Our DVD and Blu-ray sales estimates are based on weekly retail surveys, which we use to build a weekly market share estimate for each title we are tracking. The market share is converted into a weekly sales estimate based on industry reports on the overall size of the market, including reports published in Media Play News.

For example, if our weekly retail survey estimates that a particular title sold 1% of all units that week, and the industry reports sales of 1,500,000 units in total, we will estimate 15,000 units were sold of that title. The consumer spending estimate is based on the average sales price for the title in the retailers we survey.

We refine our estimates from week to week as more data becomes available. In particular, we adjust weekly sales figures for the quarter once the total market estimates are published by the Digital Entertainment Group. Figures will therefore fluctuate each week, and totals for individual titles can go up or down as we update our estimates.

Because sales figures are estimated based on sampling, they will be more accurate for higher-selling titles.

Blu-ray Sales: In the Driver's Seat

February 14th, 2012

New releases dominated the Blu-ray sales chart with as many as four in the top five. (Transformers: Dark of the Moon is a bit of an odd case, but more on that in a second.) Drive led the way with 420,000 units / $8.39 million giving it an opening week Blu-ray share of 57%. This is a great opening compared to the film's theatrical run. More...

DVD and Blu-ray Releases for January 31st, 2012

January 31st, 2012

It's kind of an unusual week on the home market with five first run releases coming out on DVD and Blu-ray. However, all five films missed expectations in one degree or another. Some were outright bombs by anyone's definition, while others were expected to struggle to find a large audience, just not by as much as they did. That is not to say they were all bad movies. In fact one of them, Drive, has done quite well during Awards Season and the Blu-ray Combo Pack is a contender for Pick of the Week. Its main competition is To Kill A Mockingbird: 50th Anniversary Edition, which is also coming out on a Blu-ray Combo Pack. It's a coin toss, but I'm going with the latter over the former. More...

Featured Blu-ray / DVD Review: To Kill a Mockingbird: 50th Anniversary Edition

January 30th, 2012

To Kill a Mockingbird is a film that came out 50 years ago and was immediately seen as a classic and was one of the biggest winners at the Oscars that year. (Only Lawrence of Arabia won more Oscars that year.) Now it is making its debut on Blu-ray on a anniversary edition Blu-ray, as well as DVD. Is it worth owning? Is it worth upgrading to if you had a previous version on DVD? More...