Blu-ray sales into July remain fairly steady with a market share of 11% on a decent revenue of $17.35M for the week ending July 4th, according to Home Media Magazine.

Fox release Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief took 1st place ahead of Hot Tub Time Machine from MGM in 2nd and The Crazies from Anchor Bay in 3rd.

The top five was rounded out by hot sellers Avatar from Fox and Warner’s The Book of Eli.

The new release of Predator (Ultimate Hunter Edition) from Fox, with its super shiny new transfer, also made the chart in 13th place.

Magnolia got a boost with their release The Warlords, featuring Jet Li, in 14th position.

The new release market share for the top selling titles were fairly strong, with Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief at 25%, Hot Tub Time Machine at 28% and The Crazies at 32% market share.

Avatar continues its strong tradition with 42% market share on Blu-ray Disc, while the HBO television series Entourage: The Complete Sixth Season is at the other end of the scale at 15% of sales on Blu-ray Disc.

I read over at PC Magazine (via Format War Central) that the BDA is planning to issue specifications for two new versions of the Blu-ray Disc.

The first is a higher capacity writable format while the second is an interesting combination of pressed and writable disc.

The higher capacity writable disc is no surprise since we have seen prototypes of these at CES for the last several years.

The BDXL will have capacity options at 100 GB and 128 GB in writable forms and 100 GB in rewritable form, going beyond the traditional dual layer disc stack to achieve these new capacities.

The hybrid IH-BD will feature a 25GB pressed layer for pre-recorded data and a second 25GB layer that can be written without disturbing the original content.

This will no doubt allow for either the addition of new supplements after the disc has been released or the addition of personalized media to the disc.

Needless to say, current players will not be compatible but as the specifications are finalized, expect future players to be capable of the new formats as well as having backwards compatibility to all 12 cm optical discs that have gone before.

While some may boo and hiss, I think that this is not the last we will see of Blu-ray Disc extensions - watch for faster, higher capacity discs to support 4k2k video in the next couple if years too.

After all, there always has to be something new to make the new Blu-ray players a worthwhile investment.

Something that has fascinated me a little lately is the trend towards DTS-HD Master Audio, to the point now where it has become the de facto standard for Blu-ray Disc releases.

A couple of studios have used it from the start - Fox, who also distributes MGM, took quite a bit of flack for using DTS-HD Master Audio on their releases back when there were no players capable of decoding it or even passing it on to a receiver.

Universal Studios has also religiously used DTS-HD Master Audio on their releases, though capable players were abound well before they finally started releasing Blu-ray discs after having been exclusive to the HD DVD format.

Disney and Lionsgate moved to DTS-HD Master Audio from Linear PCM and smaller distributors like Image Entertainment, the Criterion Collection and Magnolia Home Entertainment have started using DTS-HD Master Audio as a matter of course.

More interesting to me though is the defection of Sony Pictures Home Entertainment from Dolby TrueHD to DTS-HD Master Audio in recent times, as well as an apparent similar defection under way over at Warner Home Entertainment.

Sony has certainly already made the move and newly announced Warner titles inreasingly have DTS-HD Master Audio where in 2009 only a handful of titles used the codec.

While Paramount has also been predominantly using the Dolby TrueHD codec, there have been cases of DTS-HD Master Audio releases, especially associated with the Star Trek franchise.

I talked to both Sony and Dolby at CES this year and got differing answers regarding the SPHE move to DTS-HD Master Audio.

Dolby stated that the work flow for titles with TrueHD and seamless branching had difficulties, which pushed some studios to use DTS-HD Master Audio for certain titles at least.

This may be a credible reason that we see DTS-HD Master Audio on the Warner release for Watchmen, which used seamless branching for the Maximum Movie Mode on the title.

However we are seeing DTS-HD Master audio listed for upcoming Warner titles like Poseidon and The Box, which seem like fairly standard releases.

Talking to Sony I got a very different answer - they said that the move to DTS-HD Master Audio was one of consumer preference measured by an internet poll.

Regardless of the reasons behind the moves, it is interesting to see the DTS codec now dominating the Blu-ray landscape with over 45% percent of the lossless audio Blu-ray releases, when at launch it looked like it simply wasn’t ready for prime time at all.

If you have any thoughts on this, feel free to add your comments.

Panasonic has amped up their CES 3D demonstration this year with a presentation on a 152 inch 4k2k plasma display.

The demo covered a number of Panasonic technologies, including the new live 3D cameras and the improved plasma technology needed to work with their 120Hz shutter based 3D.

Panasonic also had a wide range of Blu-ray support elsewhere in their booth, showing their range of players including their portable model.

It is great to see Panasonic bringing so much innovation to their players and displays.

Be sure to follow Blu-rayStats on Twitter to see more CES news.

Coinciding with the rollout of 3D Blu-ray players and HDTVs, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment has announced that they will begin releasing 3D content on Blu-ray Disc in mid 2010.

Their first Blu-ray 3D title planned release will be the recent animated movie Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs, which came out in regular form just this week on Blu-ray Disc.

SPHE worldwide president David Bishop stated that “3D entertainment on Blu-ray is poised to revolutionize the home viewing experience in much the same way that high-definition televisions and Blu-ray Disc have over the past several years”.

It has been a busy week with a lot to do as CES kicks off for another year.

I was thinking that this year would be the year for 3D and it seems that this will indeed be the case with both Panasonic and Samsung announcing Blu-ray players with 3D capability.

LG is heading in a different direction, adding a hard disk drive to their Blu-ray offering for mass storage of media, making the Blu-ray player more of a media center.

I will be catching a flight for Las Vegas myself soon and with any luck will spend some time with these new players in the flesh.

Good news for fans of high quality 3D presentations - the Blu-ray Disc Association has announced that they have finalized the specification for titles in 3D on the Blu-ray format.

The specification requires 3D video to employ the Multiview Video Coding (MVC) codec, which is essentially an extension of the H.264/AVC codec.

MPEG4-MVC compresses both left and right eye images with roughly a 50% overhead compared to equivalent 2D content.

The best part is that it can provide full 1080p resolution backward compatibility with current Blu-ray Disc players.

It is also expected that the Playstation 3 console will be capable of decoding the new format in 3D, enabling may to have access to 3D without the need for a new player.

It will certainly be interesting to see how many current Blu-ray titles see a fresh release in 3D…!

A new image gallery for the Harry Potter Live Community Screening is now online for your viewing pleasure.

Folks who missed the screening can get an idea as to the questions asked and answered.

I thought it was interesting that this live chat was a lot less technical than previous ones, perhaps due to the main actor being the key speaker.

So look for questions about Daniel’s favourite Christmas traditions and whether he would prefer to be invisible or to fly.

Director David Yates was actually scheduled to be included in the chat but was replaced with producer David Barron at the last minute.

Another aspect of the Community Screening that was much more apparent this time was the variety of nationalities of the participants.

There were clearly folks online from Europe, Asia, the Americas and even Yemen - I find it intriguing that anyone in the world can effectively be part of such events.

Now a question - are you interested in seeing these live community screening image galleries?

I have not created one for Terminator Salvation yet, though I can if there is interest.

It takes a lot of time to put this together so I am would like to gauge the interest before I set about creating another one.

Please leave your feedback in the comments.

Universal was famous back in the ‘format war’ time for having the HD DVD Combo discs, with DVDs on one side and HD DVD on the other side.

It seems that whoever really liked that idea has now managed to get the product ported over to Blu-ray Disc.

Universal announced today that dual-format discs containing both Blu-ray Hi-Def and DVD versions of The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum, starring Matt Damon, will launch on January 19, 2010 as individually packaged Blu-ray discs.

For the first time consumers will have the ability to choose between Blu-ray and DVD formats simply by flipping a single disc.

While this implies convenience, I would think that the player you are inserting the disc into would dictate which version of the movie you are going to choose.

Personally I wasn’t a fan of the HD DVD Combo discs and am not convinced that this will add much of any value to a Blu-ray release.

Other studios have included separate DVDs in their releases, like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Up, How The Grinch Stole Christmas! and Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian, and if a DVD version is needed, I think that having a separate DVD is preferable to having a disc where both sides are sensitive playback surfaces.

What do you think? Feel free to add your thoughts in the comments.

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment has announced that the Blu-ray release for District 9 due December 29th will additionally feature a playable demo for the eagerly anticipated God of War III game for the Playstation 3.

The release will be the first movie/game demo hybrid Blu-ray in the US.

After successfully completion of the game demo, the consumer will be able to unlock an exclusive making-of featurette about the game.

“Blu-ray functionality has long been a differentiator that separates the PS3 from other home entertainment systems,” said Peter Dille, Senior Vice President, Marketing and PlayStation Network, SCEA. “Through this collaboration with Sony Pictures Home Entertainment we’re able to create a unique experience only available on the PS3 system that blends two of the most popular entertainment options available, watching District 9 and playing God of War III off the same disc.”