Blu-ray Disc Sales Surpass One Million Mark

Mikael · 04-24-2007, 12:03 PM

Blu-ray burning its high-def DVD rival

Mon Apr 23, 2007 11:03AM EDT

By Thomas K. Arnold
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter)

Of the high-definition discs bought by consumers in the first quarter, 70% were in the Blu-ray Disc format and 30% were HD DVD, according to sales figures provided by trade publication Home Media Magazine.

Blu-ray took the lead in February, and its percentage of total sales accelerated to the point where it accounted for nearly three out of every four high-definition discs sold in March.

What's more, when given the choice, consumers are going with Blu-ray. Warner Home Video released "The Departed" the same day, February 13, in both formats. Between then and March 31, consumers bought 53,640 copies of the film on Blu-ray Disc and 31,590 on HD DVD, according to Home Media's market research, based on studio estimates and Nielsen VideoScan point-of-sale data.

Research also shows that eight of the 10 top-selling high-definition titles in the first quarter were on Blu-ray Disc. At the top of the list was "Casino Royale," which sold through to consumers an estimated 59,680 units in the period. The Blu-ray Disc edition of "Departed" finished second, while the HD DVD version of that Oscar-winning film placed third.

From January 1-March 31, consumers bought almost 1.2 million high-definition discs -- 832,530 Blu-ray units and 359,300 HD DVDs -- according to Home Media Magazine. In March, consumers bought 335,980 Blu-ray Discs and 119,570 HD DVDs.

Since the high-def format's inception -- HD DVD launched in April 2006, while Blu-ray got rolling two months later -- more than 2.14 million discs have been purchased by consumers: 1.2 million Blu-ray Discs and about 937,500 HD DVDs.

Observers aren't surprised by the disparity, noting that Blu-ray Disc enjoys the support of five of the six major studios, while HD DVD is supported by three of them. Three studios -- Sony, Disney and Fox -- are exclusively in the Blu-ray camp, as is mini-major Lionsgate. Paramount and Warner support both formats. Universal is the only major studio to release titles only in the HD DVD format, which backers claim is easier and cheaper to produce.

Reuters/Hollywood Reporter

zetableh · 04-24-2007, 02:13 PM

I own 4 BluRays currently, including 1 that came free with my PS3. I must say, I really like them, lots of stuff put on a single disc, and frankly, I feel like the picture quality is better even at 480i, which is all I get on my school TV, than a DVD.

Giannis · 04-24-2007, 03:07 PM

My DVD supports Blu-ray but i haven't tried it yet. Aren't they very expensive??

Yannis · 04-24-2007, 05:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Giannis

My DVD supports Blu-ray but i haven't tried it yet. Aren't they very expensive??

There is no DVD player that can support blu ray disks Giannis.

Only Playstation 3 and Blu Ray players (which cost more than 1,000 euro right now) can play Blu Ray disks.

Giannis · 04-24-2007, 05:18 PM

Oh, sorry. It supports dual-layer, not blue ray... I think i am very tired-have to go to bed

Centurion · 04-24-2007, 07:19 PM

Stupid format war. One advantage Sony has in the war is that they own Sony and Columbia Pictures which give them the opportunity to use ugly tricks and launch movies like Spiderman 3 exclusively for Blu-Ray only. On the other hand HD-DVD does have some major production companies behind it. More over Sony also has PS3 which will help them significantly. Microsoft on the other hand made a good movie by not equipping the 360 with either of the format since we basically don't know who is going to win. It would have been a pity if the 360 had a built in HD-DVD drive and end up loosing the war, making 360 owner angry over having to pay a gigantic sum of money for a next gen drive which will become obsolete.

IMO Sony are to blame for this. They love new formats, does Betamax, Mini disc, UMD, ATRAC, Super Audio CD, not to mention all the gazillion different Memory Stick cards which are in existence ring a bell?

There is a chance that it will end up like the DVD-R and DVD+R war where every single dvd player has ended up supporting both formats. Or it might end up like the SACD vs DVD-Audio war where the format war has halted the technological advancement. For you who don't know what SACD and DVD-Audio, they are formats for the next generation audio CD format. The truth is that they have existed since 2000 and there are a whole gang of albums on both formats but none of them has managed to replace the good old 650MB CD thanks to companies behind both formats refusing to give up. I got a DVD-Audi disc with my sound card three years ago and damn the sound quality is sweet. I was hoping that just about every single new album would be available on DVD-Audi but that hasn't been the case. The situation is almost unchanged. The only DVD-Audi albums out there are classic albums from Pink Floyd, MJ, Mariah Carey, Madonna and other big artist. It's a real pitty.

Mikael · 04-25-2007, 11:07 AM

We should blame the companies and the authorities. Their inability to make a compromise and find a common solution to their disagreements has created this jungle of different formats and incompatible technologies. In addition to those that Luw mentioned we also have PAL and NTSC; ATSC, DVB & ISDB; GSM and CDMA, UMB and LTE etc.

Mikael · 09-26-2007, 09:59 AM

High-Definition War to Remain Deadlocked for 18 Months – Analysts.

Blu-Ray Vs. HD DVD Battle to Last for Long, Analysts Predict

by Anton Shilov

[ 09/25/2007 | 12:27 PM ]

The war between Blu-ray and HD DVD high-definition video formats will last for another one and a half years, analysts from Forrester Research claim. The reasons for that are relatively high prices on high-definition video players and strong market positions of both competing standards. As a result, the winner is currently unclear.

“Blu-ray’s failure to land a knock-out blow means that the format war will continue for at least 18 more months,” said J. P. Gownder, an analyst for Forrester Research, a research company that predicted in 2005 that Blu-ray would eventually win a hard-fought victory over HD DVD in the next-generation DVD format war.

According to a report by Forrester Research, which was released on Monday, sales of Blu-ray disc (BD) and HD DVD players will not pick up for another year and a half as consumers want lower prices and confidence in the future of their players and chosen disc format. Given that currently both Blu-ray and HD DVD have relatively strong market positions – thanks to Sony’s PlayStation 3 game consoles with BD drive and low-cost HD DVD players from Toshiba – the outcome of the battle is not completely.

Even though Forrester Research and analyst J.P. Gownder believes that Blu-ray would eventually win out over HD DVD, it was indicated that the strategy needs “altering”.

“Blu-ray’s content advantages are somewhat diminished since the recent decision by Paramount to commit exclusively to HD DVD. And HD DVD hardware prices have dropped directly into consumers’ preferred price range, according to Forrester’s Technographics survey data. Weakened by these developments, Blu-ray needs to offer a viable hardware model at the $250 price point by Christmas 2007,” said Mr. Gownder.

The analyst claims that Blu-ray’s “strategic advantages” could be undone by HD DVD’s lower price and the amount of available content. Therefore, to win, the “Blu-ray partisans” must drop their hardware prices.

Currently an HD DVD player from Toshiba can be obtained for $250 - $300 in the U.S., whereas Blu-ray player from Samsung costs starting at about $480.

“The Blu-ray camp must also stave off further studio defections, and employ more aggressive promotional tactics to counter HD DVD’s recent momentum. Failure to alter strategy would open up Blu-ray to a possible upset defeat at the hands of HD-DVD,” the analyst believes.

Source: - ONLY REGISTERED AND ACTIVATED USERS CAN SEE ALL LINKS - CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

Mikael · 10-19-2007, 07:09 AM

Blu-ray vs. HD DVD: a Solution Abroad

Some Movies Are Available In Opposing Format Overseas; Turn Off the French Dubbing

By SARAH MCBRIDE
October 18, 2007; Page D1

Some savvy consumers are looking overseas for a way to take some of the risk out of buying a next-generation DVD player.

Many movie lovers have repeatedly said they are reluctant to buy one of the new high-definition movie players because of a format war pitting two incompatible technologies against each other. As the battle has unfolded, some studios have made deals to exclusively distribute their titles in one format or the other. Sony Pictures, for example, releases high-definition titles only in the Blu-ray format, which parent Sony Corp. developed. General Electric Co.'s Universal Pictures, on the other hand, releases high-definition movies only in the rival HD DVD format.

Clever movie buffs have discovered a workaround: Several dozen titles out in the U.S. exclusively on Blu-ray are available overseas on HD DVD. While studios like Sony, News Corp.'s Twentieth Century Fox and Walt Disney Co. tout their unswerving allegiance to Blu-ray stateside, in other countries titles like Sony's "xXx," Fox's "Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer" and Disney's "The Prestige" are available on HD DVD.

No overseas travel is necessary to tap into this stream of alternative discs. A visit to a site like amazon.co.uk does the trick, albeit typically at a higher price than in the U.S. For those reluctant to pay shipping costs from Europe or Asia or worried about currency conversions, gray-market U.S.-based sites such as xploitedcinema.com offer selections.

The loophole lies in distribution. Studios often farm out DVD sales in other countries to a patchwork of companies with expertise in those markets. Those partner companies sometimes have arrangements to use a high-definition format different from that of the U.S. studio.

Often, a studio co-produces movies with a partner that retains rights for distribution in certain parts of the world. Take the Sharon Stone classic "Basic Instinct." One of Sony TriStar's co-producers was the French company Canal Plus, an HD DVD backer. Buy a French version of the DVD, turn off the dubbing, et voilà -- an HD DVD version of a movie that is available only on Blu-ray in this country.

For regular DVDs, studio restrictions known as region codes typically make a disc purchased in one part of the world unplayable on a DVD player purchased elsewhere. Region codes (meant to protect varying release schedules in different countries) have become less important in recent years, however, and HD DVD doesn't have region codes, although Blu-ray does.

Some titles that come out exclusively on HD DVD in the U.S. come out on Blu-ray overseas, such as Universal Pictures' "Bruce Almighty" and "Hollywoodland," but consumers must be sure they are buying from a region that works with U.S. players. For Blu-ray, the U.S. is in the same region as almost all of the Americas and Southeast Asia.

Still, most major high-definition titles available overseas seem to reflect a switch to HD DVD, rather than the reverse.

It is too soon to say whether the availability of films from overseas will give a decisive edge to HD DVD, since relatively few consumers are tapping that market regularly. "This odd dichotomy only helps reinforce the idea that the high-def market is still in its relative infancy," says Paul Erickson, director of DVD and HD market research at NPD Group's DisplaySearch, an industry research company. "The studios themselves are still watching, waiting and evaluating the market." The number of titles exclusive to a format, after overseas releases are factored in, is only about 190 each, he says.

"It's too early to tell" if imports will give one format an advantage over the other, says a spokesman for the HD DVD Promotional Group. "The Blu-ray Disc Association does not think any format should count on a grey-market channel," a spokesman for Blu-ray says.

Buying DVDs from overseas is generally legal. "Anyone can lawfully purchase a single copy of a DVD from outside the U.S. if it is for private use and not for distribution," says Owen Sloane, an entertainment lawyer at Berger Kahn in Los Angeles. However, setting up a business based in the U.S. that sells these imports "would be illegal from the get-go," says Paul Supnik, a copyright and trademark lawyer in Beverly Hills, Calif.

Xploitedcinema.com, which offers a selection of horror and art-house films, as well as foreign DVDs, did not respond to requests for comment.

To some, the availability of Blu-ray studios' movies on HD DVD overseas is ironic, given the adulation with which the Blu-ray-only studios tout their favored technology. When Fox committed to the format, for example, it called Blu-ray a "superior" high-definition technology. On its Web site, Disney says Blu-ray offers "unsurpassed picture and audio quality." Sony says Blu-ray delivers "The Best Picture. The Best Sound."

Adam Gregorich, a system administrator at AT&T in Brier, Wash., who has bought a few of the imports, says he was surprised last year when he first heard about the loophole, but he realized studios need to sell whatever works best for them. "It's just business," he says.

Some studios point out that the overseas rights for many of these movies were negotiated years before Blu-ray and HD DVD existed. The situation is part of "making movies in the 21st century," says a spokesman for Fox, who adds the studio remains firmly in the Blu-ray camp. "These movies are co-productions or domestic-distribution deals only, and, as a result, we do not have distribution rights in all of the foreign territories," says a spokesman for Buena Vista Home Entertainment, Disney's DVD arm. "As you know, this is very common in our industry."

A Sony spokeswoman called foreign non-Blu-ray DVDs "anomalies, since the vast majority of our split-rights titles around the world will release on Blu-ray."

Sometimes, consumers can land high-definition DVDs weeks or months before they come out in the U.S. by buying overseas. For example, "Mr. and Mrs. Smith," a Fox title, won't come out on Blu-ray here until December, with a suggested price of $39.98. In Poland, it is already available on HD DVD.

The Polish Web site edvd.pl sells it for 109.99 zlotys, or about $42, but navigating the site is a bit of a challenge for non-Polish speakers. Xploitedcinema.com sells it for $39.95.

Browsing an online forum for high-definition fans last autumn, Tim Glover, a youth counselor in Monroe, La., noticed that "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" was available on HD DVD in the United Kingdom. In the U.S., it is available in regular DVD, but it isn't coming out on either Blu-ray or HD DVD until December. "I thought, 'Oh, man, I don't want to wait," he recalls, and ordered it from amazon.co.uk. Pleased with the quality, he has bought a few more imports, mostly from xploitedcinema.com. "There's something about having something that's hard to get," he says.

Source: - ONLY REGISTERED AND ACTIVATED USERS CAN SEE ALL LINKS - CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

04-24-2007, 12:03 PM	#1 (permalink)
Mikael Global Moderator Join Date: Nov 2005 Posts: 1,953 Thanks: 932 Thanked 414 Times in 250 Posts	Blu-ray Disc Sales Surpass One Million Mark Blu-ray burning its high-def DVD rival Mon Apr 23, 2007 11:03AM EDT By Thomas K. Arnold LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) Of the high-definition discs bought by consumers in the first quarter, 70% were in the Blu-ray Disc format and 30% were HD DVD, according to sales figures provided by trade publication Home Media Magazine. Blu-ray took the lead in February, and its percentage of total sales accelerated to the point where it accounted for nearly three out of every four high-definition discs sold in March. What's more, when given the choice, consumers are going with Blu-ray. Warner Home Video released "The Departed" the same day, February 13, in both formats. Between then and March 31, consumers bought 53,640 copies of the film on Blu-ray Disc and 31,590 on HD DVD, according to Home Media's market research, based on studio estimates and Nielsen VideoScan point-of-sale data. Research also shows that eight of the 10 top-selling high-definition titles in the first quarter were on Blu-ray Disc. At the top of the list was "Casino Royale," which sold through to consumers an estimated 59,680 units in the period. The Blu-ray Disc edition of "Departed" finished second, while the HD DVD version of that Oscar-winning film placed third. From January 1-March 31, consumers bought almost 1.2 million high-definition discs -- 832,530 Blu-ray units and 359,300 HD DVDs -- according to Home Media Magazine. In March, consumers bought 335,980 Blu-ray Discs and 119,570 HD DVDs. Since the high-def format's inception -- HD DVD launched in April 2006, while Blu-ray got rolling two months later -- more than 2.14 million discs have been purchased by consumers: 1.2 million Blu-ray Discs and about 937,500 HD DVDs. Observers aren't surprised by the disparity, noting that Blu-ray Disc enjoys the support of five of the six major studios, while HD DVD is supported by three of them. Three studios -- Sony, Disney and Fox -- are exclusively in the Blu-ray camp, as is mini-major Lionsgate. Paramount and Warner support both formats. Universal is the only major studio to release titles only in the HD DVD format, which backers claim is easier and cheaper to produce. Reuters/Hollywood Reporter

04-24-2007, 02:13 PM	#2 (permalink)
zetableh Advocate Join Date: Oct 2005 Location: Connecticut/New York Posts: 546 Thanks: 63 Thanked 58 Times in 30 Posts	Re: Blu-ray Disc Sales Surpass One Million Mark I own 4 BluRays currently, including 1 that came free with my PS3. I must say, I really like them, lots of stuff put on a single disc, and frankly, I feel like the picture quality is better even at 480i, which is all I get on my school TV, than a DVD.

04-24-2007, 03:07 PM	#3 (permalink)
Giannis Devotee Join Date: Oct 2005 Location: Patra, Greece Posts: 3,489 Thanks: 140 Thanked 217 Times in 165 Posts	Re: Blu-ray Disc Sales Surpass One Million Mark My DVD supports Blu-ray but i haven't tried it yet. Aren't they very expensive??

04-24-2007, 05:18 PM	#5 (permalink)
Giannis Devotee Join Date: Oct 2005 Location: Patra, Greece Posts: 3,489 Thanks: 140 Thanked 217 Times in 165 Posts	Re: Blu-ray Disc Sales Surpass One Million Mark Oh, sorry. It supports dual-layer, not blue ray... I think i am very tired-have to go to bed

04-24-2007, 07:19 PM	#6 (permalink)
Centurion Trendsetter Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: Sweden Posts: 7,075 Thanks: 595 Thanked 724 Times in 422 Posts	Re: Blu-ray Disc Sales Surpass One Million Mark Stupid format war. One advantage Sony has in the war is that they own Sony and Columbia Pictures which give them the opportunity to use ugly tricks and launch movies like Spiderman 3 exclusively for Blu-Ray only. On the other hand HD-DVD does have some major production companies behind it. More over Sony also has PS3 which will help them significantly. Microsoft on the other hand made a good movie by not equipping the 360 with either of the format since we basically don't know who is going to win. It would have been a pity if the 360 had a built in HD-DVD drive and end up loosing the war, making 360 owner angry over having to pay a gigantic sum of money for a next gen drive which will become obsolete. IMO Sony are to blame for this. They love new formats, does Betamax, Mini disc, UMD, ATRAC, Super Audio CD, not to mention all the gazillion different Memory Stick cards which are in existence ring a bell? There is a chance that it will end up like the DVD-R and DVD+R war where every single dvd player has ended up supporting both formats. Or it might end up like the SACD vs DVD-Audio war where the format war has halted the technological advancement. For you who don't know what SACD and DVD-Audio, they are formats for the next generation audio CD format. The truth is that they have existed since 2000 and there are a whole gang of albums on both formats but none of them has managed to replace the good old 650MB CD thanks to companies behind both formats refusing to give up. I got a DVD-Audi disc with my sound card three years ago and damn the sound quality is sweet. I was hoping that just about every single new album would be available on DVD-Audi but that hasn't been the case. The situation is almost unchanged. The only DVD-Audi albums out there are classic albums from Pink Floyd, MJ, Mariah Carey, Madonna and other big artist. It's a real pitty.

04-25-2007, 11:07 AM	#7 (permalink)
Mikael Global Moderator Join Date: Nov 2005 Posts: 1,953 Thanks: 932 Thanked 414 Times in 250 Posts	Re: Blu-ray Disc Sales Surpass One Million Mark We should blame the companies and the authorities. Their inability to make a compromise and find a common solution to their disagreements has created this jungle of different formats and incompatible technologies. In addition to those that Luw mentioned we also have PAL and NTSC; ATSC, DVB & ISDB; GSM and CDMA, UMB and LTE etc.

09-26-2007, 09:59 AM	#8 (permalink)
Mikael Global Moderator Join Date: Nov 2005 Posts: 1,953 Thanks: 932 Thanked 414 Times in 250 Posts	Re: Blu-ray Disc Sales Surpass One Million Mark High-Definition War to Remain Deadlocked for 18 Months – Analysts. Blu-Ray Vs. HD DVD Battle to Last for Long, Analysts Predict by Anton Shilov [ 09/25/2007 \| 12:27 PM ] The war between Blu-ray and HD DVD high-definition video formats will last for another one and a half years, analysts from Forrester Research claim. The reasons for that are relatively high prices on high-definition video players and strong market positions of both competing standards. As a result, the winner is currently unclear. “Blu-ray’s failure to land a knock-out blow means that the format war will continue for at least 18 more months,” said J. P. Gownder, an analyst for Forrester Research, a research company that predicted in 2005 that Blu-ray would eventually win a hard-fought victory over HD DVD in the next-generation DVD format war. According to a report by Forrester Research, which was released on Monday, sales of Blu-ray disc (BD) and HD DVD players will not pick up for another year and a half as consumers want lower prices and confidence in the future of their players and chosen disc format. Given that currently both Blu-ray and HD DVD have relatively strong market positions – thanks to Sony’s PlayStation 3 game consoles with BD drive and low-cost HD DVD players from Toshiba – the outcome of the battle is not completely. Even though Forrester Research and analyst J.P. Gownder believes that Blu-ray would eventually win out over HD DVD, it was indicated that the strategy needs “altering”. “Blu-ray’s content advantages are somewhat diminished since the recent decision by Paramount to commit exclusively to HD DVD. And HD DVD hardware prices have dropped directly into consumers’ preferred price range, according to Forrester’s Technographics survey data. Weakened by these developments, Blu-ray needs to offer a viable hardware model at the $250 price point by Christmas 2007,” said Mr. Gownder. The analyst claims that Blu-ray’s “strategic advantages” could be undone by HD DVD’s lower price and the amount of available content. Therefore, to win, the “Blu-ray partisans” must drop their hardware prices. Currently an HD DVD player from Toshiba can be obtained for $250 - $300 in the U.S., whereas Blu-ray player from Samsung costs starting at about $480. “The Blu-ray camp must also stave off further studio defections, and employ more aggressive promotional tactics to counter HD DVD’s recent momentum. Failure to alter strategy would open up Blu-ray to a possible upset defeat at the hands of HD-DVD,” the analyst believes. Source: - ONLY REGISTERED AND ACTIVATED USERS CAN SEE ALL LINKS - CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

10-19-2007, 07:09 AM	#9 (permalink)
Mikael Global Moderator Join Date: Nov 2005 Posts: 1,953 Thanks: 932 Thanked 414 Times in 250 Posts	Re: Blu-ray Disc Sales Surpass One Million Mark Blu-ray vs. HD DVD: a Solution Abroad Some Movies Are Available In Opposing Format Overseas; Turn Off the French Dubbing By SARAH MCBRIDE October 18, 2007; Page D1 Some savvy consumers are looking overseas for a way to take some of the risk out of buying a next-generation DVD player. Many movie lovers have repeatedly said they are reluctant to buy one of the new high-definition movie players because of a format war pitting two incompatible technologies against each other. As the battle has unfolded, some studios have made deals to exclusively distribute their titles in one format or the other. Sony Pictures, for example, releases high-definition titles only in the Blu-ray format, which parent Sony Corp. developed. General Electric Co.'s Universal Pictures, on the other hand, releases high-definition movies only in the rival HD DVD format. Clever movie buffs have discovered a workaround: Several dozen titles out in the U.S. exclusively on Blu-ray are available overseas on HD DVD. While studios like Sony, News Corp.'s Twentieth Century Fox and Walt Disney Co. tout their unswerving allegiance to Blu-ray stateside, in other countries titles like Sony's "xXx," Fox's "Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer" and Disney's "The Prestige" are available on HD DVD. No overseas travel is necessary to tap into this stream of alternative discs. A visit to a site like amazon.co.uk does the trick, albeit typically at a higher price than in the U.S. For those reluctant to pay shipping costs from Europe or Asia or worried about currency conversions, gray-market U.S.-based sites such as xploitedcinema.com offer selections. The loophole lies in distribution. Studios often farm out DVD sales in other countries to a patchwork of companies with expertise in those markets. Those partner companies sometimes have arrangements to use a high-definition format different from that of the U.S. studio. Often, a studio co-produces movies with a partner that retains rights for distribution in certain parts of the world. Take the Sharon Stone classic "Basic Instinct." One of Sony TriStar's co-producers was the French company Canal Plus, an HD DVD backer. Buy a French version of the DVD, turn off the dubbing, et voilà -- an HD DVD version of a movie that is available only on Blu-ray in this country. For regular DVDs, studio restrictions known as region codes typically make a disc purchased in one part of the world unplayable on a DVD player purchased elsewhere. Region codes (meant to protect varying release schedules in different countries) have become less important in recent years, however, and HD DVD doesn't have region codes, although Blu-ray does. Some titles that come out exclusively on HD DVD in the U.S. come out on Blu-ray overseas, such as Universal Pictures' "Bruce Almighty" and "Hollywoodland," but consumers must be sure they are buying from a region that works with U.S. players. For Blu-ray, the U.S. is in the same region as almost all of the Americas and Southeast Asia. Still, most major high-definition titles available overseas seem to reflect a switch to HD DVD, rather than the reverse. It is too soon to say whether the availability of films from overseas will give a decisive edge to HD DVD, since relatively few consumers are tapping that market regularly. "This odd dichotomy only helps reinforce the idea that the high-def market is still in its relative infancy," says Paul Erickson, director of DVD and HD market research at NPD Group's DisplaySearch, an industry research company. "The studios themselves are still watching, waiting and evaluating the market." The number of titles exclusive to a format, after overseas releases are factored in, is only about 190 each, he says. "It's too early to tell" if imports will give one format an advantage over the other, says a spokesman for the HD DVD Promotional Group. "The Blu-ray Disc Association does not think any format should count on a grey-market channel," a spokesman for Blu-ray says. Buying DVDs from overseas is generally legal. "Anyone can lawfully purchase a single copy of a DVD from outside the U.S. if it is for private use and not for distribution," says Owen Sloane, an entertainment lawyer at Berger Kahn in Los Angeles. However, setting up a business based in the U.S. that sells these imports "would be illegal from the get-go," says Paul Supnik, a copyright and trademark lawyer in Beverly Hills, Calif. Xploitedcinema.com, which offers a selection of horror and art-house films, as well as foreign DVDs, did not respond to requests for comment. To some, the availability of Blu-ray studios' movies on HD DVD overseas is ironic, given the adulation with which the Blu-ray-only studios tout their favored technology. When Fox committed to the format, for example, it called Blu-ray a "superior" high-definition technology. On its Web site, Disney says Blu-ray offers "unsurpassed picture and audio quality." Sony says Blu-ray delivers "The Best Picture. The Best Sound." Adam Gregorich, a system administrator at AT&T in Brier, Wash., who has bought a few of the imports, says he was surprised last year when he first heard about the loophole, but he realized studios need to sell whatever works best for them. "It's just business," he says. Some studios point out that the overseas rights for many of these movies were negotiated years before Blu-ray and HD DVD existed. The situation is part of "making movies in the 21st century," says a spokesman for Fox, who adds the studio remains firmly in the Blu-ray camp. "These movies are co-productions or domestic-distribution deals only, and, as a result, we do not have distribution rights in all of the foreign territories," says a spokesman for Buena Vista Home Entertainment, Disney's DVD arm. "As you know, this is very common in our industry." A Sony spokeswoman called foreign non-Blu-ray DVDs "anomalies, since the vast majority of our split-rights titles around the world will release on Blu-ray." Sometimes, consumers can land high-definition DVDs weeks or months before they come out in the U.S. by buying overseas. For example, "Mr. and Mrs. Smith," a Fox title, won't come out on Blu-ray here until December, with a suggested price of $39.98. In Poland, it is already available on HD DVD. The Polish Web site edvd.pl sells it for 109.99 zlotys, or about $42, but navigating the site is a bit of a challenge for non-Polish speakers. Xploitedcinema.com sells it for $39.95. Browsing an online forum for high-definition fans last autumn, Tim Glover, a youth counselor in Monroe, La., noticed that "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" was available on HD DVD in the United Kingdom. In the U.S., it is available in regular DVD, but it isn't coming out on either Blu-ray or HD DVD until December. "I thought, 'Oh, man, I don't want to wait," he recalls, and ordered it from amazon.co.uk. Pleased with the quality, he has bought a few more imports, mostly from xploitedcinema.com. "There's something about having something that's hard to get," he says. Source: - ONLY REGISTERED AND ACTIVATED USERS CAN SEE ALL LINKS - CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

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