Oh sure I like The Dark Knight and Iron Man as much as the next guy, but not my top 10 favorite movies of all time are Pleasantville, Mallrats, Ghost World, Gremlins, X-Men 2, Pirates of the Caribbean; Dead Man’s Chest, A Nightmare on Elm Street (original), Star Wars, Super Troopers, and The Animal. Out of my top 10 list of movies, only 4, JUST FOUR are currently on Blu Ray.

I still bought a player but only after the format war settled and only once I could get a player at Wal-mart for $100 which I just barely could. I also currently own 11 BR titles TOTAL two are trilogy’s (pirates/X-men) so that’s not a big variety. Blu Ray is the future I believe that with all my heart just like I believe HD is the future also but it is NOT the now it is here sure but it is a LONG way from true mass market. So Pinochio sold a lot of copies, yeah so what us comic book geeks who watch sci-fi movies, etc, we still watch classic Disney cartoons too, the MAJORITY OF US, so that movie like ALL Disney/Pixar movies, falls in line with *our* demographic anyways. That is not a sign of mass market anything just a sign that nerds watch cartoons.

Blu Ray needs more variety before going true mass market. just go to any retailer and check out their selection of movies, if they have Blu Rays they mostly have new releases/current titles and very little of anything else. It’s going to be easily a year or more before enough variety of movies, not just cheap enough players, and enough HDTV’s also are out there. Remember you *need* an HDTV to get anything out of Blu Ray otherwise your just buying an over priced DVD anyways. HDTV penetration last time I checked, which was a couple months ago, was like 35% total homes, that’s not mass market yet either.

Also it’s not fair to count PS3 sales as Blu Ray player sales, how many of those PS3’s are ACTUALLY hooked up to HDTV’s and how many of those are used to watch movies? No body knows that answer and it’s not likely anyone ever will.

Blu Ray is still MORE than a year away from true mass market penetration so by all means if you do not have an HDTV and don’t want one any time soon, DVD is the BEST your gonna get, Blu Ray isn’t worth diddly without that extra picture quality which you do need a large enough tv to see, trust me I have a tiny 32″ set and while *I* see the improvement in quality, too many people I have shown even the best Blu Rays to don’t really see that much of a difference, granted those are the same people who were slow to go DVD cuz vhs looked “good enough” to them and that’s the problem *those* people won’t go Blu until they have to, many of them still cling to their VCR’s and haven’t gone DVD yet.

Blu Ray is the future true, but it’s not fully arrived just yet.

[...] “Great Value! This Combo Pack also includes a Blu-Ray of the movie! Limited Time!” The combo pack has been used on several recent Disney movie releases, shipping a single DVD disc with the movie [...]

[...] are lot of great Bonus Features on the Platinum 2-disc Edition (and I assume on the Blu-Ray) including “No Strings Attached,” a 56-minute documentary on the making of Pinocchio. This [...]

[...] Disney decided that they would only provide Blu-Ray copies to reviewers, because that’s all they wanted talked [...]

However, Pinochio is the first DVD chart topper that broke that assumption. Earlier, Snow White pulled in a 9% on BD, which was a surprise to many, but Pinocchio at 15% is even a bigger surprise.

I think what we’re seeing is that the serious movie collectors interested in genres like animation history are already migrating into the highdef collecting mode.

On another noteworthy point, Australia, which also breaks the demographics assumption about young males, did a respectable 10%, and 11% last week. The chance of large numbers of young males watching Australia in droves is about as likely as catching Justin Timberlake viewing Bridges of Madison County.

This tells me that while the comics fans might have led the blu-ray adoption till this year, the other traditional segments required for mass adoption are already following, the last laggard are the BVH Chihuahua type fans, which I suspect is 12-18 months behind, but inevitably, will join as well.

Then the Pinocchio Blu-ray would have sold at least 2564000 * 0.15 = 384,600 units for the first week

The Blu-ray version did 15% of first week unit sales and even higher revenue share as the Blu-ray version was priced higher.

http://www.homemediamagazine.com/research/pinocchio-tops-sales-charts-15061

“Pinocchio Tops Sales Charts”

“A special 70th anniversary edition of animated classic Pinocchio topped the national home video sales charts the week ended March 15, buoyed in part by surprisingly strong Blu-ray Disc sales.

Of the Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment release�s total sales, 15% were in the high-definition format, a high number for a family title � and an indication that Blu-ray Disc may be moving beyond the early adopter stage, which is dominated by young adult males.

Pinocchio debuted at No. 1 on both the Nielsen VideoScan First Alert sales chart, which tracks DVD and Blu-ray Disc sales combined, as well as Nielsenâ��s Blu-ray Disc sales chart.”

The lowest were Beverly Hills Chihuahua and High School Musical 3 which both came in at 3%.

The rest of the data are available at homemediamagazine web site

If I did get one, it wouldn’t be because of anything anyone said here, but because I talked it over with my friends who don’t have one about when and why they would want to get one. (Answer: when what they have wears out or they have another reason to need replace currently working setups.)

I got an idea for you. Create a Paypal donation button for your Blu-ray player fund. All your detractors and Blu-ray fanatics will donate. I bet you can easily get the fund to buy a new Blu-ray player.

The ratio of that comics and superhero demographics does happen to be the people spearheading the adoption of new technology like blu-ray.

This is why Irom Man and The Dark Knight release weeks saw large spikes. Wonder Woman btw, did a 14%, from that, I’d like to think women comics fans are also buying blu-ray disks too.

However, people are still buying other genres. Australia and Madagascar 2 did about 12%.

So far, it’s the Beverly Hills Chihuahua genres that’s doing badly.

But the point still stands that historically, the best selling movies on dvd and the cinemas tend to be action blockbuster, and superhero comic books adaptations do extremly well.

DC Comics and Marvel have a lot invested in continuing the shiny disk business, and so far, their creations are the ones making blu-ray a success. It’s fair to say that without DC and Marvel, there’d be no Dark Knight, no Iron Man, no X-Men, no Spiderman and likely, no Blu-ray.

The conclusion is that the demographics of comic book fans are the ones supporting blu-ray more than anyone else — they buy blu-rays in the millions : The Dark Knight on Blu-ray has sold over 2 million disks so far.

The analogy for blu-ray vs DVD is that of a 2Mpel camera vs a VGA camera. Instinctively, we understand that there are differences between taking pictures on both cameras.

In the case of animation, a side by side comparison of the two pictures should be pretty obvious which one is better. The question is whether people are willing to pay more for it. The answer for the comic book fans is clear : more and more are saying yes every month.

That 29% for Watchmen is a record.

I am curious what Alan Morre would say if he could watch his creation on a high definition screen? Would he decry the ‘too much detail’ and smash the hdtv at the abomination of his work? :)

As far a movie demo’s, Yes they are all made for 14 year old boy’s, surprise surprise, that’s why the industry is shocked when Gran Torino became the #1 film, or that Titanic is the #1 box office title ever…

(Here’s a hint Hollywood…. they appeal to a larger audience…)

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/yearly/?view2=worldwide&view=releasedate&p=.htm

Here’s a link to the last 20 years of #1 movie worldwide box office and you’ll see that most of them fit in this “demographic”.

So naturally, it would seem skewed that way, as the money comes in this way as well. One needs to keep that in mind when trying to make demographic generalizations about BD adoption.

We have reached the Youtube era, where convenient and free rule the day. Studios are going to have to figure out a new business model to make money, and be happy with what ‘little’ (Billions) they make.

Blu ray make look great, have wonderful features, and games, but most people don’t care too much about that.

HDTV is JUST NOW making headway into the market and only because it’s being forced onto the general public, and it’s been around for over 25 years.

If video quality was that important to most people we would have made the digital switch to Hi-Def years ago.

Most people still don’t even know what Blu Ray is (nor care).

My bigger issue with the Pinocchio release is that none of the “I’m No Fool” or Figaro shorts were included, and as one of Disney’s ‘A’ titles, I found the bonus features a little on the light side (I’m am one of the few that LOVES the bonus content) The CAV Laser Disc (wich I own) had a better assortment of extra’s including a ‘complete’ CD soundtrack.