Home Media Magazine - May 4-10, 2008 - (Page 8)

HIGH-DEF www.homemediamagazine.com Retailers Up Blu-ray Presence Report: Blu-ray’s By Erik Gruenwedel RETAIL Retailers Best Buy and Circuit City Stores last week ramped up promotional efforts for Blu-ray Disc players and movies. Richmond, Va.-based Circuit City offered a free Blu-ray title with the in-store purchase of two $29.99 BD titles and Sony’s 1080p BD player for $400. Spokesperson Jackie Foreman said the promotion is to help consumers invest with confidence in next-generation titles. “We think [Blu-ray] will be a milestone in home entertainment,” she said. Best Buy ran a clearance sale on Samsung’s 1080p BD player for $500, after deductSurf’s Up ing the $100 mail-in rebate. It also carried the Sony 1080p player for $400. The Minneapolis-based No. 1 Bluray retailer, which claims more than 500 BD movies, including online selections, offered a $10 gift card with the purchase of two BD titles from the following Sony Pictures Home Entertainment releases: Casino Royale, Superbad, Resident Evil: Extinction, Surf’s Up, SpiderMan 3 and Open Season. Best Buy spokesperson Brian Lucas said the retailer is doing whatever it can to educate people about Bluray, including informing them the format war with HD DVD is over. Lucas said he wasn’t sure what the latest “temperature reading” among potential Blu-ray consumers was, but he denied that scant mention of the format in recent weekly newspaper circulars reflected consumer indifference in stores. “Some of the [gap in BD marketing] was making sure we had enough Blu-ray titles in stock,” Lucas said. “We had to demand-plan correctly.” Ralph Tribbey, editor of The DVD Release Report, an industry tip sheet, contends consumer and studio response to Blu-ray has been moribund. He said studios should triple the pace of Blu-ray releases, which he said stands at 88 titles over the past 13 weeks. “They need to make this a format that goes beyond just being a niche,” Tribbey said. “One or two titles per [studio] each month is similar to the laserdisc release pattern.” Adoption Delayed By Erik Gruenwedel RESEARCH A new report says widespread consumer adoption of the Blu-ray Disc format is at least 12 to 18 months away. The study from New York-based Applied Business Intelligence (ABI) said the continued presence of discounted HD DVD players and first edition Blu-ray players lacking upgrades such as BD Live and Bonus View (picture-in-picture) prevent most retailers from aggressively selling the format. ABI analyst Steve Wilson said manufacturers would rather sell fully featured 2.0 models than push early models and contend with disgruntled customers later. “BD player prices remain high and supplies are limited,” he said. ”This is good for the market be- cause most current players do not support all [disc] functions.” The report said that unless second-generation Blu-ray players retail around $200 and movies in the low $20 range, standard-definition DVD players would remain entrenched. The study predicted the U.S. economic downturn would likely result in HDTV and prospective HDTV owners going for upconverting DVD players instead of higher-ticket Bluray hardware. Despite manufacturer price cuts for BD-ROM drives, the report said they are still three to four times more expensive than red-laser drives in addition to requiring advanced graphics. The study projects Sony’s Blu-ray-equipped PlayStation 3 game console will represent 85% of the BD player market this year. ‘ARCSOFT’ PLAYS BD LIVE By Chris Tribbey AACS: Managed Copy Still in Play By Chris Tribbey anaged copy may still be a reality after all. Michael B. Ayers, chairman of the Advanced Access Content System (AACS) Business Group and manager of AACS Licensing Administrator, disputed media reports that the final specifications of the AACS content protection system would not include managed copy for Blu-ray Disc. AACS is the content distribution and digital rights management stan- rcSoft’s TotalMedia Theatre, PC desktop software with Blu-ray Disc playback, has been certified by the Blu-ray Disc Association to handle BD Live/Profile 2.0. This is the first PC desktop software certified to create BD Live bonus features, such as interactive games, new content downloads and peer-to-peer extras. An updated version of the software will be made available to existing, registered users, free of charge. M dard for Blu-ray, restricting copying of next-generation optical discs. Managed copy would allow Blu-ray users limited abilities to back up their media to a hard drive, and use Blu-ray Disc content on portable media devices. “AACS LA continues to work toward a set of final specs and licenses that includes managed copy, just as it has been since the beginning,” said Ayers, who is a senior attorney with Toshiba America Information Systems. “There are no plans to drop managed copy, and reports to the contrary are in error.” Consumer Electronics Daily reported April 22 that content licensing problems were stopping AACS from including managed copy, which had been considered mandatory for both HD DVD and Blu-ray, in the final specifications. Andy Parsons, SVP of product planning for the home entertainment group at Pioneer Electronics and marketing director of the Blu- ray Disc Association, said that while managed copy is an “understandably complex effort,” he did not believe AACS or the studios would give up on it. Richard Bullwinkle, chief evangelist for Macrovision, said he too would be surprised if managed copy wasn’t included in the final specifications. “We do have evidence that some companies might release products on the draft of the spec, which is interesting,” he said. “I think failure to allow for managed copy would be a mistake.” TOP 20 HIGH-DEF BLU-R AY D ISC Week ended April 27, 2008 LABEL INDEX BRIEFS I STUDY: 5.5M GOT HDTVS DUR- Xbox 360 or the Sony PlayStation 3. Only ING HOLIDAYS, SUPER BOWL 3% said they were receiving HD programAbout 25%, or 28 million, of U.S. households have an HDTV, after 5.5 million new HDTV buyers emerged during the holiday and Super Bowl season, according to a new research report from Frank N. Magid Associates. Up from 20% American household penetration in September 2007, the ﬁgures don’t include another 3 million households that added a second HDTV during the same period. That makes nearly 10 million homes in the United States with more than one HDTV, the research ﬁrm reported. Still, the study shows that about 30% of HDTV set owners are not arranging for HD service, either because of the cost or the limited number of channels. Among those who bought their HDTV set in the past year, 18% said they did so to connect it to a high-deﬁnition video game console, the ming over the air. The study goes on to state that three out of every 10 American households plan on buying an HDTV in the next year, with many citing the February 2009 analogto-digital TV transition. Four of 10 households that already have one HDTV will buy another in the next 12 months, according – Chris Tribbey to the study. TITLE H I G H -D E F C O M I NG U P STREETING The Devil’s Own Blu-ray Sony Pictures Street Date: 5/6 First Sunday Blu-ray Sony Pictures Street Date: 5/6 P.S. I Love You Blu-ray Warner Street Date: 5/6 Twister Blu-ray Warner Street Date: 5/6 The Chronicles of Narnia Blu-ray Disney Street Date: 5/13 Ozzfest: 10th Anniversary Blu-ray Concert Hot Spot Street Date: 5/13 PREBOOKING The Eye Lionsgate Blu-ray Pre: 5/7, Street: 6/3 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem Juno I Am Legend 300 Blade Runner: Complete Collector’s Edition Independence Day Troy: Director’s Cut The Orphanage Predator Pan’s Labyrinth Blue Planet Casino Royale Planet Earth: The Complete Series Over America I, Robot No Country for Old Men 3:10 to Yuma The Departed Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest One Missed Call Fox Fox Warner Warner Warner Fox Warner New Line Fox New Line Warner Sony Pictures BBC Video Topics Fox Disney/Miramax Lionsgate Warner Disney Warner 100.00 93.72 86.69 84.87 79.71 79.70 71.72 64.21 60.35 54.29 50.70 47.65 47.01 46.83 46.30 42.63 41.56 40.82 33.97 30.77 I TOSHIBA PROFITS DOWN 95% IN THE FIRST QUARTER Toshiba Corp.’s year-over-year proﬁts fell 95% in the ﬁrst quarter (which ended March 31). Not surprisingly, a one-time loss of $461 million for pulling the plug on the HD DVD format contributed to the proﬁt estimate of $12 million. That compares to $251.5 million during the same – Chris Tribbey period in 2007. Source: Nielsen VideoScan First Alert data Home Media Magazine May 4–10, 2008 http://www.homemediamagazine.com

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Home Media Magazine - May 4-10, 2008 Contents News TV DVD Reviews Pipeline Research Top 20 DVD Sellers Top 20 Rentals and Top 10 Charts Just Announced

Home Media Magazine - May 4-10, 2008

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