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"300" is the fastest selling high definition movie to date  (Source: Warner Home Video)
Warner owns 30 percent of HD DVD, Blu-ray Disc market thanks to "300," “The Departed,” “Planet Earth,” and others

The CGI-filled blockbuster movie “300” hit the home video market just over a week ago, and has already set the record for being the fastest and highest-selling high definition title. Since July 31, 2007, “300” has sold more than 250,000 copies to consumers on HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc, according to Warner Home Video. The studio division declined to reveal specific sales numbers according to format.

“‘300’ is an amazing film, and the high definition sales we are seeing underscores the positive business benefits of supporting both HD DVD and Blu-ray,” said Ron Sanders, President of Warner Home Video. “This phenomenal response to ‘300’ is the latest proof that our approach makes the most sense in today’s market and has enabled Warner Home Video to continue to lead the market in high definition sales.”

Shortly after the movie’s release to the home market, DailyTech used “300” to outline the current differences in the available feature sets of HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc. The HD DVD product featured exclusive picture-in-picture video and web features not found on any other version.

Warner was also proud to boast that its home video division has six of the top 10 selling high definition titles with “300,” “The Departed,” “Superman Returns,” “Planet Earth - The Complete Collection,” “Batman Begins,” and “Happy Feet.”

Warner owns the title of the highest grossing high definition title with the dual-format release of “Planet Earth” – though the title’s MSRP just shy of $100 makes that a predictable feat.

With its relative neutral support for both HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc, Warner is able to cash in on sales from both sides of the high definition camp. Warner says that it currently has more than 30 percent market share of software sales in the high definition market, selling more high definition product and releasing more titles than any other studio.

As another testament to Warner’s support for both high definition formats, the studio has developed a hybrid disc technology that features the HD DVD version on one side of the disc and the Blu-ray Disc on the reverse. The hybrid disc, called Total HD, was first unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show 2007. However, complications arose, pushing the release of Total HD discs to early 2008.

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This is
By jtvang125 on 8/8/2007 10:03:15 AM , Rating: 3
This is madness!

I don't get why they won't disclose the amount sold for each format. Also the 250k total for both format probably is only a few percent compared the amount of 300 dvd sales.




RE: This is
By omnicronx on 8/8/2007 10:08:48 AM , Rating: 3
whatever .. 250k sales for one movie, in such a short period of time is pretty good. I bet Toshiba has only sold about that many players, and this can only do good for the advancement of the HD format. More players sold + more movies sold = cheaper movies for me :)


RE: This is
By 16nm on 8/8/2007 10:28:20 AM , Rating: 2
No, I agree with jtvang125 on this one. It's disappointing that Warner will not break it down by format. Then once they have their Total HD discs in circulation, it will be impossible to know.


RE: This is
By Guyver on 8/8/2007 12:00:01 PM , Rating: 2
It's also interesting to note that no mention of DVD sales have been mentioned. I suspect for fear of how much it would show DVD is still king.


RE: This is
By deeznuts on 8/8/2007 12:56:36 PM , Rating: 2
Dude that argument is so freaking tired man, let it go. When DVD came out VHS was king, that didn't stop DVD did it?

Hi Def disks are being adopted faster than DVD was.


RE: This is
By Oregonian2 on 8/8/2007 1:37:21 PM , Rating: 2
That argument is "freaking tired" I suspect because you don't have an answer to it.

ALL tv's could use a DVD player when they came out, HD players are useless on the vast majority of currently used TV's (yes, can be used on a SD set, but pointless). I'd be surprised if hi-def DVDs are coming on faster (discounting for PS3 sales which weren't really purchases of the hidef format). Especially when one can't currently record using hi-def TV recorders. Something I suspect they may never allow, let alone have (HD recordable to optical disk off of cable/DirecTV?). A biggie missing thing in my book, in addition to not being useful on most tv sets. Hi-def also costs ten times as much to upgrade (TV set has to be upgraded too, and they're not cheap -- and a lot of the world can't afford such things, I think I read that CRT TV sets still are the most popular world-wide even if not in the more economically advanced countries).


RE: This is
By afkrotch on 8/8/2007 3:00:40 PM , Rating: 1
Umm...ya, but for large sized TVs, which do you think probably reigns supreme? Shoot, I don't think I've seen a 40+ inch TV that wasn't HDTV nowadays.

Course, even CRT TVs come in HD now. I've been looking at a Sansui 30" CRT HDTV and Samsung 32" CRT HDTV. I'm going for picture, not size.


RE: This is
By Guyver on 8/8/2007 5:18:19 PM , Rating: 2
If you're talking new TV sales, then yes I'd agree with you.

If you're talking about what the majority of American homes have as a big screen TV, it's probably split 50-50 between large screen HDTVs and large screen SDTVs by now. I'm thinking HDTVs will surpass SDTVs in homes by the holidays, if not sooner.

The point being is that not everyone would benefit from simply buying a HD player. Nintendo is making a killing off the Wii and part of that is they're playing to a still large consumer base that is being neglected. For about half of American households, a HD player purchase will only make sense if they also go out and buy a HDTV.


RE: This is
By Oregonian2 on 8/8/2007 6:48:28 PM , Rating: 2
Most people aren't using sets they bought in the last year. Most sets are older than that. Much older.


RE: This is
By jacarte8 on 8/8/07, Rating: -1
RE: This is
By Oregonian2 on 8/8/2007 6:46:40 PM , Rating: 2
That means those companies cranking out HDTV sets are in big trouble this coming year seeing as how nearly everybody in the world already has one. Who is going to buy their equipment? What's going to happen to all the Circuit City, Best Buy, and the Japanese, Australian, Singaporian, Vietnamese, Indian, Togo'ian, Sudanese, Chinese, Mongolian, Pakastani, Fiji'ian, etc TV selling employees? They'll all be out of work with no more big TV's to sell -- everybody but the poor has one already.

But then I guess we're poor too (my wife's a Doctor) our main TV is still an old tube based SD Sony XBR set connected up to DirecTV.

Also means the U.S. Government plan to provide digital converters for SD TV's can be cancelled, there's nobody that needs them.


RE: This is
By Guyver on 8/8/2007 5:12:10 PM , Rating: 2
Very good point.


RE: This is
By Jcruiser89 on 8/9/2007 3:46:08 PM , Rating: 2
Not all TV's could use DVD players .... They still had to have composite input, witch a lot didn't have.


RE: This is
By Guyver on 8/8/2007 2:52:57 PM , Rating: 2
So fast the combined total disc sales of HD-DVD and Blu-Ray have recently exceed that of VHS. :)

And don't forget that only about 1% of all HDTV owners have a HD player.

Fast indeed.


RE: This is
By fenderkb76 on 8/8/2007 5:18:07 PM , Rating: 2
Given their current situation as a somewhat "standard neutral" company, there's no way they want to push for one or the other. By breaking down the numbers between HD-DVD and Blu-Ray, they would allow one format to gain a little traction over the other. As it stands, they can profit from both. I believe they are fence sitting now so they can jump on the winner once it's obvious, or they can just keep producing both in hopes of a cost-effective dual format player. Right now, HD-DVD and Blu-Ray are both presumably improving their bottom line.


RE: This is
By FITCamaro on 8/8/07, Rating: -1
RE: This is
By Murst on 8/8/2007 11:26:17 AM , Rating: 3
quote:
HD-DVD has sold about 3-4 movies per player not counting giveaways. Blu-ray hasn't even sold 1 movie per player.


quote:
Toshiba has sold far more than 250,000 HD-DVD players. Try over 1 million. Far more than standalone blu-ray players that have been sold.


Do you realize how stupid it makes you sound when you make such statements?

If you're not going to count standalone players when comparing hardware sales, then you should not count them when comparing how many movies are sold per unit (in which case, blue-ray would be beating HD). However, if you want to compare movies per unit and count the Playstation3 as a unit, then you should include PS3 in total hardware sales, in which case Blue Ray is winning again.

You can't just pick the statistics that are most supportive to your argument and expect people to take anything you say seriously.


RE: This is
By Murst on 8/8/2007 11:28:19 AM , Rating: 2
Err.. my post above should say: If you're not going to count PS3s when comparing hardware sales...


RE: This is
By omnicronx on 8/8/2007 11:38:48 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
You can't just pick the statistics that are most supportive to your argument and expect people to take anything you say seriously.


and how does counting ps3's with standalone players not do the exact same thing? At least with standalone players you know what the user bought it for.

Ill say it before and ill say it again, if you can give me some sort of proof that more than say 1.5-10 ps3 owners have bought at least 1 movie other than what came with the console, then i will believe you, otherwise i look at real numbers that i know are correct. Standalone players are bought to watch movies, PS3's are bought for games, with the ability to play movies. Theres a big difference, or we might as well start making comments such as 'EVERYONE WHO OWNS A TV IS WATCHING PAY PER VIEW!'