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.

DVD and Blu-ray Releases for July 27th, 2010

July 26th, 2010

It is a deceptively slow week in the video market. I love that word, "deceptively", because it really has no meaning. In the first sentence it could mean the week appears to be busy, but it is really slow. Or it could mean the week appears to be slow, but it is really busy. In this case, it's the former. While there are 350 releases for the week on Amazon.com, there's only one significant first run release, Clash of the Titans. Moving down the list of best sellers, it doesn't take long until you run into second tier, or even third or fourth tier releases. Arguably the best release on this week's list of reviews is Mother, but that came out last week it's on the list because the screener was late. The two competitors for Pick of the Week from this week's releases are Batman: Under the Red Hood - Blu-ray with Litho Cell and Ip Man - Collector's Edition Blu-ray. Which one wins depends on whether you like martial arts movies or comic books more. For me, it's a tie. More...