Author: Digital Digest | Latest News

From surprises in the GoT season premier to a surprise addition in the latest piracy watch list , read the news roundup for the week ending 1 May 2016

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It's that time of the year again, and the eagerly anticipated season premier of the hit HBO show Game of Thrones has again encouraged a surge of piracy. But unlike previous years, no records have been broken this year ... so far.

The previous season's season finale saw the record for the largest torrenting swarm broken, and this season's finale could again break the same record. But even without breaking any records, the number of downloads for the season 6 premier is significant, and hundreds of thousands of downloads had occurred within hours of the premier.

Again, Australia lead the charts when it comes to where downloaders are from, with 12.5% of downloaders coming from the land down under (where legal options can be expensive or out of reach to many). Australia was followed by India (9.7%), United States (8.5%) and the United Kingdom (6.9%) in terms of popularity.

The relatively low number of U.S. downloaders could be related to the fact that HBO had offered a free preview weekend for non subscribers, which allowed many to watch the season premier for free. This could also explain why torrenting records weren't broken this time around - the other main reasons could be related to the increasing use of streaming and direct downloads by pirates, in a bid to avoid detection and punishment.

The results and analysis for DVD, Blu-ray and Ultra HD Blu-ray sales for the week ending 16th April 2016 are in. Justice League vs. Teen Titans was the top selling new release for the week, but it failed to outsell last week's number one (and one of the best selling Blu-ray titles on record), Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

Read the rest of the stats and analysis to find out how DVD, Blu-ray, Ultra HD Blu-ray did.

From the record breaking to the blame shifting, read the news roundup for the week ending 24 April 2016

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Universal is the latest "Big 6" studio to confirm support for the Ultra HD Blu-ray format, with the earliest discs arriving this summer.

Universal Pictures Home Entertainment has announced Matt Damon's "Jason Bourne," "The Huntsman: Winter’s War," "Warcraft," "Everest,” "Lucy" and "Lone Survivor" as the initial titles available on the 4K disc format, and will also be available in digital form.

All the titles will be available with HDR and many will also include "multi-dimensional sound". 

Universal is the latest major studio to offer Ultra HD Blu-ray releases, joining the likes of Warner Bros., Fox and Paramount. Paramount also just recently announced their Ultra HD Blu-ray line-up, which will be "Star Trek" and "Star Trek Into Darkness", to be released on June 14 to mark the 50th anniversary of the original Star Trek broadcast in 1966.

This leaves Sony and Disney as the only "Major 6" studios to not have announce their Ultra HD Blu-ray slate yet.

While not a "Major 6", "mini-Major" studio Lionsgate has already started releasing disc in the Ultra HD Blu-ray format, with "Sicario," "The Last Witch Hunter," "Ender’s Game" and "The Expendables 3" releasing on March 1.

Multiple sources have confirmed that Sony is indeed working on an upgraded PS4 that will have upgraded CPU, GPU and RAM to enable better graphics.

Internally referred to as "NEO", but commonly called the PS4.5 or PS4K, there has been extensive rumors surrounding the possibility of an upgraded SKU, but this lateststory by Giant Bomb's Austin Walker is the most credible report yet of Sony's secret plans.

According to Walker's sources, the NEO's CPU will be upgraded to run at 2.1 GHz, up from the current 1.6 GHz. The GPU, currently an AMD GCN with 18 CUs at 800 MHz, will be upgraded to an improved AMD GCN with 36 CUs at 911 MHz. Memory bandwidth of the GDDR5 RAM has also been improved to 218 GB/s, from the current 176 GB/s.

What all this means is that this upgraded PS4 will finally be able to support 4K gaming, as well as upscaling existing 1080p games to the enhanced resolution.

As for how future PS4 games will work, especially in relation to existing "base" consoles, Sony has mandated that all future games continue to work on the base PS4, but can optionally features a "NEO Mode" that turns on enhanced graphical features to take advantage of the newer consoles, including 4K. The framerate of games in NEO Mode must match or exceed the game in base mode on standard PS4s, Sony's documentation also states.

Walker's sources however did not reveal whether the new PS4 will come with a new Blu-ray drive to allow the playback of Ultra HD Blu-ray discs. While this seems to make sense, the added cost of a new Blu-ray drive, plus the fact that Sony's movie studio arm has yet to commit to the new 4K disc format by announcing any releases, means the PS4 NEO could still end up being limited to standard Blu-ray playback.

Meanwhile, Microsoft appears to be working on their own upgraded console, with FCC filings seem to support at least two new Xbox One models. A similar filing from Brazilian authorities supports the same theory with further proof, including photos of the upgraded wireless chipset. The Brazilian filing are also under a non disclosure agreement that expires June 25, the week after E3, fueling suggestions that Microsoft could announce the new Xbox One SKUs at the gaming expo.

One announcement Microsoft has already made is in regards to the Xbox One's predecessor. The Redmond firm has officially confirmed the end of production for the venerable Xbox 360. Sales have been in steady decline for the ageing console, which was first made available over a decade ago, and with the Xbox One now offering Xbox 360 backwards compatibility, Microsoft has very little reason to continue with the now very much outdated console.

The producer behind The Expendables franchise has lashed out at President Obama for failing to take on Google and forcing the search engine to do more on piracy, and has asked for "jail" or "penalties" for those not helping Hollywood to fight piracy.

Avi Lerner, who is also the executive producer behind the recently released film 'London Has Fallen', was speaking a gala held in his honor and expressed anger towards the White House and Congress for failing to tackle the piracy problem. Specifically, Lerner accuses the government of being too scared of Google to force the search engine to stop piracy.

Lerner is particularly sensitive to the issue of piracy due to the pre-release piracy of his film, The Expendables 3. Up to 10 million downloads occurred before the film's actual release date, something that Lerner says resulted in $250 million in lost revenue. The previous movie in the franchise, The Expendables 2, made $312 million at the box office, while the third film in the series only made $209 million.

"It's a major problem and it's something that I don't know if anyone can stop, because the government, the president, Congress are all scared of Google," said Lerner, before adding, "They should tell Google to stop piracy. They should make a law that anyone helping piracy — and not helping to stop piracy — should go to jail or get penalised or whatever."

"The government, the president, is such a coward. He's scared of Google so we are losing millions," said Lerner.

Google already removes almost 91 million piracy related results from its database every month, and has been using a new algorithm that demotes piracy sites from the search rankings since 2014.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens has helped Blu-ray sales achieve a major milestone - it has beaten DVD sales for the first time in a given week.

The latest in the Star Wars saga, The Force Awakens has already broken many records in its theatrical run, and it was no surprise that the Blu-ray edition has continued to break most if not all of the standing Blu-ray records.

The Blu-ray and DVD sales results for the week ending April 9 shows Blu-ray breaking many records, including finally beating DVD after having come close last year during the week Jurassic World was released.

Weekly Blu-ray sales was $93.54 million, compared to only $64.26 million for DVDs. That's 59% of total disc sales belong to Blu-ray - the previous record was only 48%, set by Jurassic World last year.

While weekly Blu-ray sales didn't break any records, outside of the busy holiday sales period, this was the best weeks for Blu-ray. It outdid most weeks with big releases, but failed to match the power of 'Frozen', which debuted with an amazing $101.98 million for that week.

82.61% of those buying the new Star Wars film chose the Blu-ray edition over the DVD edition, which in itself was a new record for a new release (that wasn't a re-release or a Blu-ray exclusive). As a comparison, "only" 67.06% of buyers chose the Blu-ray edition of Jurassic World over the DVD only edition.

Surprisingly, Disney has chosen not to release a 3D edition on Blu-ray despite the film having a profitable 3D theatrical run, and the company has yet to commit to the Ultra HD Blu-ray format for a 4K edition of the film.

The results and analysis for DVD, Blu-ray and Ultra HD Blu-ray sales for the week ending 9th April 2016 are in. No surprises as to what this week's top seller was, as Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens was released on Blu-ray and many many Blu-ray records were broken.

Read the rest of the stats and analysis to find out how DVD, Blu-ray, Ultra HD Blu-ray did.