Nielsen VideoScan High-Def market share for week ending April 27th, 2008
by Ben Drawbaugh 
posted May 2nd 2008 at 10:00PM
Home Media Magazine finally gave up on HD DVD this week once and for all -- well almost -- as the four top ten Nielsen VideoScan HD charts have been reduced to a single top 20 Blu-ray chart, and the since inception was replaced with a consumer spending on Blu-ray index. We have to say we appreciate these changes as the new information is much more interesting. This week is much of the same from last week, as the top title for DVD wasn't available on Blu-ray and although we were right in our prediction that this week wouldn't be very special, we were wrong about The Orphanage, which despite its subtitles, it was the only title released that week that hit the top ten, and only the second to make the top twenty. Speaking of top twenty, Blu-ray only managed a 6% share against DVD, but only half of the DVD top twenty is available on Blu-ray. Of course this should change by the end of July, now that both Paramount and Universal have announced Blu-ray titles. But until then, next week should be a little better for Blu with some help from The Golden Compass and 27 Dresses, but not much.
Filed under: Blu-ray
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
T-bone @ May 2nd 2008 10:14PM
Revenue / Units Sold = ASP of nearly $37....hmmmm....just seems too high.
Gus @ May 2nd 2008 10:28PM
I hate this BS percentile margins represented every week, why cant this site just grow some balls and just say it how it is, why does it have to be made pretty, to make all the blu faithful feel warm and fuzzy?? , it makes me sick!
Just PRINT THE FACTS, BR is at about 0.6% market share overall, not this fairy flossed result, why do you have to print this crap, 0.6%, the truth doesn't hurt, just print it!
hemmy @ May 2nd 2008 11:17PM
angry red nerd is angry.
EQC @ May 2nd 2008 11:26PM
Gus: what do you mean when you say "this site"???
Engadget isn't putting those plots together. It is Nielsen. You know, the most trusted statistics/ratings company in the world.
Any moron can look at the graph and see the footnote under it to realize that we're comparing BR's top 20 to DVD's top 20. Most people agree that that is a fair comparison. We've even got a listing of the total BR sales numbers this week...so things are really very clear to anybody who goes beyond looking at the pretty graphs and reads 4 lines of text. You'll notice that none of your theoretical "blu faithful" are in here saying how great these numbers are...
Do you really think that there's anything to be gained from a comparison of the total BR sales to the total DVD sales? If BR's got 500 titles available, and DVD's got 1,000,000 (many of which can be had for under $5 in the WalMart bargain bin), then the result will of course be skewed away from BR...but that won't be a measure of CONSUMER INTEREST anymore, will it?
No, it won't. It'll be a measure that's more indicative of the numbers of titles available in each format.
Further: all those $5 15-year-old movie bargain-bin DVD sales will be counted just the same as a new title that's $20-$30 on either format...so even more meaning will be lost (since they're counting volume sales in the pie charts).
So, sure, they could report that DVD sold 200x more disks than BR...but that'd be practically the same as saying "DVD sold 1000 copies of Jurassic Park this week, and BR sold zero!!!!!!" See how meaningless that is? Well, then again, maybe that sort of thing would make you happy...you'd finally have your "cold hard facts" stating that BR can't sell any movies.
If you've got any reasonable explanations as to why you think CONSUMER INTEREST would be measured by counting EVERY DVD sale and comparing it to the sales of the few titles available on BR, please feel free to explain...
Gus @ May 2nd 2008 11:57PM
EQC, this site IS FALSLY representing the numbers. If you get your magnifying glass out and read the fine print, these figures are based the top 20 movies only, hence we get a much higher and FALSE report.
Hemmy, I'm not angry because its blu, I'm angry because this site is misrepresenting the facts, what possible difference could the truth make, other than making blu zealots such as yourself feel warm and fuzzy.
hemmy @ May 3rd 2008 12:47AM
"If you get your magnifying glass out and read the fine print, these figures are based the top 20 movies only"
If *you* get out your glasses and read, that's exactly what EQC *wrote* and what everyone already knows:
(EQC) "Any moron can look at the graph and see the footnote under it to realize that we're comparing BR's top 20 to DVD's top 20."
And no, the figures don't make me feel "warm and fuzzy". That is a psychological defense mechanism you're exhibiting.
Eh @ May 3rd 2008 2:31AM
hddvd sucks
DrXym @ May 3rd 2008 4:10AM
Gus, stop being such a dummy. Home Media Magazine gathers these stats, not EngadgetHD. Presumably they gather the top 20 because they are most indicative of where most sales are going each week.
XDragon @ May 3rd 2008 8:49AM
EQC,
You've said what I've been saying the last few weeks.
The only people who don't get it are people that want Blu-Ray to fail.
No good reasons are even presented and they derail any possible constructive communication from occuring; its getting really old.
E-ED won't ban these few repeat idiots because it causes more posts, what they don't realize is you can get this info elsewhere and if the posts remain this stupid, they will lose people's interest in coming to E-HD.
Jove @ May 3rd 2008 10:49AM
god damn gus. we already have too much of that from truth teller. dont be so stupid like him.
Tony D @ May 3rd 2008 3:37AM
Gus,
Not to insult you but it obvious you don't understand statistics. How could you possibly compare DVD with over 1,000,000 available titles vs 500 Bluray titles? or a format that's been available for 10 yrs vs 2 yrs?The numbers would be grossly skewed. The only way to do this is to compare the top 20 to get a fairly reasonable reading of the market.
EQC - Well said...
kcmurphy88 @ May 3rd 2008 3:37AM
What would be really interesting is a "units sold" graph, showing the past 26 weeks. Not only would this be good on an ongoing basis, but it might settle some questions about what happened as the format war drew to a close. Have the lack of BOGOs and generally higher retail prices dropped unit sales as much as one would think?
kcmurphy88 @ May 3rd 2008 3:40AM
And the $37 unit price is indeed bogus. You would need 10's of thousands of set sales for that. Or is everyone paying list?
DrXym @ May 3rd 2008 4:17AM
Mid May is where releases start to kick up a gear. June looks like it is going to be a great month:
http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/movies.php?show=comingsoon
DrXym @ May 3rd 2008 4:26AM
An addendum:
Just thinking about the large number of releases in June and their coinciding with new players and Father's day makes me think a major promotional campaign is going to hit at the same time.
Wonder what will happen...
lanod35 @ May 3rd 2008 11:14AM
Hd dvdead
richardh @ May 3rd 2008 2:19PM
Grammer Police Notice!
Your review shows this phrase: "once in for all". The correct wording of this phrase is "once AND for all" Phonetically they do sound alike but there's quite a difference in meaning between them.
Mote @ May 3rd 2008 8:45PM
GRAMMAR POLICE NOTICE!
"grammer" is spelled GRAMMAR