SHIVER ME TIMBERS! 'PIRATES' SETS RECORD AS DVDS COMMANDEER THE MARKET.

Byline: Greg Hernandez Staff Writer

With Disney's ``The Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl'' setting a torrid pace, the home-video industry is riding the crest of a consumer buying wave that has made DVD titles one of the hottest gifts of this holiday season.

``Pirates'' sold a record 10 million DVD copies during its first week in stores, a new opening week benchmark for a live-action title. This surpassed the 8.5 million DVD copies sold by ``Spider-Man'' last year, according to figures released Tuesday by Disney's Buena Vista Home Entertainment.

Many retailers such as Best Buy, Circuit City and Target stores are selling hot titles like ``Pirates'' at heavily discounted prices during their debut weeks in order to drive traffic into stores. And once there, consumers have much to choose from with the industry releasing 25.7 percent more titles through November compared with last year.

``We have seen some incredible releases this year for the holiday season that have made people excited about movies,'' said Brian Lucas, a Best Buy spokesman. ``DVDs have been on the rise for years now and as DVD players continue to reach new households, the demand goes up.''

Rob Tribbey, editor of the industry newsletter DVD Release Report, said he expects DVD players to be in 60 percent of all U.S. homes by the end of the year. New owners are eager to stock up on DVDs, which have expanded well beyond movies with television series on DVD now a sizable chunk of the market and music-oriented DVDs starting to get more shelf space.

``When we were in the VHS market, no matter how good it got, households bought what seemed to be a maximum of eight titles per year,'' Tribbey said. ``Even though DVD still has less household penetration, it's now 15 per household. That's real growth.''

Tuesday's hot sellers on the Amazon.com online retail site were led by ``Pirates'' and another Disney title, ``Finding Nemo,'' which set an all-time record last month for first-week sales with 15 million DVD units sold.

``Pirates'' actually sold 11 million copies in its first week when you factor in the approximately 1 million copies it sold in the VHS format.

``We are astounded,'' said Bob Chapek, president of Buena Vista Home Entertainment. ``The performance we are seeing exceeds what we would have expected. A lot of people bought it in the first week to watch it right away but what we are seeing now are strong sustaining sales, which means it will be one of the popular gifts of the year.''

Boxed sets, although more expensive than the typical movie title, are also selling briskly, with a special edition of ``The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers'' in third place followed by a boxed set of the ``Indiana Jones'' trilogy.

TV on DVD is now the fastest-growing genre in the home-video industry. Entire season sets of ``Buffy the Vampire Slayer,'' ``The Simpsons,'' ``The West Wing'' and ``Family Guy'' are all in Amazon's top 12 list of best sellers. So far this year, 497 TV on DVD titles have been released compared with 278 last year.

Not only are entire seasons of current shows such as ``CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,'' ``Alias'' and ``24'' quickly hitting store shelves shortly after airing on television, studios dug into their vaults this fall to release boxed sets of classic shows like ``I Love Lucy,'' ``The Dick Van Dyke Show'' and ``The Honeymooners.''

Another sign that the DVD format has become a dominant entertainment industry all its own is that for the first time, the ``DVD Exclusive Awards,'' a program honoring special achievement in home video, is being televised this year.

The show, taped last week, aired Tuesday night on the FX cable channel and will be repeated Saturday and Sunday. DVD-focused filmmakers Michael Bay and Ridley Scott received special honors, while ``Nemo'' nabbed several awards, as did movies produced specifically for home viewing including ``101 Dalmatians II: Patch's Big Adventure,'' The Sleeping Dictionary'' and ``Interstate 60.''

Best Buy's Lucas, whose chain was among the first retailers to firmly embrace the DVD format, said he is not surprised at the white-hot momentum the industry is enjoying.

``DVD is a technology that has lived up to its promise,'' he said. ``People get the product, they like it and really enjoy the extra features that come along with the movie or television series. They are really responding to all the extras and really cool features - and that's the most exciting thing about DVD technology.''

Greg Hernandez, [phone]

greg.hernandez(at)dailynews.com

CAPTION(S):

photo

Photo:

(color) ``Pirates of the Caribbean,'' starring Johnny Depp, set DVD sales records, further bolstering the new format's dominance.

Buena Vista Pictures