Panelists at Home Media Magazine's third annual high definition conference found plenty in Blu-ray to be positive about, according to the magazine's own report, so they may be somewhat surprised to see co-sponsor Hollywood Reporter's less optimistic "Economy grinch may pinch Blu-ray" headline as the most syndicated report we found this A.M. Not exactly another Blu-ray is dead exaggeration, but not exactly how the industry wants to represent itself coming into a very important holiday season. With Blu-ray player prices diving, a slew of blockbuster titles on the way and shelf space expanding, the perception of Blu-ray as a niche format should be dwindling, but Home Media Mag publisher Thomas Arnold blames analysts and reporters who "don't understand our business" for putting Blu-ray in their crosshairs. At least per our poll, 55% of you are continuing as normal or increasing purchases, at least for some, there's just no substituting for quality.

Read - Economy grinch may pinch Blu-ray
Read - At HD-3, Myths Dispelled About Blu-ray Disc

Everyone's got their own most-anticipated DVD that has yet to make the jump to HD, if Band of Brothers is yours, the wait just got a little shorter. According to The Man Room, the latest issue of Home Media Magazine loosed from an HBO VP the detail that Band of Brothers, #6 top selling DVD of all time, will make an appearance on Blu-ray before the end of the year. While waiting for the boys of Easy Company, we'll just play Call of Duty a few more (thousand) times.

Some were very quick to crown Blu-ray the winner when we learned that the Blu-ray player owned 93 percent of the HD movie market the week after Warner went Blu. Evidently the numbers were leaked and the NPD group was quick to respond in an attempt to clear things up. As expected, some were just as quick to discount the Blu-ray success -- which is just as silly as saying the numbers alone mean Blu-ray has won. Two things happened that week that we're not so sure could continue forever; HD DVD sales were down, and Blu-ray sales were up. With some help from a few promotions (free player with a new TV) -- stand-alone Blu-ray player sales were up 30 percent (22k, up from 15k) -- but this alone wasn't enough to shift HD DVD share from 40 percent down to 7. HD DVD only sold 1,758 stand-alone players during the same week, compared to 14,558 the week before. So while Blu-ray was up 30, HD DVD was down 88 percent. So it isn't that the Blu-ray sales were all that spectacular, but instead it was that HD DVD sales were way down. At this point it doesn't mean anything, but if it continues for more than a month then that's whole 'nother story entirely.

[Thanks, To everyone who sent this in]

In the latest Home Media Magazine, there's an article about the current status of the HD movie market. The most interesting thing, was that they reported that HD movie player sales are actually out pacing DVD in it's first year, but no one is buying movies. In DVD's first year, the average early adopter bought 8.9 titles, compared to either HD DVD or Blu-ray stand-alone owners with a average of 3.6, while PS3 owners have only bought one title. So we want to know, how many movies have you bought? (Don't count freebies and don't vote at all if you don't own a player)

Transformers stays on top again in this week's installment of the Nielsen VideoScan report courtesy of Home Media Magazine. Disney's Meet the Robinsons and Fox's Mr. Brooks were no match for it, even on it's second week. This puts the two formats neck and neck at 55/45, for the second week in a row. Of course this will have to go on for longer than that if they want to affect they year to date, which only changed 2% over the past two weeks and is now at 64/36. We can only imagine that Warner is a little disappointed that none of their new movies hit the top ten this week, but they continue to enjoy success with the regulars on the list like 300. At this point the real question is how will Spider-Man 3 fair next week against Transformers in it's third week and what kind of impact will the recent flood of HD DVD players have on the market. Sure, spidy did better in the box office, but sales will be split with the box set.

1. Transformers HD DVD 100.00
2. Heroes Season 1 HD DVD 47.91
3. Meet the Robinsons BD 44.88
4. Mr. Brooks BD 14.41
5. Hostel Part II BD 13.65
6. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Mans Chest BD 13.01
7. 300 HD 12.05
8. Pirates of the Cari bean Curse of the Black Pearl BD 11.61
9. 300 BD 11.26
10. Planet Earth HD 11.22

As expected, Transformers is at the top this week on the Nielsen VideoScan charts courtesy of Home Media Magazine. What some didn't expect is for Blu-ray to continue to outsell HD DVD overall, despite the fact Blu-ray didn't have any notable titles that week. But wait you ask, didn't Transformers sell more copies than any other movie? Well, that's where it gets interesting, while Paramount claims they sold 190k copies, Nielsen only counted 115k. Some might say that's because they don't count Wal-Mart, and while that could be the case, the Wal-Mart near our house still doesn't carry either format. Judging by the titles in the list and how the list compares to last week's, we'd say that Blu-ray's buy one get one free deal went pretty well and we really can't wait to see what the HD DVD camp is willing to do to offset Spiderman 3 in a few weeks -- but we'd bet no matter what they do, it'll be good for the consumer.

1. Transformers 100
2. Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Man's Chest 9.47
3. Pirates of the Carribean: Curse of the Black Pearl 9.12
4. Fatastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer 5.47
5. Apocalypto 5.02
6. Deja Vu 3.71
7. The Prestige 3.60
8. Wild Hogs 3.53
9. The Reaping BR 3.42
10. 300 BR 3.37

[Via AVSForum]

Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer is once again the top title this week on the Nielsen VideoScan charts courtesy of Home Media Magazine. There are a lot of changes in this week's list of top ten titles, as Knocked Up falls to six, from two, and new release Evan Almighty rises to number four. As we'd expect, most of the titles to rise to the top are new releases, but a few regulars for Blu-ray seem to keep up their steam, including 300 and Casino Royale. For the second week in a row, Blu-ray wides its lead (now 2.4:1 for the week), but we all expect that to change next week when the Transformers numbers hit, despite all of Blu-ray's two-for-one promotions.

1. Fantastic Four 100.00
2. Surf's Up BD 66.99
3. 28 Weeks Later BD 63.66
4. Evan Almighty HD 45.62
5. 300 BD 37.58
6. Knocked Up HD 27.03
7. Reign over Me 24.10
8. 28 Days Later BD 23.13
9. Casino Royale BD 21.96
10. Troy DC BD 19.64

[Via AVSForum]

In last week's Home Media Magazine, there was an article stating that HD DVD would release a total of 800 titles in 2007. As much as HD DVD lovers everywhere would love to have that kind of selection, 240 titles in one month (December according to the article) is just too much for any format -- even the most devout HD DVD fanboy would have a hard time buying this many discs in one month. When questioned, the HD DVD promotions group cleared the confusion up. Basically the number HMM was using was based on yearly totals for each month, not the total releases for that month. The other crazy number from the article was the total number of Blu-ray tiles; which was 43. For those still scratching your head, there have already been more than 43 this year.