Warner announces 100K sales of Departed (1 Viewer)

In what has to be the best reason for studios to support both formats, Warner has said they have sold 100k of 'Departed'.

Departed News

This is definitely good news for HD optical media in general, however I would be curious to know what the BD/HD DVD split is on those numbers.

The Nielsen data that Sony published in their Reseach paper had the following figures:

Week Ending 18th March 2007

Departed - Blu-Ray: 38,993
Departed - HD-DVD: 23,454

63:37 Split

The discs were released on 13th February 2007.

This period accounts for the first 5 weeks of sales for the Departed.

We can assume that the film sold more on Blu-Ray even if the split might be closer to 55/45 than the above figures.

Nick,

Thanks. This is, undoubtably, attributable to the higher cost of the HD DVD Combo Disc.

Given how much Warner likes to tout that they're releasing in both formats and how they are making more revenue by supporting both, I think they'll be in for a rude awakening should they continue to persue Total HD. Unless they can significantly reduce their cost by going THD, they will be driving down their total units sold by releasing on a most assuredly more expensive combo disc.

Yep. I have both formats and went wiht the bluray version because it was cheaper. I am sure a good chunk of the blu ray sales are from people just like me.

As for the 100k sales figures...really puts things into perspective and makes all the format bickering people do on internet forums even more lame. For people to say the "war" is over and hd-dvd is dead is outright asinine when the top selling disc in HD has sold a combined 100k units in 2.5 months.

I could not agree more. It is important to note that this is 100k sold, not the 100k shipped number Sony passed out on CR. Big difference. This should show why the studios should move to dual support, and get away from exclusive.

If Disney had released POC on both formats, or Universal with 'Children of Men', they might actually turn a profit. An extra 50 or 60k sales is actually a pretty large number for these formats.

I would love to know what the sales figures are on another dual format release, 'Planet Earth'.

But if there was only one format it would be 100k sold on a single format, not split across two. Heck it probably would be a lot more than 100k because all the people sitting on the sidelines waiting for the 'war' to be over would have jumped in. No matter how you look at it, this 'war' is hurting the HD format as a whole, and Casino Royal is still on track to be the first to sell 100k on a single format. It jumped back up to the top selling HD disc last week. It will be really interesting seeing the numbers for this week with so many high profile releases. Pirates 1/2, Matrix among others.

And if Sony released on both formats, they could be looking at 200k. This war can be spun any way, but what can not be spun is that it is what it is. As the sales of stand alone units continues to rise, the possibility of it ending diminishes, and the possibility of exclusive studios going non-exclusive increases. At some point the qauntity of players will hit a critical point and the war will end with two formats surviving.

That's conjecture, too - if there were one format, maybe significantly fewer people would have purchased $1000 players that never came down in price.

But I don't think that's the point Thomas was trying to make. What he's saying, essentially, is that the dual-format release of The Departed has so far outsold any single-format release, and that as things stand now, since wishing there were only one format doesn't make it so, this demonstrates studios have more to gain by releasing on both formats rather than one, assuming that the costs for doing so in the way Warner does (one encode ported from HD DVD to BD) are negligible.

You are right. It is an absolute fact that, as things stand currently (and for the foreseeable future), any studio that releases a title in both formats will sell more disks than they would have selling to only one format. For the 99% of the releases that do not have special features that utilize BD's java or HD's equivalent the cost to the studios to produce in both formats would be minimal.

Total HD gets an awful lot of space around here, but I would be seriously surprised if it ever comes to market. So far, only WHV is supporting it, and it's their creation. Total HD is a scheme to save retailers shelf space and confusion over the format war, but does nothing for us as buyers of HD media. Why would I want a flipper disc with two versions of the same film encoded on it?

Honestly, could WHV think of a more counterproductive marketing strategy than this one? If Total HD does launch, it will arrive stillborn imho.

I believe I remember Paramount also saying they were interested in using Total HD.

Doug

I guess an Oscar will do that for a movie. It was a one-timer that was just kind of blah for me. Certainly not one I'd buy. Go figure. Maybe there are a lot of rental copies out there.

OTOH I watched my DVD of Casino Royale (pre-PS3) a couple times before I bought the Blu-ray, which I've also watched since and am always game for. Oh well.

I don't care if everyone releases on both formats unless it means a move to TotalHD, since Blu-ray will get crippled. I can definitely see WB moving to make TotalHD happen just as Blu-ray gets Java 1.1 up and running. At that point it just means the Blu-ray fans will have to boycott their releases.

Paramount has actually been using the space on Blu-ray, so it would be ashame to see them adopt TrueHD over separate releases.

I'd love to have Universal release on Blu-ray, but not at the expense of TotalHD, which has TotalDisaster written all over it, especially with combo discs already being expensive and causing problems.

As TotalHD does not exist at this moment, I am not giving a moments thought. If (and that is a big if) it ever gets out of the starting gate, I will evaluate it before I make a determination one way or the other. As no new news seems to have come out from Warner on TotalHD other than rumors and speculation from other sources since it's announcement at CES, it seems to me we have little to go on as to what it's final specs will be. Could be that it will be dual layer on both sides.

100,000 after 2 1/2 months (wasn't that a movie? ;-0 ) is chicken feed for a new release of a major film in the world of SD DVD.

By March 7th (from its release on Feb. 13th), the SD DVD had sold >3,000,000 copies. That's a million a week!

Long way to go!

I wonder how the HD download of The Departed sold on the 360's Marketplace as a comparison.

In any case, let's see how this 100k figure looks in this perspective...

- it sold that amount for both HD formats combined
- took 2.5 months to reach 100k
- was released in the same month the film (which stars big name actors and directed by a major name director, took in 132m at the boxoffice domestically and was a critical success) won a Best Picture Oscar
- was a day/date release with the SD-DVD at only a few dollars more

The HD releases were given as good a chance to sell as you could expect (especially for a newer format) and it sold a whopping 100k.
When sales continue to be this lackluster (in the grand scheme of things) expect the studio's to slow down their releases on both formats by the end of this year.

Does it make people happy to see data like that? Are they hoping that HD discs are a big dud and get big smiles when they see data that supposedly supports their contention? What about the people who care about increased picture detail and quality? I guess they should be happy to be stuck with a lower quality format because other people are satisfied with it.

All the data on DVD sales proves to me is that a lot of people are morons. They will spend a couple of thousand dollars for a TV that is capable of displaying a HD picture, but 500 is too much for a player that has the capability to make maximum use of their TV's capabilities. Nope! They would rather buy some 50 buck shitbox to hook up to a 2000 dollar display. The mind boggles.

And to add to that, they will go out and buy cheap, poor quality pirated DVDs to watch, just so they can save a few bucks. 'Morons' is absolutely right.

Wow... calling people who are happy with DVDs and have no intention to move to a new format "morons" is a bit extreme. Does that mean everyone who doesn't upgrade to SACD/DVD-A is a moron?

Amen!

Go check out the SD area and your head might explode.

Some of the other attitudes that crack me up are:

The Mr Magoo types who claim to see little or no difference between SD and HD, yet they're first in line posting in a SD double/triple dip thread inquiring if it's a new transfer. Gimme a fucking break, I doubt if they'd be able to tell the difference between VHS and DVD.

Then there are the cheap screws who bitch and moan that they have to spend more than $10 to get a new release. Who cares how the PQ is, as long as they can find it in the Wal-mart bargain bin for $2.99 they're jumping for joy.

But the studio's love these types customers as all they have to do for them is repackage the same transfer of big catalog title X into a fancy steelcase/gatefold package, call it a UBER ANNIVERSARY EDITION and like Romero's mindless zombie hordes they'll line up to buy the same film over and over again.

Seriously though, it seems that A/V quality only matters to a few. This is definitely not the same HTF as when I first joined.