With a DVD heavy top seller, the Blu-ray market share was down to 9% for the week ending August 22nd, according to Home Media Magazine.

The revenue was middle of the road these days at $13.37M, up fractionally over last year for the same period.

Miley Cyrus vehicle The Last Song from Disney was the top seller for the week, followed by Showtime favourite Dexter: The Fourth Season in 2nd place, closely followed by Clash of the Titans from Warner in 3rd.

Kick-Ass from Lionsgate and Date Night from Fox rounded out the top 5, pushing Avatar to 6th place.

King Kong from Universal made a surprise appearance in 11th place, ahead of recent releases Diary of a Wimpy Kid and Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief from Fox in 12th and 13th respectively.

The top sellers were lower than typical Blu-ray market share, with The Last Song taking 10% and Dexter: The Fourth Season with 14% on Blu-ray Disc.

A hot selling DVD that failed to make the top 20 Blu-ray chart was Furry Vengeance from Summit, with only 5% market share on Blu-ray Disc.

This no doubt goes a long way to explain the low overall market share for the week.

On the plus side, Clash of the Titans and Kick-Ass sold in the 33%-34% market share range, with Avatar holding strong at 43% Blu-ray Disc market share.

A bit of a slow week for Blu-ray releases is revealed by the Blu-ray Cover Art Gallery for this week.

New day and date releases are Marmaduke, Harry Brown and Why Did I Get Married Too?.

It is a big week for television releases though, with House: Season Six, The Vampire Diaries: The Complete First Season, Sons of Anarchy: Season Two and NCIS: Los Angeles - The First Season.

Perhaps the highlight for Sam Raimi fans is the release of the original The Evil Dead.

Click on any cover to see the details for the title.

Lots of new releases in the Blu-ray Cover Art Gallery for the week, though few are high profile.

Perhaps the highlight for the week is the release of Lost: The Complete Sixth Season, rounding out the popular series on Blu-ray Disc.

Also on TV we have The Simpsons: The Thirteenth Season, which seems like an unusual choice given that we are 20 seasons in on this show.

The day and date release of Jennifer Lopez in The Back-up Plan is one of the few studio movie releases for the week.

Fans of  Bob Hoskins may want to check out Image Entertainment releases Mona Lisa and The Long Good Friday.

Other British notables from Image include Withnail and I and Time Bandits, though Time Bandits has a 1080i encode for some weird reason.

Click on any cover to see the details for the title.

While the Blu-ray market share was still in double figures, it was down to 11% for the week ending August 15th, according to Home Media Magazine.

The $14.42M revenue for the week was not a terrible number, however it was down again compared to the same week a year ago.

Date Night from Fox took the top of the chart, ahead of last week’s top seller Kick-Ass from Lionsgate and Clash of the Titans from Warner in 3rd place.

New release Death at a Funeral from Sony Pictures managed 4th place, ahead of Avatar from Fox in 5th position.

Recent Fox releases Diary of a Wimpy Kid and Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief took 6th place and 11th place on the chart respectively.

Buoyed by  promotional pricing at Amazon, Battlestar Galactica: The Complete Series from Universal appeared on the chart in 12th position.

Other sale priced  titles to make the chart included Gangs of New York from Disney in 17th place and Terminator 2: Judgment Day from Lionsgate in 18th place.

Date Night had a fairly decent 20% market share, while the other major new release Death at a Funeral had only 15% Blu-ray market share.

Kick-Ass continues to live up to its name with 41% market share, edged out by Avatar with 42%.

On the other end of the scale, mark up a 10% market share for Diary of a Wimpy Kid and 12% for The Bounty Hunter.

More typical market share is in the 20% range, with Hot Tub Time Machine from MGM at 25%, Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief at 23% and Warner’s Cop Out at 21% Blu-ray market share for the week.

Kick-Ass propelled the Blu-ray market share to a healthier 14% for the week ending August 8th, according to Home Media Magazine.

Blu-ray revenue was $22.89M for the week, up over 40% compared to last year after two weeks of lagging 2009 figures.

Lionsgate’s Kick-Ass was easily to top seller for the week, ahead of Clash of the Titans from Warner in 2nd place.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid from Fox, Anchor Bay’s The Crazies and Avatar from Fox rounded out the top five on the chart for the week.

New release Roman Polanski’s The Ghost Writer from Summit took 9th position, ahead of Disney title James and the Giant Peach in 11th place.

Recent release Repo Men from Universal came in 12th place, ahead of another recent release Batman: Under the Red Hood from Warner in 14th position.

Kick-Ass was a very strong seller for Blu-ray Disc with 49% market share, while Diary of a Wimpy Kid was at the other end of the scale with just 12% of sales on Blu-ray Disc.

Other top sellers with strong Blu-ray performance include Clash of the Titans with 36%, Avatar with 42% and Hot Tub Time Machine with 40% Blu-ray Disc market share.

However even these were beaten by bargain priced titles The Crazies with 74% and Brooklyn’s Finest with 60% Blu-ray market share.

Market share for other new releases included The Ghost Writer with 23% and on the TV side  Heroes: Season 4 had 18% market share on Blu-ray Disc.

The Blu-ray Cover Art Gallery for this week reveals a pretty slow week for Blu-ray titles.

Perhaps the top release for the week is the latest season release of Dexter with Dexter: The Fourth Season.

New Day and Date releases include the latest Ricky Gervais production Cemetery Junction and the Miley Cyrus vehicle The Last Song.

Over to classic cinema we have the Criterion release Black Orpheus and Warner adds another Digibook title with Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

Click on any cover to see the details for the title.

The latest release to get the Digibook treatment from Warner Home Video is the musical documentary Elvis on Tour, released August 3rd 2010.

For the most part the film presents on stage performances from Elvis and his backing band, inter-cut with behind the scenes footage from the tour.

Elvis on Tour also contains scenes from recording studio sessions and a variety of segments featuring screaming Elvis fans, as well as some historical archival footage.

One of the striking aspects of the film is the split-screen style arrangement, often with different views of the same events on stage or even in the behind the scenes sequences.

The movie covers the 15 city tour in April 1972, and features performances from venues in Virginia, North Carolina and Texas.

A number of classic Elvis songs appear in the movie, as well as songs like Proud Mary and Bridge Over Troubled Water.

Watch for fan favourites Don’t be Cruel, Love Me Tender, Can’t Help Falling in Love and Burning Love, which was a new song at the time.

In the downside, the original Johnny B. Goode performance has been removed from the opening credits of the film, apparently due to copyright issues.

Elvis on Tour was Presley’s last appearance in a movie, and the film won the 1972 Golden Globe Award for Best Documentary.

In many ways the fascination with Elvis Presley has never completely subsided, with countless references in popular culture - however since Elvis passed away over 30 years ago, we don’t see the real Elvis all that often these days.

When watching this film, I became struck with just how much of a phenomenon Elvis was when he performed, and while the film was intended as a current documentary, it has now become a historical record of one of the most popular performers of all time.

Elvis on Tour was directed by Robert Abel, who worked on other music documentaries like Let the Good Times Roll, with Martin Scorsese supervising the montage sequences.

The movie has a fairly middle of the road IMDb score of 6.9/10.

The video on the disc is a VC-1 1080p encode at 22 Mbps, and is presented in its original aspect ratio of 2.40:1.

The original film elements are showing their age somewhat, and there is fairly heavy grain likely due to the ‘low light’ nature of the shows.

However the presentation is clean and has a pretty natural feeling - it looks like I imagine it should, all considered.

Check out the details page for Elvis on Tour to see full resolution PNG screen captures taken directly from the disc.

The main audio is lossless DTS-HD Master Audio with 5.1 channels - 24 bits resolution at 48 kHz, and sounds pretty good considering the age of the recording.

The disc is a single layer BD25, with 19.3 GB used and is coded for All Regions.

While the disc itself has no additional features, the disc is packaged in a 40 page Digibook filled with photographs and information about the tour and about Presley’s life in general.

All in all it is a nicely presented package.

Elvis on Tour is a great testament to Elvis Presley, the King of Rock and Roll - certainly a no brainer for Elvis fans.

While the Warner Home Video Blu-ray release lacks supplements, the Digibook packaging is a nice addition here.

The retail price is $34.99, or order it right now at Amazon for $27.99, saving 20%!

Extras:

• 40-Page Book Filled with Photos, Trivia and Tour Info

Synopsis:

After Elvis: That’s the Way it is, which was filmed live in Las Vegas, the king and his crew were eager to follow that success with another captivating concert documentary. How could they make it different? By going on the road for one thing. And via the innovative split-screen process used in Woodstock to convey the whirlwind, you-are-there energy and performances thrills of Elvis on Tour. More than 25 numbers spotlighting Elvis Presley’s talent, range and showmanship fill this lively chronicle of his multi-city 1972 series of concerts. Plus montage sequences ( supervised by Martin Scorsese) showcase Presley’s early career and movies. And the results of this different look at the king? Fan euphoria - and a Golden Globe for Best Documentary.

Blu-ray fans received a fresh dose of British television with the BBC Home Video Blu-ray Disc release Being Human: Season One on July 20th, 2010.

This show was popular in the UK and is very much in a similar vein to Torchwood.

While it is partly promoted as witty and occasionally is, this show is far from a comedy, rather more being a stylistic thriller.

As with many BBC shows, the season runs six full one hour episodes.

Being Human is based on an intriguing premise, with a vampire and a werewolf living in a house along with the ghost a woman that died in the house.

While the members of the house are cursed, supernatural creatures, they want nothing more than to be normal and fit in with the civilized world.

Each of the characters is different in nature and handles their affliction in a different way.

George the werewolf is a very sensitive, intelligent and neurotic fellow who now faces the monthly curse of his transformation.

The vampire is Mitchell, who is now 120 years old and has decided to shun the killing and feeding lifestyle and is trying to refrain from drinking human blood.

Annie the ghost unhappily died before her wedding and is still madly in love with her fiance, who has now moved on, though still visits the house in the role of landlord.

For the most part, the episodes cover the trials of each of the characters, often with a focus one particular character.

There is also a season length story arc with the vampires secretly planning to take over the Earth from the humans.

While the show starts off a little slow for my liking, I found after a couple of episodes I was hooked and had to watch the story play out to its conclusion, which also sets up the premise for the second season which will be released later this year.

Overall I found this series to be entertaining and well worth a look, especially for fans of Torchwood and Doctor Who.

The cast features Russell Tovey, Lenora Crichlow and Aidan Turner in the lead roles, and also includes Sinead Keenan and Jason Watkins in key supporting roles.

Being Human: Season One was created by Toby Whitehouse, who has written for Doctor Who and Torchwood.

The series has a very respectable IMDb score of 8.3/10.

The video on the disc is a VC-1 1080i encode at 30 Mbps, and is presented at 1.78:1 aspect ratio, filling the HDTV screen.

This high bitrate encode does a pretty good job of presenting this show which is often dark and occasionally ‘noisy’.

See the details page for Being Human: Season One for full resolution PNG screen captures taken directly from the disc.

The main audio is presented in Dolby Digital with 2.0 channels, encoded at 448 kbps.

With many BBC titles featuring DTS-HD audio, it was a bit disappointing to see lossy Dolby Digital used here.

The discs are dual layer BD50, with around 43 GB used and are coded for All Regions.

This release comes with quite a range of supplemental features including a lot of cast and crew interviews.

Additional footage is presented in the form of deleted, extended and alternate scenes.

The Character Profiles featurette runs 20 minutes and covers not only the three main characters but also a number of the key supporting characters.

The nature of the vampire is covered in Vamping it Up, which goes into the vampire ‘rules’ that the show incorporates, as well as some traditional traits that they chose to ignore.

Toby Whitehouse on the Journey has the show creator looking into the history of the show and the direction it took - be sure to not watch this before watching the actual show - many spoilers contained!

The technicalities and techniques of the werewolf transformation that George goes through a number of times in Season One is covered in Becoming a Werewolf.

The Stunts Package studies a couple of the major  stunt sequences that appear in the show, one with Annie falling down the stairs and a second that involves a vehicle striking a couple of pedestrians.

The Video Diaries run almost 15 minutes and features a lot of behind the scenes footage and footage of the actors discussing the process as they shoot the production, all shot by the three main actors.

Our Journey’s End is certainly another supplement that you will want to hold off on until you have seen the complete series as this talks about the set up for Season 2.

Additional featurettes cover the show’s locations, sets, costumes and make up.

Being Human: Season One is a pretty strong TV series produced by the BBC in the supernatural thriller genre.

The Blu-ray release is for the most part a strong title from BBC Home Video, with the only down side being the stereo Dolby Digital sound track.

The retail price is $39.98, or order it right now at Amazon for $28.49, saving 29%!

Extras:

• Alternate Scenes
• Character Profiles
• Vamping it Up
• Toby Whitehouse on the Journey
• Locations
• Costumes and Make Up
• Deleted Scenes
• Extended Scenes
• Stunts package
• Video Diaries
• Our Journey’s End
• Becoming a Werewolf

Synopsis:

What’s a vampire to do if he wants to live a normal life? In the first hit season of this “engaging, dark and wickedly funny” (SciFi Wire) BBC series, Mitchell swears off blood and shares a house with George-a reluctant werewolf equally committed to escaping the dark side. As luck would have it, though, the house is already occupied by Annie, an insecure ghost. Enjoy the trio’s unconventional friendships and supernatural adventures, starring Aidan Turner (Desperate Romantics) and Russell Tovey (Little Dorrit).

Quite a few titles of interest in the Blu-ray Cover Art Gallery for this week.

We have a couple of day and date comedy release, with the Steve Carell in Date Night and Niel LaBute’s Death at a Funeral from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.

On the catalog side, classic National Lampoon Chevy Chase movies National Lampoon’s Vacation and National Lampoon’s European Vacation hit the shelves today courtesy of Warner Home Video.

The Criterion adds another new title today with the release of Terry Zwigoff’s Crumb and The Weinstein Company has a selection of new Dragon Dynasty titles, including early Jet Li movies Tai Chi Master and The Legend.

Click on any cover to see the details for the title.

Amazon has a number of titles listed for $7.99 today.

Act now to get any of Resident Evil: Extinction, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Unforgiven, Natural Born Killers, The Aviator , Any Given Sunday, Domino or Rush Hour 3 at only $7.99, a great price in anyone’s book.

There doesn’t seem to be a lot of rhyme or reason to the titles, covering a number of studios and discounts from 68% to 72% off retail.

Get ‘em while you can!