Turnover in the German homeentertainment market continues to boom with revenues from sell-through andrental videos and DVDs increasing by 14% to Euros 720m in the first half of2004, according to the German Federal Film Board (FFA).

The results for videosell-through were particularly impressive with overall turnover rising by 19%from 2003's Euros 493.1m to Euros 586.9m. The revenues from sell-through DVDsalone increased by a staggering 32.7% from Euros 397.3m to Euros 527m. Indeed,the DVD format is becoming the market norm since the number of sell-throughDVDs sold in the first half of 2004 (37.3m units) was 57.3% above the numberpassing over the counter in the same period last year (23.71m units).

The German video tradeassociation BVV noted that the top three DVD sell-through titles - The Lord OfThe Rings - The Return Of The King, Pirates Of The Caribbean and Finding Nemo -had generated over 10% of the overall DVD sell-through turnover and "morethan compensated" for the continuing contraction in the turnover fromtraditional sell-through video cassettes. Revenues from sell-through cassettesdropped from Euros 95.8m in 2003 to Euros 59.9m this year with the number ofunits sold slipping from 9.33m to 6.27m.