Posted by WinField on 10/02/05 20:36

from this link:
http://www.dvdfile.com/news/viewpoints/editors_desk/2005/09_05.html

...(excerpt from article entitled)

News from the High Definition Disc Front
The battle rages


by Dan Ramer
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 05, 2005

(snip)

DVD Sales Head Toward Negative Growth

I imagine that the studios are applying unseen and substantial pressures
on the electronics manufacturers. In a recent report in The Economist,
it becomes clear that the DVD growth rate that was feeding the Hollywood
machine with billions of dollars is beginning to slow. The article
reveals that 403 million DVDs were shipped to retailers in just the
first quarter of 2005. This is 20% more than the previous year's first
quarter but another research firm predicts overall growth for 2005 may
be only 9%. This is a remarkable drop in growth compared to 2004 (100%)
and 2003 (50%). But that merely indicates that the market has matured
and the size of the installed base is flattening out. The income from
DVD remains staggering. The Economist goes on to report that in “2004
home entertainment supplied 20% of revenues at Walt Disney, 14% at News
Corporation and 11% at Time Warner . . .”

But as the market matures and collectors finish accumulating back
catalog titles of interest, it's evitable that DVD sales will begin to
shrink, leaving only new titles of recent releases as the studios' only
significant source of home entertainment income. This is why high
definition discs become so important; the studios want to sell their
properties to us all over again.

(Interesting digression . . . I've been asked a question by readers who
collect older films in the 1.37:1 or 1.33:1 aspect ratios. They question
whether it will be worthwhile to buy such program material in HD since
the content isn't in widescreen. I've replied that when a 1.33:1 image
is window-paned in 1080 HD, its dimensions in pixels would be 1434 wide
by 1180 high. This is approximately 4.48 times more pixels than found on
standard resolution DVD, so such content in high definition has the
potential to look far more detailed and appear closer to film.)

So to resell their titles to us in a bigger and better format, the
studios are highly motivated to see high definition disc brought to
market; it's another potential economic windfall from the home
entertainment side of the balance sheet. You know . . . home
entertainment. The technologies that, ever since the Betamax case,
continually threaten to put the motion picture industry out of business.

=== end excerpt ===

Ha! {winfield}

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