Credit crunch? What credit crunch? Sales of Blu-ray films are up by a whopping 400 percent in the UK, according to the BVA (British Video Association) - probably as people stop spending all their cash on booze and strippers.
Woolies and Zavvi may have kicked the bucket, but Official Charts Company data shops have witnessed a recent "surge" in sales of films on Sony's new(-ish) disc format.
The home entertainment market is "alive and kicking", says the BVA (via Pocket-Lint), as 1.5 million Blu-rays fly off shelves in December - up 400 percent over the same period in 2007.
Good news for Sony and its Blu-ray-playing PS3, but it'll be interesting to see how this pans out as the format, which stomped all over HD-DVD in 2007, goes head-to-head with its newer rival - digital downloads.
I prefer to a) own a physical copy, and b) see movies like The Dark Knight in the highest quailty home format available. Downloads are far too compressed, and even if they weren't, who has the storage to keep more than a few? I have Sky Movies and Sky+ anyway, so for me, movie downloads are pointless.
Unless you live in Antarctica and don't have access to a store and/or fast mail service Digital downloads are a scam. The Last time I checked you couldn't take them off the PS3 or 360's hard drive and transfer them to physical media. Digital downloads are consumer UNFRIENDLY. the only winner is the content creators. you cannot lend them to anyone or resell it. It's foolish and I hope it dies a quick death like the Disney pay as you watch Divx format discs. It's funny, because for rentals it is a great idea, if you have the bandwidth you can watch a movie in decent picture quality with surround sound instantly. that is the only way that DD really works, as a rental option.
Absolutely. For the next few years, broadband speeds and bandwidth allowances are completely insufficient for having download-only titles. And there's just something nice about having a physical copy sitting there.
Unless they want to add the ability to burn your own DVDs, which I guess could be an option in the future.
I went looking for 2 Blu-ray discs as part of my girlfriend's xmas present, but the shop didn't have any. So they could've chalked up another 2 BR sales
Unless you live in Antarctica and don't have access to a store and/or fast mail service Digital downloads are a scam. The Last time I checked you couldn't take them off the PS3 or 360's hard drive and transfer them to physical media. Digital downloads are consumer UNFRIENDLY. the only winner is the content creators. you cannot lend them to anyone or resell it. It's foolish and I hope it dies a quick death like the Disney pay as you watch Divx format discs. It's funny, because for rentals it is a great idea, if you have the bandwidth you can watch a movie in decent picture quality with surround sound instantly. that is the only way that DD really works, as a rental option.
Although i do agree with you that digital downloads are a rip off at the minute. Blu ray are not much better and if recent reports are to be believed soon blu ray will be hit with crippling DRM that doesn't allow films to be played on more than one player.
Its almost as if the entertainment industry wants people to pirate stuff.
Unless you live in Antarctica and don't have access to a store and/or fast mail service Digital downloads are a scam. The Last time I checked you couldn't take them off the PS3 or 360's hard drive and transfer them to physical media. Digital downloads are consumer UNFRIENDLY. the only winner is the content creators. you cannot lend them to anyone or resell it. It's foolish and I hope it dies a quick death like the Disney pay as you watch Divx format discs. It's funny, because for rentals it is a great idea, if you have the bandwidth you can watch a movie in decent picture quality with surround sound instantly. that is the only way that DD really works, as a rental option.
Although i do agree with you that digital downloads are a rip off at the minute. Blu ray are not much better and if recent reports are to be believed soon blu ray will be hit with crippling DRM that doesn't allow films to be played on more than one player.
Its almost as if the entertainment industry wants people to pirate stuff.
Pirate stuff? And whats to stop people infringing copyright on digital downloads when they arrive? I reckon films will be streamed to pirated discs like never before!
I reckon DD will make it even easier for people to break the law.
Although i do agree with you that digital downloads are a rip off at the minute. Blu ray are not much better and if recent reports are to be believed soon blu ray will be hit with crippling DRM that doesn't allow films to be played on more than one player.
The update you have referred to came out in November 08 and it didn't stop films being played on more than one player.
Unless you live in Antarctica and don't have access to a store and/or fast mail service Digital downloads are a scam. The Last time I checked you couldn't take them off the PS3 or 360's hard drive and transfer them to physical media. Digital downloads are consumer UNFRIENDLY. the only winner is the content creators. you cannot lend them to anyone or resell it. It's foolish and I hope it dies a quick death like the Disney pay as you watch Divx format discs. It's funny, because for rentals it is a great idea, if you have the bandwidth you can watch a movie in decent picture quality with surround sound instantly. that is the only way that DD really works, as a rental option.
i understand your point but if someone created a service where you bought a digital copy and there would be no need to store it on your system and you would be able to access it where ever you want as long as you have an internet connection, would that be acceptable?
You wouldn't need to pay for the item every time and its instantaneous. also, it has the advantage of being portable to any location in the world without having to take a physical copy, imagine taking your entire movie collection to a friends house!
the only major problem right now is bandwidth as it isnt big enough to allow streaming of blu-ray quality content but it can do hd so if you arent too bothered about that then i see a winner.
The price of Bluray films has improved considerably over the last few months. I've been picking great films up for as little as £10 each, from online stores. Even HMV has a 2 for £25 offer on at the moment - and a good selection.
I'm currently trying to get hold of a copy of Serenity.
Who knows? Maybe Sony's risk will eventually be a fruitful one....
its nice to have a physical disk that you know works and you never have to re-download it, or i dont accidentally delete it.
Plus it looks awesome when you have a bunch of BR lined up on a shelf, and you can say to yourself, "I physically own these"
"Shiny, pretty things"...Just like crows. I wonder if the gimmick of selling DVD demos of movies or rental-like movies at low costs will take off given that the catch is that the DVDs used come with a programmed code that wipes the disc within a pre-determined time period after the disc detects usage. I loathe such blatant money grabs. Give me a quality product that you f'ing stand by at a reasonable price and both sides walk away with content.
I still don't believe in Blu-Ray yet, because it's just not that much better than DVDs. I mean look how DVDs got their success, from replacing VHS. VHS had poor quality, was prone to getting grainier every time you watched it and had no extra features, it was just the film and you had to fast forward or rewind to get to the bits you wanted. Then DVDs came and completely blew them out of the water with the superb quality that didn't deteriorate with every watch, with bonus features, commentary, subtitles, different language settings, chapters, menus and the ability to instantly skip bits out.
Blu-Ray is just a high quality DVD and doesn't add enough for me. They are a great idea for games because of all the extra storage on them, but for films and telly series I'm still happy enough with DVD until a new revolutionary format comes out.
I agree with you Crispylog, I have no interest in Bluray at all to be honest. At least until they're DVD cheap- I watched Hellboy 2 last night (s'alright), and I still think DVD quality is great- I can still watch a film and enjoy it with surround sound- I have absolutely no desire to see each of Ron Perlmans nose hairs in intricate detail.
Blu-Ray is much more than just resolution, digital downloads will have a lot higher colour subsampling ratio. Entropy, redundancy, perceptual encoding, all used with any format of movie you buy, there simply isnt space for uncompressed 35mm or in the case of TDK imax stock quality. Even special effects are added to footage that has been treated in some way. Digital downloads for movies have been birthed before their time due to the success of music downloads.
However, once we get new algorithms, cheaper storage space and more capable internet then perhaps they will be more viable, as for myself I always prefer a physical copy.
Some numpty was trying to argue with me on a topic in December that Blu-ray was a failure and wasn't selling well at all. If you have the balls show yourself and admit you were wrong.
I agree with you Crispylog, I have no interest in Bluray at all to be honest. At least until they're DVD cheap- I watched Hellboy 2 last night (s'alright), and I still think DVD quality is great- I can still watch a film and enjoy it with surround sound- I have absolutely no desire to see each of Ron Perlmans nose hairs in intricate detail.
Not yet anyway...
Watch the next 5 films you rent on Bluray then go back to DVD, even upscaled DVD. You will be surprised at the difference. I watched Bladerunner on Bluray and have not bought or rented a DVD since.
I think Bluray will get an even bigger boost in '09 with the planned 3D developments.
i just can't get excited about blu ray. theonly real difference that i can see is a slightly sharper picture and people have pores.
woooo!!!
There is a big difference however on certain films there isn't. Fact of the matter is that some films look really good on hd and some look really good upscaled. I find animated films look incredible in Blu-ray where as old films show no real improvement. Now that films are being made with Blu-ray in mind they will be noticabley better on it.
I concur with CrispyLog, MrPirtniw and WHERESMYMONKEY. Granted, I am intriqued to see just how much sharper a Blu-Ray image may appear side-by-side with a regular DVD but until Blu-Rays cost the exact same as DVDs (ok, maybe a euro or two more would keep it in the runnings,) I'm simply not interested in making the investment when I already have DVDs that look quite good. Yes, I like quality but in tandem with sound pricing. Now it may be sound pricing for Sony to but it's not sound pricing for my wallet which ends up not being sound pricing for Sony ultimately if they are interested in having my business.
Music downloads have been around for a good few years now yet people still buy cd's as its always nice to have a good collection BUT i do belive the sale of blu-ray is only up because of xmas and all the mums out there buying a few films for there kids to open on xmas day and also the release of some excellent and cheap box sets, e.g matrix trilogy, band of brothers to name a couple.
Personally i dont buy DVD's anymore, i do download films and if i like it ill get it on BR.
And you should also remember that NO ONE as used a blu-ray to the full extent yet. I read in empire (or something like that, hotdog maybe) that dvd was dieing untill the Matrix was released and showed just what could be done with a dvd. As yet BR is just an improved dvd. A BR holds what? around 50gig is it? There must be around 20-30 gig still free on the discs we're buying so just wait till movie producers start using them to the full.
its not hard to jump 400% in a year, when you didnt sell anything the year before, because it was out of the price range of people. Also having players and 6 films for 200 quid deals help alot. Im going to get a player towards the end of the year or early next, just moved house and have legal fees and everything else that comes with that to start paying first.
The price of Bluray films has improved considerably over the last few months. I've been picking great films up for as little as £10 each, from online stores. Even HMV has a 2 for £25 offer on at the moment - and a good selection.
I'm currently trying to get hold of a copy of Serenity.
Who knows? Maybe Sony's risk will eventually be a fruitful one....
Serenity!? Are you s**tting me!? I got that film free with my Xbox 360 HD-DVD player and haven't bothered watching more than 15mins of it because it looks soooo s**t!
Serenity?...Seriously!?
(PS. I have a BluRay player too and can get new HD-DVDs for £4 so no ripping me for backing the wrong horse!)
Well I bought a PS3 and 8 Blu-Rays...maybe that explains the "surge"
To all those saying HighDef downloads wont catch on...MP3's anyone?
UK internet speeds reach up to 50mb. What's wrong with downloading a 4-5gig film while you go out or sleep?
Exactly my point, however given the speeds you refer to I assume you mean Virgin's new service. This requires a great deal of infastructure replacement, exactly the same reason that SKy HD is more prevelant than Virgin's technically superior point to point service. In terms of coverage it simply isnt there yet in the UK and thats a huge market to be missing.
I'm sure most (if not all) here know this but the connections are rated in Megabits, and files in Megabytes, this means theres an 8 times shortfall between speed and size. Lots of regular consumers won't know this assuming that 8Mb is 8MB, and they will get bored by the time it takes to download and probably not use the service much until even faster speeds are achieved. of course I may be wrong they may all leave it Dl'ing and go out and not witness the speeds. Blu-Ray peaks at 48Mbps, i think it'll be a while until variables allowing most of the UK are seeing those types of speeds
Our local Blockbuster has a Sony Bravia pod set up with their £199 Blu Ray Player playing Blu Ray Movies. I have to say it really does look the business and the picture quality is like nothing I've ever seen before!
I agree with you Crispylog, I have no interest in Bluray at all to be honest. At least until they're DVD cheap- I watched Hellboy 2 last night (s'alright), and I still think DVD quality is great- I can still watch a film and enjoy it with surround sound- I have absolutely no desire to see each of Ron Perlmans nose hairs in intricate detail.
Not yet anyway...
Watch the next 5 films you rent on Bluray then go back to DVD, even upscaled DVD. You will be surprised at the difference. I watched Bladerunner on Bluray and have not bought or rented a DVD since.
I think Bluray will get an even bigger boost in '09 with the planned 3D developments.
Me and the missus watched the Bluray version of The Dark Knight over Xmas - and though we thought the film wasn't as good as we expected it to be - some of the scenes literally blew us both away with their visual impact. Tammy isn't one to embrace new technology (the trouble I had convincing her to get a new TV!), but she was first to comment on the clarity of the picture. It basically kills DVD stone-dead at times.
The price of Bluray films has improved considerably over the last few months. I've been picking great films up for as little as £10 each, from online stores. Even HMV has a 2 for £25 offer on at the moment - and a good selection.
I'm currently trying to get hold of a copy of Serenity.
Who knows? Maybe Sony's risk will eventually be a fruitful one....
Serenity!? Are you s**tting me!? I got that film free with my Xbox 360 HD-DVD player and haven't bothered watching more than 15mins of it because it looks soooo s**t!
Serenity?...Seriously!?
(PS. I have a BluRay player too and can get new HD-DVDs for £4 so no ripping me for backing the wrong horse!)
NO! you can get old HD-DVDs for £4 they dont make them anymore.....muppet
To all those saying HighDef downloads wont catch on...MP3's anyone?
Yeh but people still buy CDs by the s**t load.
Downloads will catch on but people will still buy blu-rays and dvds for the simple fact of 'what do you do if your hard drive goes s**t faced?'
Yup and HDD's have a certain number of read/writes before they usually go bad, check spec papers (not marketing bulls**t) that's why data hosters replace HDD's often
We've just got a new Samsung HDTV for the living room (our old TV stopped working, which I imagine is what it will take to get the majority of people thinking about going HD) so I'm now tempted to pick up a Blu-Ray player and make the most out of it, but there are two reasons why I'm reluctant to go out and get one just yet.
Firstly, they are still more expensive than DVDs, and I really don't see the point in paying more than say £10-£15 for a movie, which is usually around the price you can pick up new DVDs for.
Secondly, I don't see the point of buying old films that were made before the advent of DVD (or even VHS) on Blu-Ray, the quality won't be that great, in fact you're probably more likely to see all the flaws. Although for new films, it will be the definitive way to watch.
So if the price just came down a little, I'd probably get one, but I won't be throwing out my old DVDs like I have my old VHS tapes...
Secondly, I don't see the point of buying old films that were made before the advent of DVD (or even VHS) on Blu-Ray, the quality won't be that great, in fact you're probably more likely to see all the flaws. Although for new films, it will be the definitive way to watch.
So if the price just came down a little, I'd probably get one, but I won't be throwing out my old DVDs like I have my old VHS tapes...
Movies are shot in 35mm film. That's higher quality than DVD. Also you don't have to throw out your DVD's. Almost every Bluray player will play standard DVD's as well. They'll even upscale them.
the prices HAVE dropped already, dark knight £15.99, iron man £17.99, wall-e £14 and that's new films, older collections can be bought for under a tenner - people assume prices are high, shop around a bit
Secondly, I don't see the point of buying old films that were made before the advent of DVD (or even VHS) on Blu-Ray, the quality won't be that great, in fact you're probably more likely to see all the flaws. Although for new films, it will be the definitive way to watch.
So if the price just came down a little, I'd probably get one, but I won't be throwing out my old DVDs like I have my old VHS tapes...
Movies are shot in 35mm film. That's higher quality than DVD. Also you don't have to throw out your DVD's. Almost every Bluray player will play standard DVD's as well. They'll even upscale them.
was about to say something similar, old films are already in 'HD' because of the way films are shot, Old films look great on Blu Ray as long as the print they used isnt badly beaten up
Blu-Ray just isn't an option for me at the moment. We have DVD players coming out of our ears (DVD player in the car, in the kids' bedroom, in our bedroom, in the living room... ) but only one device capable of playing Blu-Ray (and that's a PC that lives in my office). I can't recall ever having seen a portable Blu-Ray player (not that I've looked), and while the prices of Blu-Ray films are getting closer to that of DVD films, I don't want to spend stupid amounts of money just so I can have the same convenience that I already have in terms of where I can watch my films... Now if Blu-Rays came with either a DVD copy of the film on a separate disc or even on the reverse of the Blu-Ray, that would at least make it easier for me to justify the purchase - otherwise I'll be buying 2 copies of every film or having to shell out for extra hardware (besides which I've only got 1 TV capable of displaying HD, so the benefits in picture quality would be lost anyway...)
I think the point that it sold sod all last year is relevant and HDDVD kicking the bucket, but still 400% is a great increase. My friends who are massive anally retentive film buffs haven't bothered with it yet, they love film, not the resolution! However friends who are gadget buffs have dived in.
The more people upgrade their TV's over time (I have a 22" monitor, but play mainly on a 20 something inch CRT TV in the lounge), and get larger HD TV's, then you will notice the difference over DVD but you really need 32" plus to really get the benefit. People may say BR is amazing in comparison, but that level of detail isn't necessary to most people. Yet.
The point about MP3 was very relevant too - MP3's are crap compared to CD, yet are really eating into CD sales, but then I buy everything on LP then download it anyway, it may be technically illegal but I'm not paying twice because I bought an analogue copy!
And a final point for my first post of 2009 is that I would never get Sky+. I would love to watch the footy and get HD films etc, but I am buggered if I'm giving Murdoch any money. Evil little turd that he is. Virgin picture quality is simply not as good as regular sky, but I can sleep at night at least!
Don't buy The Sun/NotW, don't subscribe to Sky. You might as well spend your time watching rascist propaganda films as watching Fox news.
Blu-ray is great for the under thirty techies out there(who only like to watch new films), but what's the point of it if it's classic film and TV your into? DVD will still be around for a long time to come.
PS, 1.5 million? How does that compare to DVD sales?
Having owned a PS3 for about 6 months I've never purchased a bluray. I've watched a few but use my PS3 for gaming primarily. But got Wall-E for christmas and have just ordered The Dark Knight. So my buy ray buying has gone up 200%! To people who say BR vs DVD isn't any better you need to watch a BR on a full 1080p tv with surround sound... then you will see the difference.. maybe you're bitter cos you're a pikey and can't afford a PS3
digital dl will probably never take off due to the quality factor but then again poor quality mp3's are selling like crazy so quality may not b a factor 4 most people. I think digital dl are great for rentals but I will never buy a film that way. For those people who think blu-ray is not a huge step up for both image and sound quality then maybe you should stop watching them on a standard def TV or smthg coz I dont have great eyesight but can clearly mark the improvements over DVD even when i upscale it on my ps3. Anyways blu-ray isnt tht well known atm (my mom a few weeks back was puzzled when she saw the ad and i had to explain it forever until she got it) and thats what is very important for its sales.
I don't have any Blu-ray movies yet, so I can't really judge the difference between upscaled DVD and raw Blu-ray, but that's only part of the difference. And of course you're not going to notice a big change in quality on old movies because you can't get higher quality than the source. The only exception I can think of is (I think) Ben Hur, which was recorded at an enhanced quality back in '59.
The 50Gb capacity is the biggest draw. So you get the extra pixels, but also tons of space for other features.
But of course the biggest advantage of all is like I said in my first post - downloading a 6-8Gb DVD is bad enough, but imagine having to download 25-50Gb just to watch a movie. Crazy. And then the storage requirements to keep them all. It's becoming more common now, so I think we'll see a shift to BR over the next couple of years.
It'll start when one company makes an epic film and claims that it wouldn't do it justice to release it in standard def. Then others will follow suit.
I don't really think blu-ray and digital downloads are going to go head to head. They are fairly distinct markets IMO. Digital downloads are good for a last-minute, late night rental; and yet who would buy them as a gift? This is where blu-ray comes in.
Yes there is some overlap but there is also enough room for both formats in the market.
Well for now HD drives are cheap but personally I prefer to own a real copy and sell it on or share with mates. My biggest mistake learnt last year was erasing my PSN account and at the same time losing all my PSN games. Gutted. But part exchanging real copies and swapping movies with mates is saving loadsa money and getting to watch all the latest releases.
I'll be interested to see which movie sells more copies on blu - ray than on DVD. It's going to happen sometime soon, looking at The Dark Knight anyway.
Themistocles brings up a good point, you can't really buy a digital download as a gift and in a way, it is a very different market, having said that, i still think digital downloads will take some of the blu - ray market share (and vice versa).
I reckon it'll be a long,long time before digital downloads get up to blu - ray quality, at a fairly manageable download size.
I love my ps3 bluray player! Just got Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Batman: The Dark Knight and they both look awesome in HD. Also I got to say I bought "Speed" on bluray a while back and it does look fantastic in HD, you wouldn't have thought because of how old it is, but it looks fantastic compared to the original DVD release. The explosions look unbelievable!
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I got that film free with my Xbox 360 HD-DVD player and haven't bothered watching more than 15mins of it because it looks soooo s**t! 
DVD will still be around for a long time to come. 
