The Hollywood Report says that Blu-ray disc sales are ahead of HD-DVD:
Of the high-definition discs bought by consumers in the first quarter, 70% were in the Blu-ray Disc format and 30% were HD DVD, according to sales figures provided by Home Media Magazine's market research department....
What's more, when given the choice, consumers are going with Blu-ray. Warner Home Video released "The Departed" the same day, Feb. 13, in both formats. Between then and March 31, consumers bought 53,640 copies of the film on Blu-ray Disc and 31,590 on HD DVD, according to Home Media Magazine's market research, based on studio estimates and Nielsen VideoScan point-of-sale data.
One of the reasons why all the major studios support Blu-ray while only 3 support HD-DVD is that Blu-ray supports an additional layer of encryption and reprogrammable security called BD+. Although AACS, the encryption and security system common to both HD standards has been compromised, repaired, and compromised again, consumer are buying discs with the additional security layer.
Although it's early in the format wars, perhaps this shows that:
- Consumers don't care about strong security and DRM as long as it doesn't get in the way of their enjoying the programming;
- Content is king;
- The music DRM wars were lost before they began since there has been no effective copy protection on music CDs; and
- Hollywood is working to avoid at all costs the mistakes made by the music industry.
