Blu-ray player prices continue to slide

[h0mi]

Originally Posted by Taffy

Okay....how 'bout some pie graphs. BD looks kinda puny in both charts...huh. Wow...look at DVD rental growth.

The growth is 6.2% ... in actual dollars its about $274 million. You're confusing size with growth. Yes, DVD rental looks big. That's because it is big, and it already was big last year and grew by 6%. Blu-ray was small last year, still looks small this year and grew by about 70% (combined sales & rental). In actual dollars that was growth of about $368 million. Last I checked, 368 million was more than 274 million.

Originally Posted by Taffy

Lordy Lord Ack. Looking at both graphs, the DVD sales decline is negligible.

Are you serious? The DVD sales decline shows a drop in revenues of almost $1.3 Billion ... about 5 times greater than the increase of rental revenues.

Originally Posted by Taffy

What IS impressive is the acreage occupied by DVD sales and rentals. When combined...they occupy over three quarters of the graph. Impressive.

insert palmface.gif

[Sbert]

Originally Posted by Taffy

Just an observer, Sbert. I let the pie graphs do all the talking. But...if you think I should provide some sort of analysis...I'd say that DVD's demise as prophesied by some members of this forum has been greatly exaggerated.

Man, I miss my baseball.

DVD's demise -> strawman? Come on, I don't think anyone has expected DVD's demise this year, or next year, or hell 5 years from now. Don't make up bullshit arguments to make it _seem_ you're correct about something that you're not.

You're not just an observer, you have interjected the fact that the importance of those two graphs that you've shown is the sheer territory of DVD's slices. That's pretty sad.

[Taffy]

Originally Posted by zerosaiyaman

.... Also remember, the digital is including cable/satellite video on demand, which has been around for nearly two decades or more. Blu-ray is making impressive gains in a very short time.

I don't see anything on that pie chart that would lead anyone to conclude that BD's gains are "impressive".

I think downloading/streaming will be used by people in place of "rentals" in the end. But there's a general view which I think will always persist that it isn't ownership. An analogue to what I mean can be seen in the "cloud computing" woes as of late.

IMO, ownership becomes less and less important as accessibility to your entertainment choices via downloading and/or streaming and/or recording as I do becomes more and more convenient and economical. It's an easy adjustment...I ought to know.

[Kosty]

Originally Posted by Taffy

Well now. Guess what??? I just came back from my Superdooper, 24 hr, 3 year old Walmart store and................the relatively small BD area is dead...dead...dead, as usual. No one...absolutely no one perused the BD area while I was there...'bout 10 minutes watching Oz on the BD display. Plenty of TF2, Snow White BDs and players on the shelves. The usual amount of shoppers (3 to 7) were eying DVDs on the center and the $5 isle displays.
I saw nothing like what you two saw. Not surprising though. No Walmart shoppers, worth their salt, would be buying BD players this far in advance of Black Friday.

I trust you see what you want to see then.

I've been doing this a while and have some relationships built up and often get some actual sales information besides my observations, which is not so difficult to get if you bother to ask for it.

I also know where my regional Wal-Marts, Best Buys and Targets fit in terms of their market size and place within their respective chains.

All of these vary in terms of market and I'm not surprised that you in particular would not observe what others might see in your market or elsewhere.

In fact, I was told today that this week looks like their (the Wal-Mart Supercenter) biggest week ever for Blu-ray player sales since last years holiday season. I have a large university in my marketplace and its possible that may affect sales on a week like this where Transformers 2 on Blu-ray has just been releases.

[Taffy]

Originally Posted by h0mi

The growth is 6.2% ... in actual dollars its about $274 million. You're confusing size with growth. Yes, DVD rental looks big. That's because it is big, and it already was big last year and grew by 6%. Blu-ray was small last year, still looks small this year and grew by about 70% (combined sales & rental). In actual dollars that was growth of about $368 million. Last I checked, 368 million was more than 274 million.
Are you serious? The DVD sales decline shows a drop in revenues of almost $1.3 Billion ... about 5 times greater than the increase of rental revenues.

To be brutally honest, h0mi; DVD/BD sales figures and stats bores the hell out of me. I have trouble balancing my checkbook and that's why I like pie charts as they are easy to interpret, i.e. as you said, if it's big...that's because it is big....if it's small, it's small. In my mind these type of pie charts lay bare and expose some claims that big is small or small is big...if you get my drift.

[Taffy]

Originally Posted by Kosty

I trust you see what you want to see then.

I've been doing this a while and have some relationships built up and often get some actual sales information besides my observations, which is not so difficult to get if you bother to ask for it.

I also know where my regional Wal-Marts, Best Buys and Targets fit in terms of their market size and place within their respective chains.

All of these vary in terms of market and I'm not surprised that you in particular would not observe what others might see in your market or elsewhere.

In fact, I was told today that this week looks like their (the Wal-Mart Supercenter) biggest week ever for Blu-ray player sales since last years holiday season. I have a large university in my marketplace and its possible that may affect sales on a week like this where Transformers 2 on Blu-ray has just been releases.

I'm not in the business...nor do I feel I have to be to post my opinions and observations in this forum. You apparently are. Hey...can we forum members get some kind of discount if we place hardware/software orders through you???

TF2...please. That's an abomination of a movie. Nothing good can come of it. Viewers will go blind. Refund their money before it's too late.

[luclin999]

Originally Posted by Taffy

To be brutally honest, h0mi; DVD/BD sales figures and stats bores the hell out of me. I have trouble balancing my checkbook and that's why I like pie charts as they are easy to interpret, i.e. as you said, if it's big...that's because it is big....if it's small, it's small. In my mind these type of pie charts lay bare and expose some claims that big is small or small is big...if you get my drift.

Then I'll make it easy for you.

What the actual numbers say is that if DVD sales continue to decline and BD sales continue to rise at the current levels, sales of both formats will be roughly equal in just about three years and BD will be well ahead after four.

No guarantee that those trends will necessarily continue at exactly those precise rates but that is what the numbers are indicating at the moment.

[Kosty]

Originally Posted by Taffy

Lordy Lord Ack. Looking at both graphs, the DVD sales decline is negligible. What IS impressive is the acreage occupied by DVD sales and rentals. When combined...they occupy over three quarters of the graph. Impressive.

Duh. We know DVD sales are larger than Blu-ray sales. Thats not a newsflash.

Once again whats in discussion here are the trends , not the obvious fact that DVD is larger.

No manure Sherlock. Thats not the point.

[Kosty]

Originally Posted by Taffy

I'm not in the business...nor do I feel I have to be to post my opinions and observations in this forum. You apparently are. Hey...can we forum members get some kind of discount if we place hardware/software orders through you???

TF2...please. That's an abomination of a movie. Nothing good can come of it. Viewers will go blind. Refund their money before it's too late.

I'm glad that you post your opinions here. Glad that you are here.

No problem with that at all. I enjoy your participation.

I also don't mind at all pointing out when your opinions are questionable or not in sync with the facts or don't reflect the views of other enthusiasts or the general consumer marketplace.

[towergrove]

Originally Posted by Taffy

To be brutally honest, h0mi; DVD/BD sales figures and stats bores the hell out of me. I have trouble balancing my checkbook and that's why I like pie charts as they are easy to interpret, i.e. as you said, if it's big...that's because it is big....if it's small, it's small. In my mind these type of pie charts lay bare and expose some claims that big is small or small is big...if you get my drift.

But standing in your 24 hour Wal-Mart counting customers ad nauseum doesn't??? Umm OK??

Originally Posted by Taffy View Post
Well now. Guess what??? I just came back from my Superdooper, 24 hr, 3 year old Walmart store and................the relatively small BD area is dead...dead...dead, as usual. No one...absolutely no one perused the BD area while I was there...'bout 10 minutes watching Oz on the BD display. Plenty of TF2, Snow White BDs and players on the shelves. The usual amount of shoppers (3 to 7) were eying DVDs on the center and the $5 isle displays.
I saw nothing like what you two saw. Not surprising though. No Walmart shoppers, worth their salt, would be buying BD players this far in advance of Black Friday.

[ack_bak]

Noticed this morning that Best Buy has their Insignia player for $99 and 30% off all their regular priced Blu-Ray's..

That should get some people to buy in

[h0mi]

Originally Posted by Taffy

To be brutally honest, h0mi; DVD/BD sales figures and stats bores the hell out of me.

Then why do you participate in discussions about something that bores you?

Originally Posted by Taffy

I have trouble balancing my checkbook and that's why I like pie charts as they are easy to interpret,

Particularly when you don't understand what's being discussed?

Pie charts show you how big of a share of the market a specific entity has. The pie charts provided count:

DVD sales
DVD rentals
Blu-ray sales
Blu-ray rentals
"digital" which lumps VOD, PPV and download services

and that's it. You've basically said you're impressed with DVD sales and DVD revenues. Why does it surprise you that those 2 things are the largest share of the economic pie? When I say "Blu-ray will replace DVD" do you think I mean "today"?

You said that the DVD sales drop was negligible. The loss of 1+ billion dollars is not negligible.

Originally Posted by Taffy

i.e. as you said, if it's big...that's because it is big....if it's small, it's small. In my mind these type of pie charts lay bare and expose some claims that big is small or small is big...if you get my drift.

Noone is saying small is big and big is small.

What I've said is that DVD sales are shrinking and have not seen any growth since 2006. That won't reflect in a pie chart comparing DVD sales with DVD rentals; you'd have to have a pie chart showing DVD sales for 08, 07, 06, 05 etc. and look at the size of the different slices. That's not really a good way to track that... a line chart showing higher and lower numbers is much better. Like this:

*

2009 is obviously YTD. DVD sales is trending down. DVD rentals are pretty flat. All numbers are in billions.





*- This was based off the videobusiness web site figures... caveat- VB says that DVD revenues dropped in 2008 by 0.1% but the numbers provided shows 2008 was 7.61 billion and 2007 was 7.5 billion so I don't know what happened there. The 7.5 billion figure might've been wrong.

[Taffy]

Originally Posted by luclin999

Then I'll make it easy for you.

What the actual numbers say is that if DVD sales continue to decline and BD sales continue to rise at the current levels, sales of both formats will be roughly equal in just about three years and BD will be well ahead after four.

No guarantee that those trends will necessarily continue at exactly those precise rates but that is what the numbers are indicating at the moment.

Thank you. But, I'm more interested in the story behind the numbers.
I see that you were a heavy DVD buyer...just like I was.
I see that you have very little HDM titles under your belt...just like me.
I'm not buying BD titles because...well, for me, there's not much too buy that interests me...and like you...I was a big time buyer. I hate most of the new movies that are coming out...so I don't see much buying of new titles in my future. The release of BD catalog titles is but a trickle.
So....do you think, more importantly, do you believe that BD sales will equal DVD sales in 3 years??? Or in other words...will big be small and will small be big in 4 years??? Regale us with some insight based on your sales background.

[comixguru]

Originally Posted by h0mi

*

2009 is obviously YTD. DVD sales is trending down. DVD rentals are pretty flat. All numbers are in billions.

It would be a nice chart is you removed the YTD data for 2009.

DVD rentals are golden for 2009, for instance. The trend there will show a step up. Meanwhile, DVD sell through will be down at least $1.5B over last year. Will it be significantly more... we'll see. Same big titles that people hope to make BR pop in Q4 are the same ones that add nice slices to the DVD pie, too. Q4, though, was very disappointing for studios last year... and started the current double-digit decline trend. It could be much worse.

[luclin999]

Originally Posted by Taffy

Thank you. But, I'm more interested in the story behind the numbers.
I see that you were a heavy DVD buyer...just like I was.
I see that you have very little HDM titles under your belt...just like me.
I'm not buying BD titles because...well, for me, there's not much too buy that interests me...and like you...I was a big time buyer. I hate most of the new movies that are coming out...so I don't see much buying of new titles in my future. The release of BD catalog titles is but a trickle.
So....do you think, more importantly, do you believe that BD sales will equal DVD sales in 3 years??? Or in other words...will big be small and will small be big in 4 years??? Regale us with some insight based on your sales background.

Well after nearly ten years of DVD purchases I have 700+ DVDs.

After two years since I first got into HD media I now have 82 titles.

A straight extrapolation would indicate that after ten years from the time I bought into HD media I'd have about 410 titles.

However, I actually took part of a year off from HD in general after HD-DVD died and bought zero titles of any format for about 9 months until I managed to pick up a PS3 at a price I was willing to pay for it.

Also, there are secondary issues to consider.

~ BD media is still in it's early phase where prices are sitting at the higher end of the curve. My purchasing habits will likely increase as prices continue to fall.

~ Frankly, very few of the major films released this year have held any interest for me personally. You could offer me a BD copy of "Cloudy with a Chance for Meatballs" for $4 and I'd turn it down. Of the top ten grossing films for 2009 I didn't even bother to see any of them in the theater at all.

Will my personal HD library ever match my DVD one? That all depends upon what is ultimately released and at what price the BDs become available (a mediocre movie might be bought for $5 but never more then that).

Will the format ever end up out grossing DVD sales dollar for dollar in any given year? Highly probable.

Will the format match the volume of media (number of units) sold in a given year that DVD saw at it's peak? Probably not. I'd say that in terms of number of units sold, at best, BD will probably reach about 70-80% of the maximum volume that DVD reached at it's peak.

BD will be here for a good run and will be pretty popular, just probably not quite the runaway media selling machine that DVD ultimately was.