Home Media Magazine - November 18-24, 2007 - (Page 24) ADVERTISEMENT PRODUCT SPOTLIGHTS GO WEST MSRP: $29.95 Two gay men, one Serbian the other Muslim, both deeply in love, must find their way through war torn Bosnia to find refuge. Only their shared hope can keep them alive and only the bonds of family, above all else, will rescue them. Order Date: 12/18/07 Street Date: 1/7/08 NEWS Q4 Titles to Arrive Later This Season Continued from page 8 www.homemediamagazine.com An analysis of Nielsen VideoScan DVD sales bring movies with nearly $1 billion in box numbers for titles released in August, Septemoffice to the DVD counter, including such ber and early October shows no significant blockbusters as Pirates ($309.4 million), Har- downtick in first-week sales. The top 20 sellers ry Potter ($291.7 million) released in that time frame in and The Bourne Ultima2006 realized an average of tum ($226.8 million and 62.3% of total sales in week coming Dec. 11, the same one, while the top 20 sellers day as Potter). in the comparable period this Then on Dec. 18, come year realized 62.2% of sales five titles that had wide in week one. theatrical distribution, led There are indications, by 20th Century Fox’s The however, that the big hits Simpsons Movie ($182.9 may not be as front-loaded million). The Bourne Ultimatum as they once were. Last year Most observers expect X-Men: The Last Stand sold the big DVD rush to begin the day after 72% of its total sales tally within the first week Thanksgiving, on Black Friday, when several of its release, with week-two sales dipping to hot new hits will be in stores, including 20th just 18%. Century Fox’s Live Free or Die Hard, Walt This year, Transformers was at 64% in week Disney Studios Home Entertainment’s Santa one and 21% in week two. Clause 3: The Escape Clause and New Line “We’re likely looking at a later shopping Home Entertainment’s Hairspray. season,” Feldstein said. CLASSIFIED SHOWCASE B R O W S E R D I S P L AY CO M P U T E R S O F T WA R E High-Def Battle Gets Fans Heated Continued from page 1 BUSINESS SERVICES DI STR I B UTOR U S E D TA P E S & D V D S “Status symbol, bragging rights or just the fact that people want to show off their tech knowledge, what they are doing is presenting their opinions on forums and blogs and then defending these opinions — and their ‘tech’ — with fanaticism,” said Xiao Fang, webmaster of DigitalDigest.com, one of the many Web sites where HD DVD and Blu-ray fanboys express their thoughts. “It is unique in that I don’t think something like this has happened before on such a scale.” A check of any U.S. technology Web site will find forums filled with fans who have latched on to Blu-ray or HD DVD with unfaltering loyalty: I “All’s fair in the war at this point. Payback is a bitch,” wrote one HD DVD fan on HighDefDigest.com. I “I take anything and everything that Microsoft says with a grain of salt the size of the Paramount Pictures mountain,” wrote a Bluray backer on HomeTheaterForum.com. I “You’re either a troll or just an ignorant fool” and “BD fanboys are friggin’ idiots” were just two of the gems from HD DVD fans to show up on Engadget.com forums in early November. It got so bad this month on AVSForum. com that site owners shut down the high-def software forum for nearly a week. “We have seen members attacking other members not only in debate, which is the right way, but with physical threats that have involved police and possible legal action,” read an AVS letter to its members. “This type of behavior is just not welcome here, period. To the extent that some of you have gone to support either format is just, well, disgusting and has no place on this site. “The amount of misinformation posted here and other places online helps no one.” Misinformation is an understantement for many high-def fan postings. “We certainly see members on both sides of the aisle spinning the day’s news in a way that favors their chosen format, but then we see the same thing from the studios and manufacturers themselves,” said Jed Rosenzweig, publisher of HighDefDigest.com. “I do think that it’s worth emphasizing that the vast majority of early adopters who visit forums like ours are there to engage in an honest discussion with like-minded fans.” The main reason behind the vitriol for both fans and financial backers of HD DVD and Blu-ray seems obvious to Geoff Kleinman, editor and founder of DVDTalk.com: “Money. Plain and simple.” “Consumers in this war are voting with their dollars, and they don’t want to see that investment be for a format that dies, making their investment ‘worthless,’” he said. “People can be extremely dogmatic when it comes to this format war.” And when people go too far in their posts regarding the format war, every site seems to have a policy to regulate the worst offenders. “When someone chooses a technology, they are usually convinced that it is the best, and when others don’t agree, they take it personally,” said Ben Drawbaugh, an Engadget. com HD reporter. “We’re fortunate, and we don’t see threatening comments. But we do see some that are insulting. Sometimes we delete them, other times we let them go. It depends on how bad they are — and if they are witty.” Yet, with representatives of both Blu-ray and HD DVD responding directly to fan posts on the various forums, it’s becoming obvious that the fans are being heard; every post — insulting or not, true or false — gets attention. “With such a high concentration of the existing consumer base for these two formats visiting sites like ours, their comments actually end up bearing a lot more weight with studios and manufacturers on both sides of the battle,” HighDefDigest’s Rosenzweig said. 24 Home Media Magazine November 18–24, 2007 http://www.homemediamagazine.com http://HighDefDigest.com http://DVDTalk.com http://HighDefDigest.com http://HomeTheaterForum.com http://Engadget.com http://www.corporate.com
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