Hachi: A Dog’s Tale just landed on the doorstep… a Sony direct-to-DVD in Blu-ray.
Also landing today was Boondock Saints 2: All Saints Day, also in Blu, which got a theatrical via the Apparition output deal, and grossed $10.3 million.
And Planet 51, from Sony Animation, turned up with a different Digital Copy offer on the box, specifically offering a transfer to a PSP via your (assumed) PS3. Interesting. When I looked in the blu box, it did offer the PSP download, but a computer download as well.
Looking at the blu-ray of 2012, the digital copy proposition was “pc, psp, mac, or ipod.”.. but the internal instructions were the same as Planet 51.
“What about This Is It?”, I thought. No digital download at all.
Going a few months back, to Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs, the digital download offer and instruction was PSP only.
Of these four titles, two offered regular DVD playback (Planet 51 and Cloudy) and two did not (2012 and This Is It.)
Meanwhile, Old Dogs just arrived from Disney and their pitch is 3 discs… 1 blu-ray, 1 regular DVD, and one digital download disc to “watch it anytime, anywhere on your computer and portable device.”
I know that everyone is trying to formulate the most effective sales pitch and offering for the Blu-era. But when it comes to establishing consumer habits, wouldn’t it be a lot more effective to just pick a standard for your studio, whatever that may be… and indeed, a standard for all the studios in some reasonable amount of time?
In my household, the only “regular” DVD player left connected to a TV is a region-free player. And if I ever decide to cough up for Blu region-free, that will be gone too. But most people I know who have dipped their toe in may have one big HDTV with a blu-ray player and another with an upscaling player and even a non-HD tv or two elsewhere in the house.
It’s like we all know that post-theatrical is going to be all-access in every room of your home and your portables… so why are studios still trying to hold off the dying light?