A research report this morning from The NPD Group confirms the prevailing narrative that the home video business is in trouble -- although you might miss that if you just look at the upbeat headline on its release: "Consumers Still Positive On Blu-ray." NPD found that 116 million adults bought a DVD or Blu-ray disc in the six months ending in March, down 9.4% from the same period last year. The firm says Hollywood studios are partly to blame. They released weaker titles in early 2011 vs the same period in 2010. Even so, analyst Russ Crupnick says that "the physical video-disc market was a bit disappointing." It shows that "Blu-ray may not be the replacement for DVD that many once hoped for." NPD played up the fact that 15% of all consumers used a Blu-ray player in the six month period, up from 9% last year. And 22% of all disc buyers bought at least one Blu-ray title. Are consumers warming to the format because of its sharp images and extra features? Crupnick says that's part of the story: "The fact that prices are now within the budgetary range acceptable to rank-and-file consumers is helping to bolster the overall value proposition of the Blu-ray format," he says. But 57% of adults still used a standard DVD player, same as in 2010.
Click Here for Deadline Email News Alerts - Subscribe Today!
Bluray sales falling, you say? Probably cause people who grew up in the VHS/Betamax wars still have scars!
Nobody but Sony needed Blu-ray in the first place. It was a tech gimmick, not an entertainment evolution for the consumer. TV allowed us to watch movies at home; VHS showed us how to tape them; DVD added capacity, longevity, and quality… Blu-ray added purportedly even more of the same plus took away the recording function. The next step in the evolution will be unlimited choice: online, all-you-can-eat pricing, whenever, whatever. Go packing, Sony.
If prices are declining, they sure aren’t passing on the savings to the consumer. I just did a quick look at the new release section of Best Buy. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 Blu-ray – $32.99. Tron: Legacy Blu-ray – $31.99. The 3D Blu-rays are even more expensive. Tron: Legacy 3D’s Blu-ray is $44.99. Same with Clash of the Titans 3D. Price is a major factor in the consumer’s decision to adopt new technologies, and I think most studios have to realize that widespread adoption at these price points is not going to happen during these bad economic times for the people that actually buy entertainment products – the lower and middle classes. Paying the electricity bill > buying a movie.
Who buys Blu-Rays at brick-and-mortar stores anymore though? I buy mine from Amazon. They have specials all the time, I never spend more than $10-15 for Blu-Rays, maybe $20 as a huge splurge on a new release. I think the most I ever spent was $24 for TRON LEGACY because I knew it was Disney and their movies never, ever get discounted very much.
“Prices… with the [acceptable] budgetary range”? They want $60 for a Blu-Ray copy of “Sleeping Beauty”. They’re out of their minds.
WTF are you talking about??? I bought Sleeping Beauty on Blu-ray for around 20$
With a big HDTV, I find DVDs unwatchable, but Blu-Ray was still never going to “replace” DVD. DVD become embraced by EVERYONE and Blu-Ray isn’t the same upgrade from DVD that DVD was from VHS. There will always be a portion of the marketplace that thinks DVD is good enough for them.
That said, the titles available on Blu-Ray isn’t an excuse anymore. Star Wars will be out this year and Spielberg’s biggest hits will start pouring out next year.
Let’s see here. 10 percent of the work force is out of work, choices other than movies/music abound and now wait for it, technology while nice, keeps changing. We’ve gone from 8 track, to cassette, to VHS, to DVD, now Blue Ray. How many times do we have to pay to upgrade our libraries? And who is to say that next week another “new” technology isn’t coming along to wipe out our investment in “todays” tech? And anyhow, Hollywood is in denial, the movies (most of them) aren’t worth going to see, much less buy.
Internet piracy should also have a good portion of this problem, the case of home-video and this principally by.
Internet piracy is one of the top 3 reasons why entertainment fails to make profits for creators… the owners of the properties have like 20 years windows to make money (don’t be fooled by the 18 month or even 7 year window claims).
Internet piracy isn’t responsible for the downturn in sales. A crappy product that is overpriced is. If I did half of what those losers did the past 5 years, I’d be in jail. They get what they deserve.
Wrong. People who buy BluRay do so for the superior quality in sound and picture. If you’ve ever watched a pirated copy of anything, both of those are severely lacking. I can see piracy affecting overseas sales, and to a lesser extent DVD sales here in the US, but Bluray has nothing to fear from piracy currently. As with the music industry, piracy remains a convenient scapegoat on which to blame falling sales, instead of the real culprit: decreasing quality of material. I am a huge movie buff, and there were only 4 films released last year that I enjoyed enough to purchase, and all were on the BD format.
The problem is that movies are still released on both formats. Stop releasing movies on the antiquated DVD format and force people to purchase blu-rays.
You realize that Hollywood produced VHS versions of films up until 2007, right?
And people STILL bought VHS up until that point. By continuing to release films on a low-quality format, people are still enabled to purchase them on it. Stop that, and force the switch.
That would just force people to stop buying altogether or drastically reduce the amount they buy anyway.
There’s no reason for many films to even be on Blu-ray in the first place (something like ‘An Education’ simply gains zero on the format over the standard DVD) let alone pay the premium for them. Savvy shoppers will same the bucks where they can and get the DVD or (as I increasingly do), wait until the inevitable sales hit and the price drops even more.
To think they would just go ‘Oh well, I’ll just spend the extra because I have been forced into having no choice’ and pony up the prices is a fallacy.
you realize folks also still haven’t all upgraded to HDTV (heck look how long it took to turn off the analog tv signals) plus the entertainment centers in cars are still all DVD systems so folks still need DVDs.
Standard def DVDs are so inexpensive now that most consumers didn’t find it worth while to upgrade to Blu-ray. I Never jumped on the blu-ray bus because I was waiting for the price to come down. Too late, I’m 100% Netflix now. If they don’t stream it, I rent the physical disc from them. I’m about to drop cable next. It’s all about Netflix now in my home.
I can stream HD movies off of Netflix.
That is nothing like blu ray HD.
Got that right!! Watch a DVD on a big TV….. and you’ll never do it again. BLU-Ray all they way.
True, you can.
But most films there look awful and there’s a limited selection.
What happens when Ntflix doesn’t have the title you want. I have been in the middle of many series when I discover the next chapter is no longer available on Netflix. Sorry I want to own the videos I enjoy. The studios plan to allow us to own too with the continuance of releasing Optical media and the new Ultraviolet format that’s coming in a few months. Let’s not forget that multibillions are still being sold each year when it comes to sell thru.
Why did Hollywood think consumers care about quality so much when they continue make crap movies all the time? La revolution du cinema time beeches!
Make movies worth watching and people will pay to see them at home. The economy is still crap, but the quality of most theatrical releases today wouldn’t incite anyone to buy titles. That’s got to be reason #1 for the numbers, along with big catalog titles like Star Wars still unavailable in the format.
I also think they’ve been too greedy. It was one thing to push Blu Ray but now they’ve added 3-D in as the ultimate cash grab that adds nothing to the table at all.
It was hard enough to lure people to DVD off the days of VHS. I think most HDTV owners will see a huge difference with Blu-Rays, but let’s face it, it took long enough to convince people who wanted “full screen” VHS tapes to accept widescreen DVDs. Change isn’t gonna happen overnight with the typical consumer, and they’ve thrown too much at them, too quickly IMO.
But know one is holding a gun to people’s head and forcing them to by 3D Blu-rays.
Blu-ray has a MUCH higher quality picture than even HD, but you have to have a good HDTV to see it. I don’t think many people notice the difference. Maybe they don’t care. My Blu-ray movies are magnificent – certain movies I wouldn’t watch any other way. But clearly, a lot of people like Netflix streaming, and the quality is acceptable for the great majority of current films. But there is indeed a big difference.
What rankled me no end was buying a Blu-Ray disc that would NOT load in my Blu-Ray player without an “upgrade” from the machine’s manufacturer….what kind of crap is this?? As far as I’m concerned, every studio-made disc with a ‘Blu-Ray’ logo on the top should absolutely play in ANY machine with a ‘Blu-Ray’ logo stamped on it. I don’t know how many other people experienced this, but to me..it was a massive “F*** you” from the hardware/software consortium to hapless Blu Ray consumers. My advice…never, never throw out that purchase receipt until you’ve seen the disc play from beginning to end in your machine.
This is inconvenient, but I wouldn’t take this personally as an f-you. One of the realities of today’s cutting edge devices is routine software updates – or firmware updates. This shouldn’t cost you anything but requires that the player is connected to the internet and takes some time. If you have a high end car it’s the same thing. But it’s not all bad, it also means your device’s features aren’t chained to the past they way they have been historically. The iPhone is a good example. With software updates/upgrades the phone gained new features at no new cost. I find this to ultimately be a positive thing, but requires a little more maintenance. If you’re talking about needing a memory stick to incorporate BD-Live, or something, I’d just forget. If it’s anything else it shouldn’t cost you anything other than time.
“But 57% of adults still used a standard DVD player, same as in 2010″
The industry didn’t push hard enough to get prices of blu-ray players down fast enough. Then the economy hit and people realized they didn’t need to spend $100 or more for a blu-ray player when DVD players are good enough. For the longest time, you basically had to buy a Sony PS3 game system to even get a discount on a blu-ray player.
Blu-ray writing hasn’t taken off either as more and more people use flash media instead of optical media to swap and view files. There’s little reason to burn and view a video DVD let alone a Blu-ray disc.
The vast majority of my favorite movies are not available on Blu-ray. That is changing soon– Criterion looks like it’s popping out a lot of stuff this month, but it’s 2011 dammit and some terrible movies have already had multiple editions and remasters come out.
Netflix has nothing on the audio and video of a Blu-ray. I think the service is amazing for the price (unlike some that think of it as a utility/right), but I’d take a Blu-ray with near flawless picture and sound and a commentary track and a making of featurette ANY DAY over Netflix.
Wow – a lot of falsehoods floating around: DVD could never record, and if you want to say you can then you can with a bDRE as well. Blu Ray isn’t the same upgrade as VHS to dvd? No, it’s nearly 4 times better pixel for pixel and if you believe that you either don’t have your tv properly connected or simply don’t know what you’re looking at.
Pri enissues I get but avoid the box stores, as for most thing nowadays. Online deals are rife: Borders sold the new Kubrick Box Set for 72.00 online two weeks ago and it retails for $130.00. And there are plenty of BDs at a ten dollar price point.
Finally, Netflix quality is good but has a ways to go before it matches blu ray.
The economy sucks. Period. Bad time to introduce a format but it has legs and is here until everyone converts to 4k stuff.
People in Hollywood who are working at the studios do know that the rest of the country is in the middle of an economic holocaust right? why it’s a shocker that we are not running out and buying the new batch of crap is kind of funny!
I’m a bit of a late adapter, so maybe I’m not the best customer for Blu Rays. But I see few reasons to upgrade from standard DVD. I still have a CRT TV and think DVDs look just fine on it. I’m a tightwad when it comes to buying DVDs and certainly won’t pay what Blu Rays cost–even for just a few dollars more. Moreover, the promised drop in the cost of Blu Ray players hasn’t, for the most part, materialized. They still average up at $90-100. Get ‘em down to $40-50–and I don’t mean POSs that promptly break–and then we can talk.
Fair enough, with a regular TV you won’t notice a difference from Blu-Ray. However I think a lot of people are buying HDTVs. (Do stores even stock normal TVs anymore?)
If you look at the report carefully, software sales dropped but Blu-ray Disc sales are UP. DVD is pulling the number down.
It’s the economy, stupid!
Aside from the price and not that much difference in quality from DVD, Blu Ray is failing because of streaming. Netflix in particular. Also, don’t forget the cloud. It’s been years since I bought a DVD. Now I buy music and movies from Amazon online. I can access both on most portable devices and anywhere while traveling. Add Netflix and Hulu to the mix and I can take my movie/music library without carrying a thing. No more buying DVD cases and shelves. Everything is in the cloud.
There’s HUGE difference between DVD and Bluray. Maybe not on 2nd tier releases, but to say there’s no difference is just wrong.
Ronald is right. We’re the same way. We ditched cable years and years ago in favor of Netflix DVD’s. Then when Netflix and Amazon started streaming, that was about it for DVD’s. We buy tons of TV shows on Amazon and iTunes; they take up no room on my shelf and I can access them just about anywhere. Ad to that legal video download sites and I say why would anybody buy a hunk of plastic?
I think a lot of consumers are like me. I am willing sacrifice seeing the age spots and blemishes on a actress’s face for simple convenience. We stuck with VHS for years, but it was inconvenient. DVD’s were convenient. But streaming is the ultimate in convenience. Quality shmality….it’s all about convenience. If I want to see “true HD,” I look out a window.
Netflixs market share is very small. And you can’t stream new releases. And alot of studios make you wait an extra month.
I bought far fewer titles over the past few months than I bought in the first few months of 2010. Why? because there was little worth buying. The really weak Summer pics meant there were few must haves and lately I’ve discovered Netflix will fill the gap of some of those films I know I’ll watch just once
Blu-ray just isn’t a big enough improvement for the average consumer. Not everyone has a tv or home theater setup capable of taking full advantage of the upgrade.
After a while, if it’s a good story with compelling characters, I can’t tell – nor do I care – if I’m watching SD, HD, BlueRay, or VHS. Also, requiring someone to upgrade his player, sound system, and monitor or projector just to take full advantage of a new format is a lot to ask. I’m also kinda bummed that BlueRay “won” the battle of the formats. Its competitor was a MUCH better product. Rather than a new format, I’d like to see better films.
“The fact that prices are now within the budgetary range acceptable to rank-and-file consumers is helping to bolster the overall value proposition of the Blu-ray format”
I’m not sure what that means because Blu-ray prices are not any cheaper than they have been. Sure, some of the really old 70s, 80s, and 90s movies get as low as $5 during the holiday season and others have $10-$15 sales on an off. However, new releases never get that cheap and if they go on sale, it is never under $20. If you keep an eye on TV show releases, you will see that shows that once released both DVD and Blu-ray are only releasing DVD. Shows that are newer are not even bothering with Blu-ray versions. I would love to own a Blu-ray player and Blu-ray movies/shows, but I can’t afford that. I would have nothing to watch, besides those old movies on Blu-ray (which the quality varies).
I hate the studios for putting exclusive features on Blu-ray versions of shows and movies because I cannot afford that. The average working Americans cannot afford Blu-ray. That is a fact, not an argument, and not an opinion. The economy is in the trash can and people are not going to waste money on a $24 Blu-ray movie when they can buy it for $14 on DVD. They are also certainly not going to purchase a $55 TV show set when they can get it for $40 or less.
I agree with KC above, I was too waiting for Blu-ray prices to drop, but they won’t. And now that DVD prices are as low as $3 for some decent movies, why bother with Blu-ray? I own a DVD player and still purchase movies and TV shows on DVD. They are affordable, for the most part. Sure DVD prices can also be steep at times, but when compared to Blu-ray prices, its much cheaper. I also use Netflix, something everyone should use.
There are some big-name titles coming out in the next six months — The LotR extended editions and the original Star Wars trilogy — that will bump up these numbers.
ITA with those who think that you shouldn’t have to pay more than a couple of dollars premium for bluray vs. dvd.
Good point. That really bad movie looks crisp!
The problem w blue ray adoption has been greed. It has taken way too long for players to become affordable and the content is overpriced. I do like that the studios hoist themselves on their own pitards. With their greed to monetize every movie 25 times in it’s life cycle consumers are choosing the best option for them. If the studios did not try to sell us the same content 25 ways and hopefully, for them, more than once they might not have these problems.
DVD was the same way.
I believe if it isn’t broke, just leave things as they are. BDs are very expenssive and with all these movie and now TV show titles being released in both formats, retailers don’t have enough space to put them on their shelves and it’s devaluing the very scope of the titles themselves. BDs are not cheap and standards work just fine. Just release better titles and hopining the studios can wake up and complete abandoned TV shows as well. Keep the TV shows on standard and the movies in a standard/BD combo pack to help increase shelf space and charge reaosnable prices for them too.
Given the cost for a family to attend a movie in the theater today, Blu-ray is a steal for me. To own a digital copy of a feature film such as True Grit for under $20.00 (in multiple formats) is a steal.
I will continue to collect movies on Blu-ray as long as I can purchase them. The picture and sound quality is unprecedented for home theater, and a total bargain as far as I’m concerned.
If I am going to make the time to watch a film at home, I want it to be of good quality, not the compressed, pixelated and artifact-filled crap that is considered “good enough” for so many consumers these days.
I love Blu ray and I refuse to stream or download. My Blu collection is over 700 titles. Honestly, the studios are to blame. The format war shouldn’t have happened. They all should have agreed on one format initially. And to this day they treat it like a Niche product. I cannot imagine not having any type of optical disc to own. They will probably slow down on catalog titles and just release Day/Date and catalog essentials.
From someone crazy enough to have purchased a $10,000 DVD player, here’s why Blu-Ray isn’t ever going to replace DVD the way the studios want it to: It’s obviously temporary. I love Blu-Ray. I was projecting DVD on a 9′ screen and it looked great (with probably the best DVD player/scaler made). However, a $500 Blu-Ray player today easily blows that away. It also scales standard DVD incredibly well. There’s a lot of quality available on DVD and no one who’s ever seen a movie on my screen would have noticed the difference unless I pointed it out. I used to automatically buy DVDs, some of which I’ve never even watched. Well, I’m never doing that again. Even though I’m a fanatical home theater consumer I’m determined to only buy a limited number of Blu-Rays. I rent Blu-Rays from Netflix and Redbox. I have a few for demos, but it’s obvious that the future will be digital storage and streaming. The other day I bought a gorgeous new transfer of Taxi Driver on Blu-Ray because it was easily under $15. That’s a no-brainer. But $30 + and building a new Blu-Ray library. Forget it. Love the format. It’s awesome sound and picture, but it’s clearly a temporary solution. And anyone at the studios who thinks Blu-Ray will ever be what DVD was is delusional. Sorry to break it to you.
Maybe sales are declining (both BR and DVD) because places like Best Buy are only stocking the top 10 or so new releases each week, as opposed to having the breadth and depth that they use to carry just a few years ago. I save up and order from Amazon every few weeks because I can’t find the titles I want at the big box stores anymore. Screw them.
‘It shows that “Blu-ray may not be the replacement for DVD that many once hoped for.”‘
And it only took you five years to realize that. Next up, acknowledging 3-D as a failure.
I absolutely agree. The prices for BluRay movies are absurdly high.
Blu-Ray image quality may be marginally better, but the whole thing really is a gimmick. It’s a way to get consumers to replenish their entire movie library…..until the NEXT “big thing” comes along.
It’s more than marginally better.
Who needs Blu-Ray? There isn’t enough difference in quality to justify the price difference. If they wanted this to be more widely adopted they should have started out with the same price and moved it up over time. With upscaling DVD players and high def TV’s; why pay the premium?
Blu-ray’s are still pretty extensive compared to DVD’s. Especially new releases. Plus, I can rent new releases from Red Box for $1.50. Even with the month wait, where is the incentive to buy?
Even still, the rise isn’t high enough to offset the losses the studios are taking to DVDs as you mentioned. If Blu-Ray sales were strong enough to counter the shedding of DVD sales, I don’t think anyone would complain.
…Finally, someone catches on…Blue Ray has irritated me from its inception…it is bloated and way too much commercialized BS…know what you get on Blu Ray?…commercials…you are paying additional cash to be bombarded by commercials about…Blue Ray AND salvaging old movies…twenty minutes before the feature is displayed. AND, you can’t fast forward or skip, ESPECIALLY Disney. I refuse to buy Blu Ray, even though my son got me a player last year for Christmas…I buy movies from discount warehouses after six months…and you know, I don’t miss much, half of the releases are crap, anyway.
1.Blu Ray discs at brick and mortar stores are too expensive.
2.You can’t pirate them easily. I’m serious. The Ipod wouldn’t exist today if people weren’t pirating music 8 years ago. If people could pirate them, sales of players and discs would go up.
3.Extremely small library. By my count only 11 John Wayne videos on blu ray.
Really it all boils down to the same old problem. Hollywood greed. They think they are maximizing their profits by charging as much as they can when they are actually charging more than what consumers will pay.
Why is it I can see a HD movie on MGMHD channel that isn’t available on Blu Ray?
Just like ICloud will kill the high fidelity CD market, Netflix will kill high quality video (along with the above mentioned points).
The seemingly perpetual repackaging of CD’s (numerous remasterings and additional bonus tracks, to the point of absurdity), along with their refusal to ever lower prices, certainly helped to nearly kill the CD. Largely the same phenomenon of high prices, format changes/repackagings, the legacy of the HD/Blu-Ray format war, and the kind of sleazy scamming that forces consumers to have their hardware eternally connected to the internet for perpetual “upgrades”, will finally send the entire potential Blu-Ray buying public packing to Netflix.