We won't go so far as to say that this week has been monumental or anything, but we're starting to see Blu-ray player prices (on the whole) inching downward. For starters, two aged BD decks broke the $200 mark this week, and even a few new players are getting MSRPs far lower than what we're accustomed to seeing. We've big hopes for player prices on Black Friday, and even bigger dreams for the run-up to the end of 2008, but given the current market scenario, is $200 low enough for you to finally buy in? How does that compare to your buy-in price for DVD / VHS? Do players still need to drop even lower before the population at large starts sinking their cash into the Blu? Sound off in comments below.

[Image courtesy of Electronic House]

More news from the DisplaySearch / NPD HDTV conference out in California, and this time it's from the Blu-ray Disc Association. Andy Parsons, the BDA's chairman, told attendees that Blu-ray player and disc pricing were behaving the same way as when DVD was the hot new thing. Parsons noted that "there [wasn't] enough market volume to lower prices," adding that firms first have to "build awareness and demand for the technology" before stickers can shrink. Granted, this opens the whole "chicken before the egg" debate, with pundits asserting that awareness and demand won't build until prices are low enough to be digested by the masses. Also of note, Andy suggested that consumers still wanted something "they could hold in their hands" when asked about the threat of digital downloads, but then again, would you really expect to hear anything different?

Out of seemingly nowhere, DisplaySearch has became way hot on Blu-ray. At a recent conference in Hollywood, the research firm reportedly announced its expectations that "global unit sales of standalone Blu-ray players will triple this year and will double next year as prices fall, more titles are released and a larger percentage of the population own high-definition TVs." As for numbers, that's 2.38 million BD decks this year and 5.31 million in 2009, which means Sony's PS3 would no longer be the biggest selling Blu-ray player by 2010. Look, we'd love for Blu-ray adoption to suddenly get off the ground and soar, but as if it hasn't been restated enough, we simply can't see it happening without at least a few sub-$200 players on the market. Guess we'll see soon enough, huh?

We've already heard Netflix CEO Reed Hastings say that the firm's DVD business was still good for the next decade, but CFO Barry McCarthy clarified its position on the sector by touching on Blu-ray adoption and online streaming. When asked about the significance of BD on its business, the exec casually replied that he "didn't anticipate a big impact," noting that thus far "consumer adoption has been slow." His sentiments match pretty well with sales figures, and until player prices dip into the sub-$200 realm, we don't see the situation changing much. Regarding online streaming, he asserted that its service would "outpace competing services such as Amazon.com's video-on-demand offering despite a smaller inventory of titles," and in fact, it would be used as a key ingredient for hooking new subscribers. Read the whole spill in the link below.

[Image courtesy of P2P-Weblog]

TiVo waltzed into Canada all Maverick like last November, with no carrier support, no partnerships and (for all intents and purposes) no hope of success. The Canadian television market is a bizarre one, and given that the Series2 that's available there now can't record HD, TiVo is (obviously) having a hard time gaining traction. Analysts in the country assert that it is "impossible for a third-party PVR maker to gain any traction in Canada without having a major television provider as a partner," and while that may not sound precisely "fair," it isn't far from the truth. Joshua Danovitz, general manager of international business for TiVo, has proclaimed that a deal with Canadian providers could be an option, and that it was also looking at "regulated access to high-definition signals." Even though Canada doesn't have a superabundance of high-def stations just yet, we'd say TiVo better find a way to record the ones already out there. And fast.

Hey, Futuresource Consulting -- tell us something we didn't already know, why don'tcha? All jesting aside, said firm has become the second this year to find that Blu-ray Disc sales will likely outpace DVD sales in around four years. Granted, the report also asserts that a $250 BD player will be on shelves by the end of this year, so we can't help but drink whatever Kool-Aid it's sippin'. If you're interested in boring yourself with the same assumptions we've already heard, check out the PDF in the read link below.

[Via US News]

We're obviously biased, but we'd argue that HDTV was game-changing long before 2008. Nevertheless, we have all ideas the technology will happily accept any and all praise bestowed upon it, including the most recent pat on the rump from Knowledge Networks. Said outfit has just named HDTV the game-changing media technology of 2008 after it noticed that HDTV set ownership has doubled every two years since 2000. According to its figures, 28% of households are now equipped with at least one HDTV, and it's predicting that number to rise to 39% in 2009. HDTV will be hanging at your local big box retailer taking requests and signing autographs for the foreseeable future.

[Image courtesy of NASA]

Gettin' antsy, are we Sony? Barely a month after the Entertainment Merchants Association pumped out a report suggesting that Blu-ray Disc sales could exceed that of DVDs by 2012, along comes a bullish Sony VP from the Asia-Pacific region to state otherwise. Sony Pictures Home Entertainment's Tim Meade has asserted that the "sales volume of BD movie discs may surpass that of DVDs in 2011," following market reports in the US that indicate that the "global sales ratio of Blu-ray movie discs to DVDs will rise to an estimated 40:60 in 2010." Can't knock a guy for being hopeful, right?

Freeview HD only went live in New Zealand three months ago, but already upwards of 7,500 installations have been logged. Even more impressive is the overall quantity of Freeview receivers sold (123,903), with 25,000 of those being moved this quarter. Freeview bigwig Steve Browning proclaimed that he "didn't think it would be quite this fast," but plans are already in place to produce a Freeview PVR for the adoring public. As expected, Browning and company are fully expecting adoption to increase further when the Olympics kick off, though he wasn't so bold as make a prediction about exact numbers. Here's to hoping that an astronomical amount of Kiwis take the high-def dive.

Slumping economy? Recession? Poppycock. Based on sales of home media, America's financial engine is humming along just fine, with consumers plunking down 1.6% more on DVD / Blu-ray purchases and rentals combined than they did in the first half of 2007. Granted, some may suggest that home entertainment is seeing an increase as more lavish alternatives (going out for a movie, taking a vacation, etc.) are utilized less frequently, but whatever the case, this sector is sure benefiting. Focusing on HDM, we're hearing that $194 million has been spent on Blu-ray Disc thus far in 2008, which is up some 350% from $43 million in 1H 2007. Amazing what a format war conclusion will do for numbers, huh?

[Image courtesy of Syracuse, thanks Joel]

Hate to splash a handful of obvious right in your face, but Research and Markets' latest status report on the high-def industry is chock of full of "well, duh." Citing three crucial factors that will "support the successful migration to HDTV," it found that the continued penetration of HDTVs, supply of HD programming and availability of OTA HD as immensely important for industry growth. Most notably, the research keys in on Europe, which currently sees just 5% of its HDTV-owning population enjoying high-definition programming. It suggests that local carriers must take on the expense of boosting their HD lineups before customers will start buying in, and we must say we wholeheartedly agree. The folks also think that the looming analog cutover will act as a catalyst for OTA HD transmissions, but we're hoping a major uptick in HD adoption will occur on that side of the pond well before 2010 to 2012.

Oh, joy. Yet another report suggesting something about the year 2012 -- as if we're just going to let 'em spew anything and not check back for accuracy in 3.5 years? Anywho, not long after hearing a laughable article suggesting that Blu-ray decks would outsell DVD players by August (yes, of 2008), along comes another that makes a little more sense. The Entertainment Merchants Association's (EMA) 2008 annual report on home entertainment has found that "nearly 9 million high-definition discs were sold in 2007," and just 12,177 DVDs were released last year, down from a peak of 13,950 in 2005. More interesting, however, was the notion that "in 2012, sales of Blu-ray Discs will exceed those of standard DVDs and will generate sales of $9.5 billion," while spending on home video in general is expected to increase to $25.6 billion. Remember those days when you just couldn't find a VHS tape to save your life? You've got just under four years before that same feeling hits in relation to DVD (their assertion, not ours).

While research firms chime in on the rate at which Blu-ray is being adopted worldwide, a handful of studio executives have suggested that Blu-ray revenue industry-wide could break $1 billion in 2008. During the Home Entertainment Summit in Los Angeles, presidents at Warner Home Video, Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment, Lionsgate, 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment and Universal Studios Home Entertainment all agreed that the $1 billion mark would be surpassed this year, while Paramount Home Entertainment president Kelly Avery maintained that $750 million was a more realistic figure. Notably, the bigwigs did admit that the growing popularity of digital downloads could eat into profits, but even we'd agree that BD is probably safe from too much erosion in the short-term.

[Image courtesy of Blu-ray]

Yes, this really is yet another research firm chiming in on the pace at which Blu-ray is being adopted. This go 'round, we've got Futuresource digging into the numbers, though it is looking exclusively at western Europe. According to Jim Bottoms, managing director of corporate development at the outfit, the "early indications are that Blu-ray player sales are running way ahead of DVD after the same time period." He continued on to say that his firm expects some 10 million Blu-ray players (Sony's PlayStation 3 included) to be in use before 2009 dawns, whereas just 1.5 million DVD players were installed after its third year on the market. Notably, the importance of the PS3 in all of this wasn't understated, but the data didn't mention how many of those 10 million were expected to be consoles.

[Via MarketNewsGadgetTalk]

Here's the background: Singulus Technologies manufactures machines for optical disc production. It's not a research firm, and it's hardly in a position to assert that Blu-ray adoption overall is occurring at a faster rate than DVD was in its infancy. That being said, a recent release from the outfit is still worth eying, as its CEO points out that "orders for Blu-ray in the first year of the dual-layer technology already by far exceeded the volume at the start of the DVD eleven years ago." Granted, this simply means that Singulus is picking up orders for its BD machines quicker than it secured 'em for DVD machines -- heck, maybe the sales team is just more adept nowadays. Either way, it's an interesting piece that sheds a smidgen of light onto the adoption debate, but it's a far cry from being a total industry perspective.

[Via PS3Fanboy, thanks xdragon]