Blockbuster Offers Free Trial for Total Access

Blockbuster has a new, slightly more interesting perhaps offer than their previous ‘half off the first month’ offer.
The new offer is a ‘free trial‘ – you get the first two weeks for free.
While monetarily it is really the same deal, in this case you get the free weeks first I guess. In any case, [...]

V for Vendetta Finally Coming to Blu-ray

While we’ll all have to wait until July 8th to get their hands on a copy of Batman Begins, it appears that Warner Bros. feels our pain.
With a release set for May 20th — according to Amazon — the Wachowski produced, McTeigue directed flick, V for Vendetta is finally making its way to Blu-ray. [...]

Format War Transitions to New ‘Foe’

This week’s Home Media Magazine demonstrates a distinct transition in the format war.
In both the market share pie charts and the top sellers charts we see new formatting.
In the pie charts we see that the year to date metric has been dropped, and a new metric, market share versus DVD has been added. This metric [...]

HD DVD Websites Note the End of the Format

The HD DVD Promotion Group was dissolved today according to the official website. The following message is now shown there:
HD DVD Managing MembersMarch 28, 2008
The HD DVD Promotion Group was dissolved as of March 28, 2008, and the website was closed accordingly.
Please access to DVD Forum for HD DVD formats, andDVD Format/Logo Licensing Corporation [...]

Blu-ray Sales on the Rise

Hollywood Reporter has a new article with more accurate statistics demonstrating the rise in Blu-ray sales relative to the DVD counterparts of recent titles.
According to Nielsen First Alert data, No Country for Old Men sold 9.8% of its total sales from Blu-ray Disc its first five days in stores. Foxs Hitman, also released March 11 [...]

Ken Graffeo to Leave High Def Post at Universal

It looks like more fallout from the format war – this time at Universal.
In the ‘heads will roll’ category, we read that Ken Graffeo will leave his high-definition marketing role at Universal Studios Home Entertainment.
Although still employed at Universal, Graffeo is exploring other opportunities, including ones outside of the studio.
Graffeo said he will not take [...]

The BD-Live Roll Out

As many of you know as well as writing for Format War Central I have also started writing Blu-ray news on my own site, Blu-ray Stats.
Today I decided to try my hand at writing something a little more meaty – an article about the BD-Live Roll Out we are currently in the middle of.
I found [...]

Upcoming Blu-ray Releases in Germany

Due to Touchstone having the rights there, There Will Be Blood will be released on Blu-ray in Germany.
Also getting released in the next few months are The Bone Collector, Peter Pan (Extended), CSI Miami Season 5 Eps 1-12, Hostage, John Carpenter’s Vampires, Copland and Jeepers Creepers.
For more details check out the original Blu-ray Stats post. 

Best Buy Removes HD DVD, Expands Blu-ray?

After seeing rumours that Best Buy was going to remove and send back all of its HD DVD titles early this morning, I decided last night to visit my local Best Buy to take a picture for a ‘before and after’ comparison.
To my surprise, when I got there I saw no trace of HD DVD [...]

Blu-ray Reaches 9 Million Sold, 3 Million in 2008

Scott Hettrick is reporting on his Hollywood in Hi-def Blog that Blu-ray has reached 9 Million units sold since inception according to HMR research.
Perhaps even more iinteresting is that 3 Million of those were sold in this year, putting the format on pace to easily hit at least 15 million units for 2008.
The average weekly [...]