UK Blu-ray Disc sales shoot up
But still some way from catching DVD
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Brits bought 2.7m Blu-ray Discs in the first three months of 2010 - 69.5 per cent more than they purchased in Q1 2009.
So said the British Video Association, a trade organisation representing publishers and retailers, this week.
Some 15.6m BDs have been bought since the format first appeared over here in 2006.
The BVA was quick to trumpet the numbers as a sure sign of the British public's keenness on the Blu-ray format and "consumer confidence in Blu-ray", but it's interesting to see that DVD didn't do so badly either.
While sales of back-catalogue sales were down slightly - 3.4 per cent - sales on new releases were up 6.4 per cent.
Some 1.2m DVD copies of The Twilight Saga: New Moon shipped during Q1 - not so very much behind the 1.7m combined sales of the top three BDs: Hurtlocker, Up and 2012. These three were also in the top four best-selling DVDs of the quarter.
The BVA didn't respond to our request for more DVD sales data, but we expect DVD sales to still significantly outweigh BD purchases. ®
COMMENTS
The UK, cheap?
Thats the main reason I haven't bothered to buy a blueray player - the high price of both player and disks.
I picked up a DVD player that does upscaling and has a hdmi for less than the price of two movies on blueray... not the hi-def fest that blueray provides but good enough compared to the current output of the majority of UK broadcasts.
Blueray should have been an evolution rather than a replacement. We expect quality to get better as technology improves and I for one am done with paying a premium for that. I will buy a player when the cost < £50 and the disks < £10.
Terrible user experience
I got a BluRay player with my new tv, I'm glad I didn't pay for it. It takes about 5 times longer to load a DVD than my 10 year old Pioneer does, it's even worse with BD discs. They've got as many unskipable adverts, warnings and disclaimers that have put me off buying DVDs but they all happen in treacle-time.
Luckily, the BDs I did buy came with the same movie on DVD (good work Disney - never though I'd say that), so I ripped the main movie with Handbrake and play them back on my Western Digital Live and Xtreamer boxes.
Price better, but still apathetic
The price has improved a lot to where you can now get a film for only a little more than the equivalent DVD, but you still have to shop around and still generally ripped off on the high street. However there are now good prices on players and we're seeing proper multi-region players now (albeit from east Asian "no name" models, which are rather good to be honest).
However I just have no enthusiasm for buying tonnes of films like I did on DVD. I look at my collection of DVDs and just realise it was mostly a waste. The majority I've watched only once and I'm never likely to watch again. On Blu Ray I'm only buying the core essentials that I really really want. I could rent, but I'm not that fussed and I really do think decent legal downloads are only around the corner now (especially as BT may be doing fibre-to-cabinet next year in my area). And before anyone jumps on the "ah but you need 50gb or whatever for a movie", well you don't really. I've seen plenty of 720 and 1080p downloads that on a 40" 1080p telly look perfect and are only a fraction of the size. For the vast majority it will be perfectly adequate, and given the vast majority don' really give a toss anyway (judging by their acceptance of low standards on iPods), then it's the way forward.
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