message]
The Blu-ray Disc Association held its annual press conference yesterday afternoon in the belly of the Venetian hotel. Previous press conferences from the BDA had featured studio executives commenting on the promise of the Blu-ray format. Now that the format war is over, the BDA instead chose to focus on Blu-ray's huge successes in 2008 and the format's prospects for continual growth.
Andy Parsons, President of the BDA as well as a VP with Pioneer, opened the conference with a series of statistics demonstrating Blu-ray's impressive sales performance. It seems, these days, that hardly a day goes by without a pundit somewhere predicting the format's imminent failure. It was the BDA's intention to illustrate just how short sighted and erroneous these reports are. By reporting hard numbers, it is now clear that Blu-ray has attained a dominant place in the consumer electronics industry. These up-to-date numbers show that since inception, in roughly two-and-a-half years on the market, Blu-ray has sold over 10.7 million players in the United States market. This number includes PS3 systems that make up approximately 65% of the players reported with standalone players making up the remaining 35%. PC drives are not included in these numbers. By contrast, DVD, widely acclaimed as the most successful consumer electronics format ever launched, had only sold 5.4 million players by the end if the format's third year on the market. Clearly, Blu-ray is heavily outpacing DVD adoption.
Andy Parsons, Paul Erickson, Richard Doherty, Tom Adams.
Perhaps more impressively, Blu-ray is now installed in over 8% of all US households. After three years on the market, DVD had found its way into slightly over 4% of US households, CD was in less than 2% and HDTV in 1% of homes during the same period. On the software front, Blu-ray had a record year. 5.6 million Blu-ray movies were sold in 2007 compared to 24.9 million in 2008. The 4th quarter was instrumental in Blu-ray's success in 2008: 2.3 million copies were sold in October, 3 million in November and a whopping 8 million copies in December alone.
Mr. Parsons turned the conference over to a series of independent industry analysts, moderated by Mike Snider of USA Today. The panel included Tom Adams, of Adams Media Research, Richard Doherty of Envisioneering as well as Paul Erikson of Displaysearch. Each had similar opinions on the future of Blu-ray. Erickson believes Blu-ray will enjoy steady growth in 2009 and that BD sales should continue to outpace DVD. Doherty's company, Envisioneering, surveys shoppers to sample product awareness. He reports that Blu-ray enjoyed wide consumer awareness during the 2008 holiday shopping season an equally impressive word of mouth. Mr. Doherty believes that Blu-ray will enjoy a 5-6 fold increase in sales in 2009. His research shows that consumers have responded positively to Blu-ray's increase in quality and interactivity over that of DVD. Finally, Mr. Adams believes that Blu-ray will overcome DVD in sales and that the format is DVD's true successor. He believes that BD sales will triple in 2009. All three panelists agree that digital downloads are not a threat to Blu-ray gaining sales dominance. Mr. Doherty cited evidence that investment in building better infrastructure for high-speed data has stalled in the wake of the current financial crisis. Blu-ray's success is almost certainly secure.
"All three panelists agree that digital downloads are not a threat to Blu-ray gaining sales dominance."
Yeah, im tired of ppl who hates on blu-ray, and i dont care what they say, cause we will keep buying blu-rays, no matter what cause digital download is no full HD better than blu-ray period. Keep it up BDA!!!
This is why Jabba - opps! I mean George Lucas should release Star Wars 1 to 6 on Blu-ray now. It
would cause a worldwide STAMPEDE of people upgrading from oldray DVD to blu-ray. The Blu-ray Disc
Association should open a line of communication with Lucas to try and sway him. Everyone would win
with a near-future release of the Star Wars saga on Blu.
Studios, wholesalers, retailers, netflix rentals, etc. are all making more on a Blu-ray sold/rented then on a regular dvd. They would love to get rid of or allow blu-ray to push out dvds. For awhile, VHS had more and then equal and then less representation then dvds. Now they are basically gone. This will probably happen but a bit longer extended with dvds to blu-rays.
All three panelists agree that digital downloads are not a threat to Blu-ray gaining sales dominance."
Yeah, im tired of ppl who hates on blu-ray, and i dont care what they say, cause we will keep buying blu-rays, no matter what cause digital download is no full HD better than blu-ray period. Keep it up BDA!!!
totally agree man, i hate the concept of Digital downloads, i like owning raw material, i bought warhawk on the PSN because it couldnt be found in stores until recently, but it still bothers me that i dont have a warhawk disc and i paid the same price as someone who has a disc and case, the only way Digital downloads will ever take off is if they are consideribly cheaper.
Right freakin' on... I love that blu-ray is succeeding, great format and so nice to watch... and
the sound.... holy cow... my wife comes up to my tv room regularly to ask me to turn it down...
Now more 7.1 or 7.2 HD Audio... that would be nice.. but I am a happy man...
Who the hell wants DVD quality when you get a much better experience with Blu-ray!!! I haven't gone to movie theatres for ages, except for watching 3D movies at Imax. At $5-$10 more then DVDs, hell it's worth it. Though I won't complain if Blu-ray discs drops in prices. If you can get a better movie experience at home, I'm 100% behind it. Glad to see Blu-ray is doing quite well...
All three panelists agree that digital downloads are not a threat to Blu-ray gaining sales dominance.
Internet Service providers will soon be charging everyone by usage. Anyone who plans to download HD movies will be paying a premium for their monthly service, maybe double what they pay now??? triple in a year or two???. This should ensure that downloading HD content will be slow to catch on. Building the infrastructure and developing technologies to handle all this video content will be very expensive and will require continuous upgrading for decades to come. Technology we have today won't handle the traffic we'll have in a year, technology we have in a year won't handle the traffic we need 9 months after that, etc, etc, etc, -- technology will struggle to keep pace for a very very very very long time. $$$$$$$$$$$, the bill will be passed down to end users -- don't worry about HD downloads having any threat to blu ray disc. Perhaps it will threaten the technology that one day replaces blu ray.
I never thought digital downloads would be a threat as there are too many issues that accompany DD's. First the dreaded buffering issue. Who wants to have their movie interrupted so the download can catch up? Then there is the lack of true HD quality, the risk of hard drive crashes and the bandwidth that most companies are wanting to charge more for higher speeds, etc, etc. Blu-ray is the only way to go for a true Hi-Def movie experience and soon even the DD fans will realize this as will the rest of the population.
I am a relatively new member on Blu-Ray.com, and for a long time I have been following the evolution of the BD format and its establishment in the consumer arena.
I am also a retired university professor and research worker, who made use of a reasonable experience in this hobby to write a column on audio and video technology in a journalists site. Even though engineering was never my field of expertise (actually, I am a biochemist formerly dedicated to study cardiovascular diseases), I could gather enough knowledge to ascertain the establishment of the BD format in Home Theaters without hesitation.
I have had no doubt in my mind that Blu-Ray would eventually be the "de facto" video standard for high definition sight and sound. In the not so distant past I wrote a column, claiming that the format war would end quicker than people could have anticipated it (for those who can read Portuguese, here is the link: http://webinsider.uol.com.br/index.php/2007/09/18/blu-ray-mantem-a-lideranca-em-relacao-ao-hd-dvd/). That was 9/18/2007. On May 28th 2008 a new column was published (http://webinsider.uol.com.br/index.php/2008/05/25/blu-ray-e-tv-digital-a-passos-lentos/) showing that legislation had been passed, and that Sony had the facilities to undertake the launching of the Blu-Ray disc in the country. The afore mentioned legislation had already established deadlines for all aspects of BD manufacturing, but absolutely nothing to that effect ever happened, either by Sony or a third party pressing plant.
Meanwhile, despite the fact that Brazil is one of the largest and most profitable video markets in the Americas, market prices for playback gear and discs have all been abusive, to say the least. I bought my first Panasonic player namely the DMP-B10AK, at a cost of 5000 reais (roughly 2,300.78 US dollars, given today's currency rates), and even though player prices have dropped, offer on a Panasonic DMP-BD30 is still around 920 US dollars. You can buy a limited amount of discs offered locally to the public, if you are willing to shell out around 45 dollars a piece, but that will be an imported disc added to a translated cover.
Notwithstanding of this pathetic situation and being understandably frustrated with it, I would still have hoped that those guys at CES would include foreign country's data in their estimation.
How long will the BDA hold its breath until Blu-Ray manufacturing is fully established in places other the US, Europe and Japan? We all know that the US was always a tentative market for most technology involving audio and video. The tentative times, as they have properly demonstrated, have already ended. IT IS TIME TO MOVE ON!!!
Great article and its great seeing Blu Ray doing so well. I think Mr Lucas and Mr Speilberg should get off their butts and get the Star Wars Trilogy and the Jurrasic Park Trilogy out on Blu Ray NOW! That all being said the numbers dont lie and the critics should just shut their trap because Blu is here to stay and their beloved dvd is on its way out.
this article made me think back to the time when I was considering either blu-ray or hd-dvd. i almost went hd-dvd since the cost of entry was low and there were more movies on the format that i wanted. however, sites like blu-ray.com and thedigitalbits, backed up by my own research, convinced me that blu was the best way to go. picture and sound quality are first and foremost the most important factors for me. all that interactive stuff is nice fluff, but give me the best pic and sound possible.
anyway - i went blu, bought a ps3, and never looked back kudos to sony and their partners for taking the risk and doing what was necessary to ensure the future of blu. remember who helped you get there ;>)