Audio Video News

Sales reports are usually pretty dry reading. No difference with the latest report from the Entertainment Merchants Association (EMA) following sales trends in TV, home video and video gaming. However, this time, the numbers from this 32-page report are pretty interesting.

Here's where it got interesting. According to the results posted at TG Daily, the PS3 is said to be "the primary driver behind Blu-ray sales, as 87% of PS3 owners said they watch Blu-ray movies on their console."

What I want to know is how many PS3 owners play regular DVD thinking it's Blu-ray?  Sales of PS3 at the end of 2007 were almost 3 million. The report goes on to state that PS3 will push sales until 2009 when they expect stand-alone Blu-ray player sales to exceed PS3.  It's predicted that by 2012, 100 to 130 million homes will have a Blu-ray player of some kind.

Here are some other interesting facts from the report:
"Digital delivery of movies is still a minor factor in the equation and hit $1 billion for video-on-demand and pay-per-view programming delivered via Internet, cable and satellite seems paltry. $123 million were spent on spent on Internet downloads.

The top-selling DVD titles of 2007 were Happy Feet, Transformers and Pirates of the Caribbean 3 - At World's End. The top-selling HD titles were 300 (Blu-ray), Transformers (HD DVD) and Pirates of the Caribbean 3 - At World's End (Blu-ray).

Movie studios are bringing their movies to the home video market faster than ever. On average, DVDs are following the theatrical release with a distance of 126 days, down from 129 in 2006 and down from 171 days just five years ago."

This is odd. Europe is expected to be the largest Blu-ray market. I say go shopping and see if we can beat them. Competition is good. -Leslie Shapiro

Read all the details of the report here