Toshiba prices up Blu-ray Disc patent portfolio Consumer electronics and entertainment companies Mitsubishi, Thomson, Toshiba and Warner Bros have together begun charging for their intellectual property that is "essential" to Blu-ray Disc players, drives and recorders. The four firms' pooled technology also extends to Blu-ray kit that incorporates DVD functionality, …
Using the 3:1 rule, if it costs $1 on the production cost it adds $3 to the retail. So that $6 PC combo drive is now $18 on the price of a computer equipped with it. Plus $2.50 in encoders, making $25 total on the cost of computers that switch a recordable DVD for a Recordable BlueRay.
I think it's a miss.
Most likely the dominant HTML5 web-codec will dominate, and that necessarily will be zero cost open licence because any license is a big barrier to take up. Thus they will have the wrong codec.
Likewise the disc is a physical media and has no future. It requires stock (which online sales do not), it requires transportation, a physical store, etc.
So BlueRay could yet snatch defeat from the jaws of HDDVD victory.
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The BD and HD format wars took a heavy toll on disc based media. By the time they sorted it all out, On-Demand/ Internet TV and movies had hit their stride. Now newer technologies are here to include open source and nearly free codecs. All of these codecs will provide better than HD resolution and are just as good or better than BD codecs. (IMHO)
Discs have really come to an end rather quickly. I have a PS3 and have watched exactly 2 BD movies and downloaded more than 20. Physical media is fraught with inherent disabilities, including simple wear and tear, not to mention the pain in the arse they are to handle in a library. My, could I not just use a 2 TB drive and keep movies I really like in a safer storage arena?
I can see a lot of BD players ending up at the thrift shop here in the USA within a few years because of the new roll-out of 700Mhz high-speed bandwidth and more coverage of cellular internet and other wireless technologies.
AC has hit the nail on the head with the analysis. Of course, we both could be wrong, but the data I am seeing says we are probably right.
Paris; Because she has a minor scratch on her new $50 BD disc.
The writing is on the wall and the niche for discs is going to be small. Companies like Netflix are preparing for the transition and the last holdouts are going to be in those few loosely connected spaces, which are getting fewer every day. Sure, there will always be the video/game vending/rental machine at the front of the supermarket for that last minute impulse but what else is left? Physical media is fading fast and the last standing are hdd and flash drives, with the latter fast becoming king of the hill given its versatility. The trend seems clear, first floppys died, then CDs and soon DVDs will follow. Will BD be still born? Perhaps. Where do BD hold a competitive advantage? Right now, simple DVDs are half or less the price, by gigabyte, of BD. Not much compelling there and raising the price of a BD by about the price of a DVD doesn't help.
It seems pretty clear, if you're putting out a fire, do you want a bigger bucket or a fire hose?
Yes all very nice to dream about HD content delivery over super-fast broadband connections, but you forget that there's a fairly large number of consumers, such as in the UK, who still can't get much more than 1MBits.
Now before you suggest that's just tough love, and that I should move out of the boonies, I live in Perth, Scotland in one of the high density greenbelt newish housing estates where Telewest/Virgin declined to service and the Perth BT exchange is ~5miles away in the town centre and the ADSL service is marginal at best.
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