Blu-raystats.com has published an interesting article on trends in 2008 . The part summing up disc specs is worth mentioning.
I went to the stat chart for more detailed figures, and here are the percentages by studio (always according to blu-raystats.com):
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Indeed, Warner is the studio using BD50 less. Even much-derided MGM uses DL more.
Same thing with lossless audio. Other major studios are putting lossless audio on all discs - even non-major studios have a better track record.
It will be interesting to see if this changes in 2009.
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Disc Capacity
I think in 2008 we are definitely seeing a fairy stable ratio of dual layer titles compared to single layer titles.
In 2007 63.6% of the discs were dual layer 50 GB discs already, and in 2008 the DL share increased a little to almost two thirds.
I think as the additional cost of the dual layer discs decreases we will see this share slowly increase, but the reality is that not every title needs all that capacity.
It is great to see dual layer discs being commonplace - not bad for a technology described by a certain Microsoft executive as `Science Fiction' - should I say former Microsoft executive!
Video and Codec Choices
Something that has become increasingly apparent is that AVC has become the defacto official codec for Blu-ray Disc.
While Blu-ray exclusive studios Disney, Fox and Sony have used AVC video encoding on 90 percent or more of their releases, recently we have seen a shift towards AVC from previously HD DVD exclusive studios Paramount and Universal, with both releasing in more than 60 percent of their titles with AVC in December this year.
This leaves Warner as the last remaining big studio dedicated to Microsoft's VC-1 codec.
In fact, with almost 3/4 of December's releases adopting AVC video, it won't be long before more than half of all releases to date will have AVC encoding.
With just over 5% of the 2008 releases, the MPEG2 codec is not pretty much relegated to independent and budget releases.
On the audio side, many were very excited to see Universal adopt the lossless DTS-HD Master Audio codec for their Blu-ray releases, with lossless audio on all of their releases.
Paramount also moved strongly towards lossless audio with only one release not using lossless audio for 2008. Safe to say that Dolby TrueHD audio is now their preferred audio codec.
This leaves Warner again alone in codec space, with lossy Dolby Digital audio on almost half of their releases this year, including some of their Day and Date releases like Speed Racer, The Bucket List and Get Smart.
That said, we have seen a move from 70 percent of titles with lossless audio to over 80 percent of releases with lossless audio in 2008.
Region Coding
We have definitely seen a move away from of restrictive Region Codes in 2008.
While 64 percent of the releases in 2007 were coded for all regions, over 72 percent of 2008 releases were Region A,B,C.
There has been a major move by Sony away from restrictive region coding, with over 40% of their discs Region A in 2007, and only 11% Region A in 2008.
To a lesser extent Disney also moved away from restrictive coding, while Fox went from all Region A titles in 2007 to having 10% of their 2008 releases coded for all regions.
Of course, previous HD DVD supporters Universal and Paramount have not used region coding coding and only the New Line Warner releases were Region A in 2008.
I went to the stat chart for more detailed figures, and here are the percentages by studio (always according to blu-raystats.com):
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Studio BD50 MPEG2 Lossless Region-free
Disney 100.00 0.00 100.00 51.43
Fox 83.05 6.90 100.00 10.20
Lionsgate 63.64 0.00 100.00 71.43
MGM 64.29 21.43 100.00 10.00
Paramount 97.44 0.00 97.44 100.00
Sony 91.03 1.25 100.00 89.16
Universal 68.42 0.00 100.00 100.00
Warner* 55.77 0.97 53.15 89.58
Other 37.84 15.97 68.29 68.12
*includes New Line
Indeed, Warner is the studio using BD50 less. Even much-derided MGM uses DL more.
Same thing with lossless audio. Other major studios are putting lossless audio on all discs - even non-major studios have a better track record.
It will be interesting to see if this changes in 2009.