As expected, not much going on this week as everyone in the home media business is waiting on the holiday season to release the hounds. Sure, both DVD and Blu-ray volumes are up this week, but both are still relatively low because Street Kings -- and other titles this week -- just weren't that interesting to consumers. The number one titles on Blu-ray this week was easily Street Kings, out selling any other titles two to one, but overall that title wasn't very popular with Blu-ray as less than ten percent of those who bought a disc containing the movie last week bought it on Blu. And who says parents don't buy their kids Blu-ray discs, as the latest Hannah Montana movie takes fourth overall on the Blu-ray charts -- but at the same time only managing to steal four percent away from DVD. Looking forward once again shows much of the same for next week, as we continue to wait for all the studios to ramp up for the holiday season.

Deja vu this week, as once again Blu-ray sales are down. Sure, it's only another ten percent, but we realized how big of a deal this was when we went back through every Nielsen VideoScan post, courtesy of Home Media Magazine, and couldn't find another week with revenues that low -- that data has only been reported since April. While last week there was some debate as to weather Blu-ray was slacking, or the fact that it was simply a weak slew of releases to blame, but this week there is no doubt, as DVD took a bigger hit than Blu-ray. We expect much of the same for the foreseeable future though, as we are right in the middle of TV series release season and it'll be at least a few weeks before the studios start to release all of the titles that should sell well this holiday season.

We had a feeling that August was going to be a rough month for Blu-ray, but we had no idea the Nielsen VideoScan numbers courtesy of Home Media Magazine would be this bad. If you think that being down 26.88 percent over last week is bad, have a look at the revenue, at only 6.89 million we had to go back over three months to fine Blu revenues that low. The obvious reason is that the releases have been weak, but DVD didn't do as badly because of Nim's Island. In a movie you'd expect to see from Disney, Fox's kid title was easily the number one DVD, beating the two week old comedy in second by two to one. Meanwhile, the very same title only mustered 2 percent of DVDs sales and couldn't even sell half as many copies as a much older Batman Begins on Blu-ray. Although we doubt next week will be as bad as this one, we don't expect things to get much better until the fourth quarter, which is when the studios finally start to let some of their big titles out.

Both DVD and Blu-ray are up on this week's Nielsen VideoScan charts courtesy of our friends at Home Media Magazine. The interesting thing this week is that Blu-ray managed a 10 percent share against the top 20 DVDs, but the two biggest titles on both formats Blu-ray didn't fair as well. The comedy Harold & Kumar was number one on the DVD charts, but the HD version only managed to steal about 7 percent away from DVD. Meanwhile the latest Stargate, was easily the number one title on Blu-ray -- and was barely surpassed on DVD -- but the HD version still didn't manage 10% of the market. This of course means that a few catalog titles made up the difference for 'ol Blu, and most of that money went to Paramount. In fact four Paramount catalog titles made the Blu-ray top 20, including Top Gun which was at number six and our personal favorite, The Hunt for Red October at nine. No way can either format see another increase next week though, as the slate of titles was anything but impressive. But if you look much further in the future into October and beyond, we really can't wait to see how Blu-ray sells through this holiday season when the true market indicators are exposed.

Unexpectedly, 21 was able to move the needle upwards this week for both DVD and Blu-ray on the Nielsen VideoScan charts courtesy of Home Media Magazine. While 21 helped both formats, it helped DVD more, as the Blu-ray edition only managed to take 7.71 percent away from DVD. It still didn't have any problems taking the number one spot on both charts though, but while the DVD version outsold Step Up 2: The Streets by almost four to one, the Blu-ray version couldn't even mange two to one over the much older Batman Begins. This helps explain how Blu-ray managed nine percent this week, as that one title alone managed 26 percent of the title's share. The bigger shocker -- to at least Universal -- has to be how poorly the Mummy franchise did on both formats. Unlike other Summer theater blockbusters that helped propel the previous movies from the franchise up the home media charts, none of the Mummy movies made the DVD top 20 and even their debut on Blu-ray didn't compare to other franchise catalog titles like Batman. Next week should be something to see though, as Blu-ray released 24 new titles that week, including a few titles we expect to hit home with the Blu-ray demographic like Stargate: Continuum and Doomsday.

Not a big surprise that overall sales are down this week, on the Nielsen VideoScan charts courtesy of Home Media Magazine, as only one new release made the Blu-ray top ten. If we've learned anything from covering this each week, it is that a hot title makes all the difference in the world. So when Step Up 2: The Streets is the highest ranked new release, it isn't going to be a good week. This is especially true with a title like this, which doesn't really fit what we'd call the typical Blu-ray demographic -- in fact, while most Blu-ray new releases get about 10 percent of the total title share, Step Up only got 2.7 percent. Next week is sure to be better though, as the Mummy franchise should help move the needle, but even if it doesn't, 21 should be able to pick up where it left off. Interestingly, only 4 of the top 20 DVDs were not also available on Blu-ray this week, which is an all time low, while at the same week the overall Blu-ray share is down to 8 percent from 12. So we'll be keeping an eye on this in the coming weeks, and see if it can help Blu break off a 15 percent share.

Wow, are we bad at making predictions of what the Nielsen VideoScan charts -- courtesy of Home Media Magazine -- are going to do. We thought we were going to see another ho-hum week like the last few, and then Batman went and made us fall out of our chair by single handily giving Blu-ray the best week it's ever had in the four months we've been tracking the market share. Another first this week is something that Hollywood expects to see more often -- but is too early to call a trend -- is the fact that while DVD sales are down for the week, Blu-ray is up. Now we realize right up front that a big part of the reason for this is because Batman Begins has been out on DVD for, forever, and was just released for Blu-ray this week. But you can take a look at Batman: Gotham Knight and see that head to head, the new release netted the same result as the overall share at 12 percent. This can only be a good sign for Blu-ray in regards to the future of packaged media, but again we'll remind everyone that 7 of the top 20 titles on DVD are not available on Blu-ray. Looking forward, most of the new releases should be available on Blu in the coming months, so we'd be very surprised if Blu-ray couldn't keep up this pace going into the holiday season where it really looks like it'll have the opportunity to take off.

Both packaged media formats are down a bit this week according to the Nielsen VideoScan charts courtesy of Home Media Magazine, but we're not sure how Blu-ray managed to hang on to 7% of the market this week. The reason we are surprised, is because for the first time in a long time, almost half of the movies on the DVD top 20 chart aren't available on Blu-ray. This is thanks to just about every studio, as the chart is just full of everything from re-released animated Disney movies to TV shows from every network. The lack of TV shows being released on Blu-ray really has us scratching our head, the only thing we can think of is that the high prices are keeping the sales of the few Blu-ray TV shows down. Probably a more telling stat this week is the fact that the top two titles on both charts managed to garner a 10% share on Blu. So it seems the movie lovers eager enough to go Blu, are the same ones who buy hot titles the first week they are out. Then, after the titles has been on the shelves for a while longer, the less enthusiastic DVD fans show up at the store to pick it up. Again we expect much of the same next week, as the titles really don't start to roll out for a few more weeks and one trend we are most definitely starting to see, is that on weeks with hot new releases, Blu-ray manages a much better share -- we can't see how that is bad news for any HD movie fan.

As expected, the Nielsen VideoScan charts are delayed this week because our friends over at Home Media Magazine were enjoying the holiday. Although we understand wanting to take it easy on the 4th of July, we do really wish HMM would've included the top twenty Blu-ray chart this week, as this makes two weeks in a row we've been without. The other chart that is missing again this week is the top twenty market share, so there's no way to know how well the number one and two DVDs did on Blu-ray. Although both DVD and Blu-ray experienced modest gains this week over last's, the share stayed pretty much the same (up 1%). Although this might not seem like much, it 's better than you think when you consider that three out of five of the top twenty DVDs weren't available on Blu-ray thanks to Universal and Fox. Universal will be on board soon enough, and we're not sure what the deal is with Fox, 'cause we don't know if the animated feature Futurama: The Beast with the a Billion Backs is even available in HD. Next week looks to be worst than this one though, as the releases aren't that exciting, but who knows we've been wrong before.

There are mixed results for Blu on this week's Nielsen VideoScan charts, courtesy of Home Media Magazine, because while revenues are up 27% over last week, when compared to DVD, Blu lost two percent. The big difference this week is The Bucket List which was easily number one on the DVD charts, but the Blu version didn't even managed one third the sales as the number one title, Jumper. The other explanation for the drop in share is while last week there were only five DVDs on the top twenty that didn't make it to Blu, this week there is seven thanks to HBO and Sony not bringing a couple new TV shows to Blu. Getting back to Jumper, it killed the rest of the Blu releases this week, forcing everyone else way down -- but somehow we doubt it'll have any legs. Next week both DVD and Blu-ray should be way down thanks to the weakest releases in some time, and we expect to see Blu-ray back to five or six percent.