Blu-Ray: HD Costs More than You Think

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Blu-Ray: HD Costs More than You Think!

by Larry Jordan (www.larryjordan.biz)

In a recent conversation with Bruce Nazarian, president of the DVD Association, during The BuZZ podcast, we were discussing the sudden shift toward Blu-Ray HD DVDs. While Blu-Ray may be good for Hollywood, it won't be good for small independent producers. This is due to all the hidden fees tacked on to replicating a Blu-Ray DVD.

For example, producers of industrial and non-broadcast content are required to pay a $2,500 licensing fee to author and distribute Blu-Ray.

Then, each producer is required to pay a $3,000 one-time AACS license fee, plus a per-title fee for EACH replicated Blu-Ray disc. Currently, Sony DADC is quoting that fee at $1,585 per title (per complete Blu-ray disc project).

Then there's the per disc replication cost, which varies by quantity, and finally, there's a $0.04 per disc fee for AACS and $0.01 per disc if you want SONY DADC to administer the payments to AACS on your behalf.

As Bruce indicates, we may be standardizing on Blu-Ray, but the prices won't be cheap.

Frank
 
And this is why Blu-Ray isn't going to catch on until they do something about the fees. This is especially true with so many products coming out that are similar to the iTV and being able to download content from the internet. What I'd like to see is movies come out on compact flash cards. Won't get scratched and is getting cheaper each day.

Matthew
 
I just checked with my replicator. To replicate 1,000 blu-ray DVDs will cost approximately 10x as much as to do regular DVDs. Considering that only about 1/2 of 1% of the population would even be able to play 'em, well -- screw that.
 
Macville said:
And this is why Blu-Ray isn't going to catch on until they do something about the fees. This is especially true with so many products coming out that are similar to the iTV and being able to download content from the internet. What I'd like to see is movies come out on compact flash cards. Won't get scratched and is getting cheaper each day.

Matthew
Click to expand...

The technology for delivering movies on flash memory cards will be economically viable pretty soon, but don't expect the major studios to be in any rush to embrace it.
 
If replication is pricing itself out of the market, then duplicators will have a brisk business with $500 burners and $8 media currently available.

Of course, it's not as a good as a replicated disc, but much much much cheaper... why not?
 
My thought is someone will figure out a way to beat the system and everyone will follow.
We have already seen that technologies like the playstation 3 make it super simple to play blu-ray on a regular dvd-rw. Someone will eventually figure out how to make a blu-ray compatible disc and will write a similar code to make it work on blu-ray players with out paying the fees.
 
orangesaybananas said:
If replication is pricing itself out of the market, then duplicators will have a brisk business with $500 burners and $8 media currently available.

Of course, it's not as a good as a replicated disc, but much much much cheaper... why not?
Click to expand...

Burned BD-R disks don't play reliably on all Blu-Ray players.
 
Okay, I didn't like paying it, but the $3,000 AACS license is a one-time fee. And if you're making several thousand discs at a time, the per unit costs are not radically more than standard DVDs. Factor in the higher retail price Blu-ray discs are fetching, and the total lack of good indie films available, and it all starts to look better for smaller producers and distributors.

By this Christmas, I think this will be a moot point and the number of players sold will make the market size large enough to be viable for indies. And I'm sure the Blu-ray burner technology will get better, and the players better at reading burned discs, just like what happened with DVDs.
 
orangesaybananas said:
If replication is pricing itself out of the market, then duplicators will have a brisk business with $500 burners and $8 media currently available.

Of course, it's not as a good as a replicated disc, but much much much cheaper... why not?
Click to expand...


It's not nearly as good as replicated. I just surveyed players in retail stores with a burned disc that plays fine in my Sony BDP-S301. None of the players currently in the stores played my test disc. That has very negative repercussions for duplicators and low volume producers who rely on burned disc.

Oh and.. most of the players I surveyed were Profile 1 models--that is, they don't support playback of BD-R. :(
 
The HD-DVD spec didn't require AACS, but it did support it. Blu-Ray, on the other hand, does require it. Which was one of the reasons HD-DVD should have won out. But that's no longer relevant, obviously.

I'm sure more and more upcoming Blu-Ray players will support playing back off-spec content on burned BD-Rs, but even still, we'll never have the universal support offered by replicated DVDs without dealing with AACS.

Sadly, this is yet another example of DRM's oppression. There's a certain irony about the fact that this time DRM is hurting content providers, as well as the users...
 
This looks like a prime opportunity for a class action suit against the cartel that set these anti-competitive rules. I can see a lot of us getting sued by clients because they think we're defrauding them with BD-R discs that won't play on their set to players.
A ruling by a federal judge is the only way to level the playing field-forcing the industry to allow burned discs to play, and opening the door to independant lower budget content, rather than limiting to a dozen blockbuster budget moviews a year from Sony, Universal, et al.
 
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