Yesterday I was in Best Buy. I picked up the Alien Quadrilogy while I was there (very good price). While I was buying it I asked the (male) Best Buy employee I purchased it from "How are Blu Ray sales doing? Picking up?"

"Well, I think so...kind of anyway. But I think right now it's more between DVD and HD that people are trying to choose between."

"Excuse me: HD?"

"Yeah, HD DVD. It came out first so I think it's doing better."

"Uh...are you not aware that HD DVD lost the battle with Blu Ray just after last Christmas and threw in the towel? And that HD DVD has been gone for quite a while now? You don't even sell it in your store."

"Oh....really?"

Ah, the wisdom of the Best Buy employee. :) And yet, no matter how many times my friends ask me for advice on their AV purchase, they still go with whatever a Best Buy employee tells them anyway. "Got it on sale."

(Sorry, just had to report this. The AV-geek equivalent of finding someone on a desert island).

Yesterday I was in Best Buy.

Well, there's your first problem guv.....

Seggers

Yesterday I was in Best Buy. I picked up the Alien Quadrilogy while I was there (very good price). While I was buying it I asked the (male) Best Buy employee I purchased it from "How are Blu Ray sales doing? Picking up?"

"Well, I think so...kind of anyway. But I think right now it's more between DVD and HD that people are trying to choose between."

"Excuse me: HD?"

"Yeah, HD DVD. It came out first so I think it's doing better."

"Uh...are you not aware that HD DVD lost the battle with Blu Ray just after last Christmas and threw in the towel? And that HD DVD has been gone for quite a while now? You don't even sell it in your store."

"Oh....really?"

Ah, the wisdom of the Best Buy employee. :) And yet, no matter how many times my friends ask me for advice on their AV purchase, they still go with whatever a Best Buy employee tells them anyway. "Got it on sale."

(Sorry, just had to report this. The AV-geek equivalent of finding someone on a desert island).

The guy may have been working in another dept. yesterday and will move to the next in a few days. Those store don't hire specialist, they employ some student or other low pay sales clerk. And at that salary those worker aren't inclined to spent time and money educating themselves on those product sinece they'll be move to anoter dept. anyway.

The Magnolia people are usually about as close as it gets to being knowledgeable about that sort of thing. At the stores in my area, they seem to have taken over the Home Theater department entirely and you won't find many blue shirts hanging in that section.

The Magnolia people are usually about as close as it gets to being knowledgeable about that sort of thing. At the stores in my area, they seem to have taken over the Home Theater department entirely and you won't find many blue shirts hanging in that section.

We don't have Magnolia in Canada, at least not in Quebec. I don't know about Toronto, ON. Here the only sales rep are those "blue" shirt.

My reaction would not have been to ask what he meant about HD. I would have just assumed he meant high definition in general vs. DVD, which is a valid assessment. However, as you found, out he didn't know what he was talking about.

The format war is not over, it just switched from Blu-Ray vs HD-DVD to Blu-Ray vs SD DVD, and so far SD DVD is winning by a landslide. It both amazes and amuses me that I have never seen any consumer product so hyped and so vigorously pushed on the public by everyone in the industry and aided by everyone in the media as Blu-Ray has, and yet fail so miserably to be accepted by the masses. Perhaps the gullibility of the average consumer has been greatly exaggerated.

The format war is not over, it just switched from Blu-Ray vs HD-DVD to Blu-Ray vs SD DVD, and so far SD DVD is winning by a landslide. It both amazes and amuses me that I have never seen any consumer product so hyped and so vigorously pushed on the public by everyone in the industry and aided by everyone in the media as Blu-Ray has, and yet fail so miserably to be accepted by the masses. Perhaps the gullibility of the average consumer has been greatly exaggerated.

VHS was winning by a landslide in 1998-1999 also.

It will take time but don't discount the fact that the studios want to sell you the same movies over again in a new format.

The format war is not over, it just switched from Blu-Ray vs HD-DVD to Blu-Ray vs SD DVD, and so far SD DVD is winning by a landslide. It both amazes and amuses me that I have never seen any consumer product so hyped and so vigorously pushed on the public by everyone in the industry and aided by everyone in the media as Blu-Ray has, and yet fail so miserably to be accepted by the masses. Perhaps the gullibility of the average consumer has been greatly exaggerated.

It sounds as if you feel Bluray is an inferior product?

Color me gullible then. I don't know why, but I prefer watching hidef material on my hidef displays. Imagine that? :)

Art

The format war is not over, it just switched from Blu-Ray vs HD-DVD to Blu-Ray vs SD DVD, and so far SD DVD is winning by a landslide. It both amazes and amuses me that I have never seen any consumer product so hyped and so vigorously pushed on the public by everyone in the industry and aided by everyone in the media as Blu-Ray has, and yet fail so miserably to be accepted by the masses. Perhaps the gullibility of the average consumer has been greatly exaggerated.

What about New Coke? :)

The format war is not over, it just switched from Blu-Ray vs HD-DVD to Blu-Ray vs SD DVD, and so far SD DVD is winning by a landslide. It both amazes and amuses me that I have never seen any consumer product so hyped and so vigorously pushed on the public by everyone in the industry and aided by everyone in the media as Blu-Ray has, and yet fail so miserably to be accepted by the masses. Perhaps the gullibility of the average consumer has been greatly exaggerated.

Interesting.

I have been amazed at the presence Blu Ray has been given in store after store. Not only the Future Shop/Best Buys, but in video rental stores and I even find Blu Ray prominently displayed and sold in places like Shoppers Drug Mart of all places! Even my local corner store has a line of Blu Ray movies for sale behind the counter.

I've been asking all these places how Blu Ray is doing these days and it's been nothing but positive responses, all saying how a lot of people are buying now and how much it's picked up over the last several months.

Not to mention the Blu Ray of Iron Man topping the SD DVD in sales at Amazon.

Seems to me Blu Ray is getting there. It's certainly far, far surpassed laser-disc status in terms of high profile, visibility and availability.

It sounds as if you feel Bluray is an inferior product?

Color me gullible then. I don't know why, but I prefer watching hidef material on my hidef displays. Imagine that? :)

Art

+1.

I dread to pick SD DVD anymore.

OMG! :eek: I've turned into a HD snob....

Seggers

Interesting.

I have been amazed at the presence Blu Ray has been given in store after store. Not only the Future Shop/Best Buys, but in video rental stores and I even find Blu Ray prominently displayed and sold in places like Shoppers Drug Mart of all places! Even my local corner store has a line of Blu Ray movies for sale behind the counter.

I've been asking all these places how Blu Ray is doing these days and it's been nothing but positive responses, all saying how a lot of people are buying now and how much it's picked up over the last several months.

Not to mention the Blu Ray of Iron Man topping the SD DVD in sales at Amazon.

Seems to me Blu Ray is getting there. It's certainly far, far surpassed laser-disc status in terms of high profile, visibility and availability.


And yet, we keep seeing articles like this:

http://ecoustics-cnet.com.com/8301-13506_3-10052157-17.html?part=ecoustics-cnet


and this:

http://news.digitaltrends.com/news-article/17948/blu-ray-market-share-drops

And yet, we keep seeing articles like this:

http://ecoustics-cnet.com.com/8301-13506_3-10052157-17.html?part=ecoustics-cnet


and this:

http://news.digitaltrends.com/news-article/17948/blu-ray-market-share-drops

And what is that supposed to prove?

Just because random c.net blogger writes a controversial article to get hits doesn't mean it's factual. It's the nature of the internet to right controversial stuff to get hits. Nobody cares about reading an article that says "Everything is great!"

Additionally, that market share article merely states that it lost for that week -- it's going to have weeks like that... What matters is that it grows over an extended period of time. Look at the stats with such granularity doesn't prove much of anything. Useful sales data (especially when trying to show trends) requires more than just a week.

By all accounts with any sense, BR is doing fine and on the road to overcoming DVD over the next several years.

Oddly, if you look around the internet you'll find the same silly articles posted about DVD in it's first couple years (and it didn't even have to fight a real war for the first two years of it's life -- the fight with divx was hardly a war).

Either you're obtuse or ignorant, dsmith901. Neither one is a good position to be in.

I'm actually surprised how well BD is doing, I figured it's uptake would be much slower. But with news like "Iron Man's Blu-ray release manages 20 percent of DVD's market share (http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/10/08/iron-mans-blu-ray-release-manages-20-percent-of-dvds-market-sh/), it's kind of hard to argue that Blu-ray isn't catching on.

20% market share for a new release, what 2 years after launch is pretty good.

+1.

I dread to pick SD DVD anymore.

OMG! :eek: I've turned into a HD snob....

Seggers

A few million more HD "snobs" and we might not have to pick up SD DVDs anymore. :D

And yet, we keep seeing articles like this:

http://ecoustics-cnet.com.com/8301-13506_3-10052157-17.html?part=ecoustics-cnet


and this:

http://news.digitaltrends.com/news-article/17948/blu-ray-market-share-drops

I am not insulting you, but in response to those articles the most commonly used phrase lately in politics applies, "its the economy stupid".

No one is buying anything, let alone BD discs selling.

The format war is not over, it just switched from Blu-Ray vs HD-DVD to Blu-Ray vs SD DVD, and so far SD DVD is winning by a landslide. It both amazes and amuses me that I have never seen any consumer product so hyped and so vigorously pushed on the public by everyone in the industry and aided by everyone in the media as Blu-Ray has, and yet fail so miserably to be accepted by the masses. Perhaps the gullibility of the average consumer has been greatly exaggerated.

I take it you consider HDTV to be a failure too then. It's been around for almost a decade, five times longer than Blu-ray has been on the market, yet HDTV-capable displays are still only in about 35 percent of American homes. Given this market penetration, how high would you expect Blu-ray sales to be at this point in time?

shall I guess that it was the Heartland BB? Or Yonge and Dundas?

I'm usually at the Laird one (close to home, natch) and I try to avoid contact with sales staff (management is OK :) )


At least the person seemed friendly, if clueless... I had far more "what are you buying THIS for?!" when shopping back in the day for red -or- blue cases...

And, yeah, I'm extremely pleased to have snagged some of my fav films of all time in formats that I can't imagine for decades to come to be surpassed in terms of PQ, all for prices that I never thought would be so (relatively) cheap when I started seriously collecting back in the LD days a dozen years ago.

shall I guess that it was the Heartland BB? Or Yonge and Dundas?

I'm usually at the Laird one (close to home, natch) and I try to avoid contact with sales staff (management is OK :) )




It actually WAS the Laird location. :) Whoo-boy, some of the things I've overheard that sale-staff telling customers....

I'm actually surprised how well BD is doing, I figured it's uptake would be much slower. But with news like "Iron Man's Blu-ray release manages 20 percent of DVD's market share (http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/10/08/iron-mans-blu-ray-release-manages-20-percent-of-dvds-market-sh/), it's kind of hard to argue that Blu-ray isn't catching on.

20% market share for a new release, what 2 years after launch is pretty good.

Looks pretty but more telling is how Iron man will do in comparison to DVD over the coming two months.

It might be that early br adopters are causing the sales spike in the first week. Pent up pre orders can have this effect too.

Annother effect shifting the percentage favourably for br might be that the overall sales may be lower than usual due to current economics.
Most HT enthiousasts keep buying regardless.

Last year Transformers HD DVD release topped the DVD release on amazon too in the first release week.

And yet, we keep seeing articles like this:

http://ecoustics-cnet.com.com/8301-13506_3-10052157-17.html?part=ecoustics-cnet


and this:

http://news.digitaltrends.com/news-article/17948/blu-ray-market-share-drops

Don't you mean blogs? Article are written by journalists.

Don't you mean blogs? Article are written by journalists.

Whether written by a blogger or a "journalist" the sales numbers are the same. Don't blame the messenger (or me).

Whether written by a blogger or a "journalist" the sales numbers are the same. Don't blame the messenger (or me).

Not blaming you. After the last year I just choose to ignore blogs. Most are simply rehashes of other blogs anyway so if you've read one you've read them all. The sad fact is all it takes to "write" a blog is a password. And for most of them, it shows. As far as sales numbers I think they are fine, after this weeks numbers I think this 4Q is going to go pretty well for Blu-ray also. Wow, maybe I should write a blog.:)

I'm actually surprised how well BD is doing, I figured it's uptake would be much slower. But with news like "Iron Man's Blu-ray release manages 20 percent of DVD's market share (http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/10/08/iron-mans-blu-ray-release-manages-20-percent-of-dvds-market-sh/), it's kind of hard to argue that Blu-ray isn't catching on.

20% market share for a new release, what 2 years after launch is pretty good.

The problem is that when the numbers came in it wasn't anywhere near that. See the official sales figures thread. I think it was ~500,000k BD (which is still very good) vs 7-8M for SD. This ended up being quite a disappointment as far as ratios go. I still love my BD but you paint far too rosy a picture. Blu has this holiday season to itself to make a significant charge but I suspect the economy is going to have a negative impact on that.

The problem is that when the numbers came in it wasn't anywhere near that. See the official sales figures thread. I think it was ~500,000k BD (which is still very good) vs 7-8M for SD. This ended up being quite a disappointment as far as ratios go. I still love my BD but you paint far too rosy a picture. Blu has this holiday season to itself to make a significant charge but I suspect the economy is going to have a negative impact on that.

From Kosty in the other thread I was referencing:

7,200,000 DVD + 500,000 Blu-ray = 7,700,000 units of Ironman

500,000 Blu-ray / 7,700,000 units total units is a 6.49% BD Market share or 1/15 of the units sold were the Blu-ray version.

But the Blu-ray version was not as heavily discounted as the DVD version was, so it may be 10% plus or more of the revenues and profits.

Its not 20% market share in units by that report.

Please continue in the BD sales figures thread. Thanks.

larry