Video Intelligence | Research and data on DVD, Blu-ray, online rental and retail

UltraViolet brings Amazon (partly) on board, adds disc-to-digital functionality | 31 Jan 12 tags › UltraViolet, the consortium of media, technology and retail companies established to make available a standard for video-playback inter-operability between devices and apps from diverse enablers, announced at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas January 10 that it had registered 750,000 user accounts by year-end 2011. More importantly, it announced progress on most of the critical challenges it faces (see our "First UltraViolet discs hit US market", 12/16/11): obtaining retailer support, providing consumers living room access to their UV collections, putting existing disc collections into the UV cloud, and having third parties develop white-label front-ends easing entry for lots of service providers.

First UltraViolet discs hit the US market | 16 Dec 11 tags › Warner Home Video launched the first UltraViolet-enabled Blu-ray Disc (BD) titles in the US in October with a UK launch confirmed for 26 December and Canada next in line. Studios expect to expand the frequency of UltraViolet (UV) discs to the point that, by the holiday sales season of 2012, most major theatrical releases will come to these markets on UV-compliant discs. As a first step, the studios have clearly been smart in focusing on the initial delivery of UV rights via discs, on which US consumers will spend $9.2bn this year anyway, rather than via downloads, on which they will spend just $667m. Trying to maintain the value in the physical space is clearly a key short term strategic priority.

Blu-ray revives UK video rental | 06 Dec 11 tags › The shift from VHS to DVD brought about a shift in UK consumer behaviour from renting video to buying. Eventually DVD rental transactions began to decline as the format matured. At the same time video rental market was changing from a store-based market to one split between stores and rent-by-mail online subscription services. Even if the physical video rental market continues fall, today online subscription rental is more important to market than traditional rental stores. There is however one area of growth common to both online and stores and that is Blu-ray Disc rental. Five years after its launch, BD rental is really starting to take off as BD rental transactions are likely to double this year.

3D technology becomes mainstream at CES 2012 | 31 Jan 12 tags › In 2011, 3D technology was at the forefront of the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, but this year, overall, 3D was much less visible. Those 3D announcements that were made tended to focus on new models of existing 3D products rather than new developments in the evolution of the technology.

Croatian market data revised | 20 Jan 12 tags › IHS Screen Digest has updated its Croatian data and forecasts based on feedback from industry sources. The changes affect not only 2011 data and forecasts to 2015, but also some historic data. The absence of a video association in Croatia has made it difficult to find regular data on the market in recent years, and we do not expect to receive any official market statistics from the territory, so these changes represent our final year-end figures for 2011.

Icelandic video data updated - for 2010 | 18 Jan 12 tags › Iceland's official State statistics bureau has published yearend data for video in 2010, which has enabled IHS Screen Digest to finalise its Icelandic data for that year.

Going Global: Taking 3D to New Markets | 12 Oct 11 tags › Charlotte Jones, Senior Analyst, Cinema & Helen Davis Jayalath, Head of Video, IHS Screen Digest opened the 3D Entertainment Summit 2011 in Los Angeles with a unique granular assessment of how international 3D take up is mapping against that of the US across the entire entertainment value chain. The keynote presentation included prime 3D metrics on digital and 3D screen development, global 3D box office values, the highs and lows of international 3D ticket pricing and the role of new technology in driving further investment opportunities. Within the developing home 3D infrastructure, the presentation focused on early take-up of home 3D hardware, 3D TV channel launches and offered detailed insights into the growing BD3D release slate and studio pricing strategies, as well as the potential for handheld 3D displays in the gaming and mobile sectors

Bringing 3D to the home: 3D home entertainment in USA and Europe | 21 Sep 11 tags › Video analyst Tony Gunnarsson gave a key note presentation at Future2Business 3D conference in Halle, Germany, which examined the outlook for and trends in 3D home entertainment in the US and in Western Europe. The presentation covers the roll out of global digital cinema screens and the importance 3D cinema, 3D film production, the 3D home entertainment ecosystem and the first year of 3D home video. It assesses studio 3D release strategies and the likely Blu-ray Disc 3D (BD3D) release slate by the end of 2011. Tony also examined the outlook for BD3D to 2015 in the US and in Europe and impact BD3D will have on overall movie spending globally.