this sounds ropey. far as im aware drives have come down regularly in price.....maybe too regularly?
HP fires sue-ray at makers of Blu-Ray
HP is seeking damages from the optical drive industry, filing antitrust complaints against pretty much the whole of the supply side of the industry. A similar complaint was filed earlier this year by Dell. Both cases ultimately stem from Department of Justice investigations which ended with the Hitachi-LG Data Storage (HLDSI …
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Tuesday 29th October 2013 09:25 GMT Brenda McViking
Drives down in price? Blu Ray drives were around in 2006 let's not forget, yet still, the cheapest OEM version online for a BDRW is around £45. 7 years of manufacture - they should be approaching the cost of the old DVDRW drives (~£15-£20) you'd have thought - yes they have an additional laser and have to pay a few pence to Sony to licence patents, but this still screams of price fixing. HP have had enough, and they're one of the few goliaths in the industry that can actually force the point.
Trouble is, we've seen this before - by the time anything meaningful happens the technology is completely and utterly obselete. If they're suing about blu-rays now, then I reckon the courts will slap a fine on them in, hmmm, around 2020. It's like CRT price fixing all over again.
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Wednesday 30th October 2013 08:33 GMT Alex Rose
I clearly am missing something...
..7 thumbs down for asking for clarification as to why I can buy a BD RW for £17 rather than the £45 odd quoted above.
I'm very confused now...maybe you're all members of the HD-DVD marketing board or something?
There's some conspiracy to keep the perceived price of BD burners higher than they actually are, shadowy figures in an international cabal meeting late at night to plot their attack on the next website comment section with immediate downvotes for people who question their falsely inflated figures? An enquiring public needs, nay DEMANDS, to know the truth!
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Tuesday 5th November 2013 07:34 GMT CliveM
Re: @Pascal Monett
"No, it's for a new unit. I didn't think I needed to make it clear I was searching for a like for like unit."
"But then I guess I forgot that the internet seems to work at the level of the stupidest person on the planet :)"
The only such drives I see on ebay right now are laptop drives in those USB external housings. Used drives from scrapper machines, in other words, although the housing and box is new. Since the external cosmetics are taken care of the sellers suppose they can get away with claiming them to be new. Look at the economics for a moment: those USB drives are cheaper than the new desktop units. Compare the prices of each at a reputable source and you'll see that is the wrong way around by a considerable margin. The difference there is there is no shiny new housing to conceal a used desktop drive.
Been there, done that with similar DVD drives from the same sellers. I opened up one such "new" unit a couple of months back, to find a drive manufactured in 2008 if I remember correctly. The indisputable giveaway was the Acer OEM label. I wasn't really that bothered to be honest - works fine and what do you expect for twelve quid - but that isn't a like for like comparison.
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Tuesday 29th October 2013 13:57 GMT Ken Hagan
" they should be approaching the cost of the old DVDRW drives (~£15-£20) you'd have thought"
I wouldn't, actually. As long as consumers are willing to put up with a vanilla DVD in their low-end machines (which will probably be true for some time), Blu-Ray drives will be priced as though they were a (slightly) premium product.
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Tuesday 29th October 2013 17:04 GMT Anonymous Coward
I don't think that Blu-rays are anywhere near as popular as DVD drives and so don't really benefit from the volume in terms of pricing. DVD/CD drives are now a commodity and suffer from the race to the bottom in terms of price.
Blu-ray is considered by many, even now, a non-essential luxury whereas, a DVD reader/writer is pretty much essential for most computer users.
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Tuesday 29th October 2013 10:40 GMT Dave 126
Re: I have yet to buy a Blu-ray.....
I haven't got around to BluRay yet either, but then I haven't got a big TV to make it worthwhile. Watching movies round at my mates' look better for BluRay, though some of them are well enough served by download or streaming video services.
As a back-up medium, the blank discs are about £2 each (25 GB), so about £80 per TB... so don't work out cheaper than external HDDs, and more hassle too.
For shunting big projects (such as raw video footage) between locations, a few USB thumbsticks will do the job nicely.
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Wednesday 30th October 2013 11:14 GMT Pascal Monett
I have a Philipps CRT, 32" with Pixel Plus.
DVDs look gorgeous on it (especially the Fellowship of the Ring, that scene in the mountains when they're on their way to Moria).
My TV is compatible with HD, I think, but I don't care. I hate BluRay because it's Sony, and I'm sick and tired of Sony trying to decide what I can do in my own home.
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