Disney Sets 'Pirates,' 'Cars' Blu-ray Dates
Wed Jan 24, 2007 at 04:16 PM ET
Tags: Disc Announcements, Disney, Pixar (all tags)

In what are sure to be three of the biggest-selling next-gen titles yet, Disney has set Spring street dates for the Blu-ray releases of the blockbuster 'Pirates of the Caribbean' films, and Pixar's first high-def title, 'Cars.'

Just in time for the theatrical release of the third 'Pirates' epic, Disney has set a May 22 voyage for 'Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl' and 'Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest.' These guaranteed huge sellers will be followed on June 5 by 'Cars,' the Pixar hit and current favorite for this year's Best Animated Film Oscar.

The dates recently began filtering to online retailer outlets earlier this week, and Disney has trumpeted the news in a full-page ad in the print version of this week's Video Business, the industry trade paper.

Though no official press release has been issued as of yet, word to High-Def Digest from the studio is that full details are on the way soon. So we'll certainly keep you posted on tech specs, bonus features and box art as soon as word arrives on these highly-anticipated releases.

In the meantime, we've updated the listings for all three titles to our complete Blu-ray Release Schedule.

We also set up dedicated threads for these latest Disney titles in our new Forums area -- click the following links to discuss the 'Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl' Blu-ray release, the 'Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest' Blu-ray release and the 'Cars' Blu-ray release.

The first official retail tracking data from Nielsen VideoScan seems to show Blu-ray Disc outselling HD-DVD in unit software sales by a more than 2 to 1 margin, and the gap is widening. According to data reported in Home Media Retailing (you'll find it on page one of the digital edition available on their website) for the week ending 1/7/07, Year-to-Date tracking indicated that for every 47.14 HD-DVDs sold there were 100 Blu-ray Disc titles sold. Just a week later, ending 1/14/07, the same YTD tracking indicated just 38.36 HD-DVDs sold for every 100 Blu-ray Discs sold. What's more, tracking by Nielsen VideoScan since the inception of both formats appears to indicate that Blu-ray Disc is quickly erasing the sales lead HD-DVD enjoyed as a result of launching months earlier in 2006. On 1/7, HD-DVD's lead was 100 discs for every 85.05 Blu-ray Discs sold, while just a week later on 1/14, that lead had been reduced to 100 HD-DVDs for every 92.40 Blu-ray Discs sold.






Specific unit volume numbers are not available, but one would guess they're still fairly low. No doubt much of the sales surge has to do with the arrival of Sony's PS3 game system in November. We'll have to watch closely over the next few months to see if these trends are affected by specific new software/title releases on both formats from week to week. Still, this data seems to bear out claims made by the BDA at CES, to the effect that their format was outselling HD-DVD as of December 2006 and that the margin could grow to as much as 3 to 1 in early 2007. It'll be interesting to see how continuing sales of the PS3 (and new dedicated players for both formats) impact these numbers as well.

Stay tuned...

Bill Hunt, Editor
The Digital Bits
billhunt@thedigitalbits.com