[Michael St. Clair]

http://www.highfidelityreview.com/ne...umber=18483611

The RIAA survey concludes that DVD-Audio sales in 2003 were over five times the level of competing high-resolution audio disc formats, with a 2.7% market share – up from 1.3% in 2002 – in comparison to SACD’s 0.5%.

I've always believed that DVD-A was outselling SACD. It's all about giving consumers surround without making them buy new hardware. While we may be interested in better-than-CD stereo, 'regular' consumers are not. And surround is the only hook that might distract the mainstream from iPods and the like.

[Phil A]

Michael, I'm fairly sure the statistics are based on DVD-A discs vs. single layer SACDs. Hybrids are excluded. We'll never know the % of people buying hybrids for the SACD layer or who bought the DVD-A disc for the DVD-V layer. There is no way to track hybrids since they are mixed in with CD sales.

[Michael St. Clair]

Phil,

The following are the hybrids that are marketed as CDs and could have decent sales:

ABKCO Rolling Stones
Bob Dylan
Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon
The Police - EBYTtC

A drop in the bucket. Not enough sales to boost SACD over DVD-A (not that either are anything to write home about).

If the latest albums from Beyonce and Christina were stealth hybrid, I'd expect SACD to be outselling DVD-A by a large margin. Classic rock reissues are high profile to older, 'audiophile' guys like us but not to the mass market.

Also keep in mind that we are talking RIAA survey and not just scan data.

[Mark Hedges]

Quote:

A drop in the bucket.

I find that hard to believe. I would be stunned if the combined sales from the Rolling Stones hybrids, the Dylan hybrids, and DSOTM were not more that all the DVD-audio disks sold last year.

This reeks of corporate spin doctors putting the best read possible on the numbers.

[Todd Phillips]

Here's the link to the report:
http://www.riaa.com/news/marketingda...merProfile.pdf

By the way, this was a telephone survey of consumers, and therefore relied on consumer knowledge of the technologies. I wonder how many music DVD-Vs were mis-classified as DVD-As.

Also interesting from the report:

Quote:

"With respect to genre, consumers were asked to classify their music purchases; they are not assigned a particular category by Hart Research."

Rock genre is the top at 25% with rap/r&b/country trailing at 10-13% each. Comparing this with the list of top selling albums of 2003 makes me question the usefulness of this survey.

[Phil A]

The majority of single layer discs released have been by Sony and they have not released a whole lot of stuff recently (as has been noted). As to people confusing DVD-A with DVD-V that happens quite often. I've actually seen on multiple occasions both Best Buy and Circuit City employees tell customers that concert videos as the same as DVD-A.

[Darryl]

Quote:

By the way, this was a telephone survey of consumers, and therefore relied on consumer knowledge of the technologies. I wonder how many music DVD-Vs were mis-classified as DVD-As.

That could give DVD-A a 2.7% market share without selling a single disk. Of the 5-ish times I've asked where the DVD-Audio section of a store is, I've been taken to the concert DVD-Video section every time but once. If the data came from consumer phone surveys, the only number I even come close to believing is the zero credence I give the results. I'm not anti-DVD-A, but this data is absolutely worthless.

[Justin Lane]

I would like to see the actual survey/report referenced in this article. If true, this says a lot about Sony's apparent abandonment of the SA-CD format.

Sales numbers cannot be obtained through survey, so I would assume they used actual data provided by the manufacturers for that portion of the press release. This is the RIAA, so I would also assume they would not put out a report which would purposefully infuriate members who also solely support SA-CD.

Very interesting indeed.

J

[Darryl]

How This Report Was Compiled
The Annual Consumer Profile is compiled by Peter D. Hart Research Associates from a monthly national telephone survey (Hart surveyed more than 2,900 music buyers in 2003). Data from the monthly survey, tabulated annually and semi-annually, is weighted by age and gender, and then projected to reflect the U.S. population age 10 and over. The reliability of the data is +/- 1.8 percent at a 95 percent confidence level. The consumer profile is based upon the distribution of units purchased by the consumers interviewed in this survey. This data is separate and apart from the RIAA's annual and semi-annual shipment statistics reports, calculated by PricewaterhouseCoopers.

[Michael St. Clair]

Quote:

This is the RIAA, so I would also assume they would not put out a report which would purposefully infuriate members who also solely support SA-CD.

Exactly. Sony is one of the most powerful members of the RIAA.

[Phil A]

The report also indicates that 2003 was the first yr. collected for SACD purchases and 2001 for DVD-A. The report further indicates that DVD-As outsell music DVD-Vs by about 5-1 and also around the same margin more for DVD-As vs. vinyl, hardly factual data for the real world. Not useful for anything except the people who got paid to do it.