Cheaper Blu-ray? Sony say it's coming, honestly

[roma_turok]

Cheaper Blu-ray? Sony, Panasonic, and Philips say it's coming, honestly
Look, we don't really "get" people who aren't willing to buy the latest and greatest thing regardless of the price and / or current economic state, but evidently there's a rather large sector still clinging to their antiquated DVD format. Blu-ray proponents Panasonic, Philips, and Sony are looking to change all that by knocking down the tab a few notches. The trio has revealed plans to form a single licensing firm for Blu-ray, which they anticipate will lower the cost of the license -- and therefore the retail price -- by "at least" 40 percent. They expect it'll amount to $9.50 for read-only BD player, $14 for a burner, 11 cents for read-only discs, 12 cents for BD-Rs, and 15 cents for BD-RE rewritable discs. In its current form, hopeful BD makers have to seek out each company individually. The group also hopes a single licensing entity will help them spot unauthorized BD devices, so watch out, suspicious mom and pop Blu-ray stores.

Link: http://www.engadgethd.com/2009/02/25/cheaper-blu-ray-sony-panasonic-and-phillips-say-its-coming/
http://www.tomsguide.com/us/cheaper-blu-ray-disc-players,news-3520.html

[Soopafresh]

Getting better. Nothing like watching Pauley Shore and Adam Sandler in HD

[MJA]

The problem isn't making cheap players.it's the freak'n expansive media.
wake me up when Verbatim BD hits $1

[SatStorm]

Wake me up when T.Y. manufacture BD and a bulk disc cost around 30 eurocents.

[Ai Haibara]

The group also hopes a single licensing entity will help them spot unauthorized BD devices, so watch out, suspicious mom and pop Blu-ray stores.

Just curious, but is this really a problem, at this stage? Or just the companies being paranoid, more than anything else?

[gadgetguy]

What's a mom and pop Blu-ray store?

[yoda313]

They expect it'll amount to $9.50 for read-only BD player, $14 for a burner, 11 cents for read-only discs, 12 cents for BD-Rs, and 15 cents for BD-RE rewritable discs

I don't want to read those for the license prices.

I want BLURAY movies to be 9.50 each (usd of course). Then 14.00 for a bluray burner and 12 cents for a bluray recordable disc - THEN we can really start moving full force into HD.





Hey I can dream can't I?


-----------------------------

Though now that I finally bought the wd tv media player I may be more inclined to pop for the bluray disc instead of the dvd since I have a lot more coversion options available.

[cal_tony]

My fascination for Bluray is fading fast regardless of price. This whole HD process just isn't working out for me. I noticed it first when lots of TV stations went HD. Damned, most of those TV people really looked harsh. After about 2 weeks all the cameras moved back and the only thing that looked HD was the scenery. Bluray is the same. Close ups on guys, most okay. Close ups on girls over the age of 22 and nothing but filter. Same for cheap scenery. All out of focus or filtered. Technology has finally caught up with reality. And for it to look real, it's expensive.

Maybe I'm just a minority of one, but except for those few movies that come along and look really great in high definition, I think most people will be happy with DVD for a long time to come.

Tony

[SmokieStover]

Adam Sandler rings a bell. But Pauley Shore?....I'll google that one.

[Soopafresh]

Seth Rogen ?

[nitro1973]

it is all going the right way. a little bit slowly, but the right way.
hardware is not so expensive, i find more problems in expensive BD movies :/

[KayAt]

I recently purchased a DVD player for $79 that upconverts to my new HD tv. I love it and it works with all my old dvds. I'll be sticking with this for a while.

[dadrab]

Nothing like watching Pauley Shore and Adam Sandler in HD

Why the hell bother?

[edDV]

...
The trio has revealed plans to form a single licensing firm for Blu-ray, which they anticipate will lower the cost of the license -- and therefore the retail price -- by "at least" 40 percent. They expect it'll amount to $9.50 for read-only BD player, $14 for a burner, 11 cents for read-only discs, 12 cents for BD-Rs, and 15 cents for BD-RE rewritable discs.

Typical retail markup is 5-7 times so do the math.

$9.50 means means $48-$67 retail of the 40% discounted players still goes to cover license fees.

For media, 12 cents adds 60 to 85 cents to a blank at retail. The only thing that will lower media price is volume. I don't see anything pushing recordable volume up much.

[pippas]

Still not convinced that Blu-ray will ever get to the 'critical mass' needed to allow the major price drops required.

Decent DVD upscalers, media players like Popcorn Hour and WD, ever faster broadband for higher speed downloading ...why would I do the whole 'spinning disc' thing all over again??

[greymalkin]

Internet downloads: two flaws here...1) the download times are prohibitive...if you think waiting a minute for your blu-ray/hd-dvd player to boot up is brutal, try waiting hours to download that movie. 2) After you've waited all that time the quality is nowhere close to the actual physical media. even if you streamed the "HD" it's nowhere close to the same quality.

Media Players: Require all of your disc media to be converted via a long and sometimes rather complex process. Most people don't want to fool with it...I used to want to do all that stuff but as the years go by I just find it cumbersome and there are more important things to do with my time..

If I want to watch a movie in it's full quality I'll pop the disc in and watch it..then go about my business.

I'm not jumping on the bluray bandwagon though until the prices of everything go down a LOT. For now I bought an HD DVD player for $75 off craigslist. It does an awesome job of upscaling my DVD's and I can get HD DVD's for a less than half the cost of the blu-ray version. So what if I can't see the latest (2008+) movies in HD...If the movie is good now it will be good in a year or two when the price isn't out of this world.

[zoobie]

How about Rosie O'Donnell?

[SingSing]

I want BLURAY movies to be 9.50 each (usd of course).

Why U.S. dollar Just because it is the fastest shrinking currency

[edDV]

I want BLURAY movies to be 9.50 each (usd of course).

Why U.S. dollar Just because it is the fastest shrinking currency

Be prepared to pay up in Yen. My first trip to Japan Yen to $ was over 400.

[edDV]

Before long a million dollars won't buy a DVD player, but we will all be millionaires.

[nitro1973]

how much (in zimbabwe dollars) for a blu-ray movie in zimbabwe? hehehee

[SingSing]

I want BLURAY movies to be 9.50 each (usd of course).

Why U.S. dollar Just because it is the fastest shrinking currency

Be prepared to pay up in Yen. My first trip to Japan Yen to $ was over 400.

Wow, look at that huge group delay on the (red line) 50 days average!

My kid was in Tokyo last summer, when she still get 106 to 110 yen for a dollar.
The money changers in Japan are very honest, they don't take your dollars then stiff you with a fee like France, or Italy.

[edDV]

Wow, look at that huge group delay on the (red line) 50 days average!

Because its a 50 day moving average.