Blu-ray Player Prices Hit 2008 Highs

An anonymous reader writes "HD DVD is almost gone and Blu-ray prices are already on their way up. TG Daily went through average retail prices of some of the popular Blu-ray players and found that you should expect to pay at least $400 for an entry-level Blu-ray player, while you could get a player for less than $330 in February. It really should not be a surprise for all of us, but it is interesting to see how quickly retail adjusted to the new situation and increased prices."

Look how quickly I adjust too

[glop (181086)]

by not buying the now overpriced gear...

Re:Look how quickly I adjust too

[Beardo the Bearded (321478)]

It's a golden age for Blu-Ray - a golden age that will last forever.

Re:Look how quickly I adjust too

[squiggleslash (241428)]

The joke being that almost all the Blu-ray players on the market right now are obsolete. BD Live has been part of the spec since November, but pretty much nothing supports it, and most Blu-ray players can't even be upgraded to support it. The PS3 is about the only safe bet right now.

Oh, and the other joke is that BD Live just brings Blu-ray up to (nearly) the same level as HD DVD. Yes, at the time WHV threw its weight behind Blu-ray, Blu-ray was both more expensive than HD DVD, and less powerful (capacity excepting.)

Great decision Hollywood. You went for the format that's out of most people's price range, that's unlikely to be in people's price range for a while, and which had less features (and thus less clear advantages over DVD) than HD DVD. In practice, I suspect you've doomed HD media to a niche, while the vast majority stick with DVD for movies they want to own, and PPV and the various download services for content they want to see in HD.

I still find the decision incomprehensible.

Re:Look how quickly I adjust too

[feepness (543479)]

The joke being that almost all the Blu-ray players on the market right now are obsolete.

Were all your DVD players obsolete when component video came out? What about when Surround Sound came out? Why does having an extra feature that is not required to watch the original movie make a player obsolete? How about DVD+/-R?

This isn't rocket science. You move the player to the bedroom or the kid's playroom or you give it to your Mom and you get a new one if you want the features so bad. If you don't, well then your player isn't obsolete, is it?.

I still have and use a DVD player I got in 1999. It still works perfectly fine.

It is attitudes like this that contribute to our garbage ridden throwaway society.

Yes, at the time WHV threw its weight behind Blu-ray, Blu-ray was both more expensive than HD DVD, and less powerful (capacity excepting.)

So at the time, it was less powerful (except where it wasn't) and more expensive (because it wasn't being dumped below cost). Of course, BluRay had the greater capacity to improve, whereas a 3-layer HD-DVD was a tech demo pipe dream.

You went for the format that's out of most people's price range, that's unlikely to be in people's price range for a while, and which had less features (and thus less clear advantages over DVD) than HD DVD. In practice, I suspect you've doomed HD media to a niche, while the vast majority stick with DVD for movies they want to own, and PPV and the various download services for content they want to see in HD.

You keep telling yourself that. The price jump is a minor glitch given that there is no longer a war going on and they aren't dumping them below cost. Do you think HD-DVD player prices would have stayed low if BluRay had thrown in the towel? They would have risen more. By Christmas they will be down to $200. Why is this so hard for people to understand? Why is it the same people who were convinced that HD-DVD was going to take off now suddenly think that download media is going to be the thing?

I still find the decision incomprehensible.

The capacity of human beings for engaging in self-deception never ceases to amaze me.

Re:Look how quickly I adjust too

[cream wobbly (1102689)]

This isn't rocket science. You move the player to the bedroom or the kid's playroom or you give it to your Mom and you get a new one if you want the features so bad. If you don't, well then your player isn't obsolete, is it?.

If you no longer use something because it lacks newer features, then it is obsolete. Let's think of some examples of obsolescence together, shall we? The Commodore 64; wax cylinders; violent confrontation; car telephones. Does their obsolescence render them unusable?

Re:Look how quickly I adjust too

[pionzypher (886253)]

Bravo sir, bravo.
You have, in one posting both lambasted the wastefulness of our society and managed to take a jab at the download model. So which is it? The HD wars left me a bit blase regarding the upgrade. Coincidentally, my old DVD player works as well. Thus, I will most likely avoid purchasing a BD player. I am aware that there is a perfectly viable market for BD, I won't debate it. Your arguments though seem to be based on the presumption that BD is more "futureproof". This, I would argue is irrelevant. It seems plausable that consumers would opt for a disc-less system, given a viable source for HD content and a HT player with a few TB of storage. I may very well be off the rocker on this, but most of the arguments against it also applied to Mp3s not so long ago.
 
    I suppose my point is that yes, DVD still works. The HD content on television isn't overly compelling. If I have a burning desire to watch a movie in HD, I download it. So far, Planet Earth is the sole HD movie that imo was worth watching in HD. I'll wait to buy until they're either far less expensive or the features and content unavailable in DVD, are compelling enough. If at that time, there is no alternative then yes... I will eat my hat and purchase a BD.

Re:Look how quickly I adjust too

[danielsfca2 (696792)]

I think you're a little off the mark with the "memory" comments. I don't think the amount of memory (RAM) has much of a bearing over downloadable content. 1GB or 2GB is absolutely enough to play even HD content. I know because I've played a Blu-Ray rip (in x264) on my dvr PC which has 2GB of RAM. When you say "2GB. In other words, not enough for more than one movie. If that," I think you are thinking of hard drive space and not memory. I clicked the Dell link in your post and looked at the cheapest pc on that page, the one that's $379. It comes with a 250GB hard drive standard, which is the smallest I've seen on a mainstream desktop lately. 320 or 500GB is just as common. Even 250GB is plenty of room to store lots of downloaded movies, be they in h.264, xviD, or even full-on drive-hogging MPEG-2. And I would expect that someone who bought movies for download would just grab a USB2.0 hard drive at Costco if they ran out of room for the movies. Cost: under $200. Install time: 2 minutes. Capacity gain: +750GB.

Also I think most PCs, even cheap ones, that you see from here on out are going to come with 3GB of RAM or more, since you need that in order to run Vista without losing your mind.

By the way, your first paragraph is absolutely right. Even if I did have an HDTV (I don't), and didn't have a ban on Sony-backed crap in my house (I do), I would wait a while on buying a Blu-Ray player at these prices. $200? Try $50.

Re:Look how quickly I adjust too

[otis wildflower (4889)]

Did you actually use those more "powerful" features?

You mean like PiP? Sure did, the _300_ commentary was pretty sweet (once I got a disc that wouldn't freeze), and the 1st season of Star Trek is all about the PiP..

Networking? _Transformers_ had downloadable images, presumably _Be Kind Rewind_ would have been great with this feature (user-contributed sweded videos)...

Re:Look how quickly I adjust too

[fyrie (604735)]

I did. Heroes season 1, 300, and Beowulf all have some pretty sweet PiP. My blu-ray player is a drive in an HTPC so I'm pretty safe profile update-wise, but I'm just sayin' that the interactivity/extras that HDDVD is capable of now crushes what's out there for blu-ray at the moment.

Re:Look how quickly I adjust too

[Admiral Ag (829695)]

The obvious move is to get a PS3 then. It is a decent media centre as well, and everyone who buys one can have the added pleasure of humiliating me at Warhawk, since I am the worst player on God's green earth.

Sometimes I wonder if the anti-PS3 crowd are simply those people who publicly predicted its failure and are now desperate not to be proven wrong. e.g. the "I'd rather have trousers full of rabid ferrets than buy a PS3!!!" meme.

I bought a PS3 out of curiosity with Blu Ray, and after watching 2001 and A Clockwork Orange in HD (would buy Eyes Wide Shut for the nudie bits, but wife objects), I'd say it was well worth it if you're a film buff.

Re:Look how quickly I adjust too

[mqduck (232646)]

2001 and A Clockwork Orange in HD (would buy Eyes Wide Shut for the nudie bits, but wife objects)

No Eyes Wide Shut, but your wife doesn't mind a movie where a guy cuts through a womans clothes and rapes her?

Re:Look how quickly I adjust too

[Pahroza (24427)]

I can't hear that song without thinking of A Clockwork Orange. Thank you for the memory.

Re:"anti-PS3 crowd"

[Frantix (1043000)]

I'm not sure what you're implying by the "anti-PS3 crowd"? That only die-hard PS3 fans are technically savvy enough to want an HD player? Or is it just a troll remark? The market is made up of a lot of different people on ALL sides of the console front; some for gaming, some for the overall capabilities of a console and, with the war being over, a BD player first and a game console second.

Most of my time is still playing PC games but I also have an Xbox and have no interest in a PS3 even for the BluRay. I have a lot of interest in BluRay but not through a PS3 or the "new" pricing scheme that they've seemed to now drop on consumers for stand-alone players. I'll bid my time and hopefully Microsoft releases a BD player at some point in the upcoming months as has been the rumor.

Re:Look how quickly I adjust too

[EggyToast (858951)]

But, how is that different from "Super collector's bonus editions" of DVDs? Same movie, but more outtakes and commentary? It's par for the course for DVDs that came out early in DVD's lifecycle to have a re-release with more "features." If you care enough for the features, you plunk down the change. If you just want the movie, you're already set.

Re:Look how quickly I adjust too

[Thaelon (250687)]

So, not only do you get screwed into double dipping on the hardware, they also screw you into double dipping on the software.

Double dipping?

Last I checked some movie studios were approximately decadipping at this point:

1. The original movie on VHS
2. The original movie on Laserdisc
3. The director's cut on VHS
4. The original movie on DVD
5. The director's cut on DVD
6. The digitally remastered version DVD
7. The super magic ultra awesome edition DVD (Aliens quadrilogy, I'm looking at you)
8. The blu-ray version
9. The director's super, mega, ultra freaking awesome blu-ray edition
10. The director's super, mega, ultra freaking awesome blu-ray edition with 2.0 features

And let's not forget some awesome features of DVDs and probably blu-ray as well. How about "user-prohibited actions"?

Yay, I'm forced to watch previews on a movie I paid for. Or I can't skip the FBI warning. Or I can't skip the stupid menu animations.

The alternative is to download a DVD rip DRM unencumbered, no FBI warning, no forced previews - hell, no previews. No user prohibited actions. I could store it easily on any media I choose - such as carry it to a friend's house on a thumb drive. I could fast forward and rewind more easily than a DVD. I could store it on a big fat network drive with thousands of others. I could stream it anywhere I have the bandwidth to watch it. It's easily transferred from media to media - as fast as you can copy files.

Tell me again why I should buy DVD or blu-ray discs? They couldn't compete even if they were free.

Re:Look how quickly I adjust too

[Berkyjay (1225604)]

Why don't we all just by the super cheap HD DVD players now and make Hollywood jump back to HD DVD. Then we can buy all the cheap Blu-Ray players and make them jump back again. Yessss, dance Hollywood dance.

PS3

[Enderandrew (866215)]

Meanwhile, there are rumors that once the PS3's start rolling out with 45nm CPUs and GPUs that they will drop $100 in price.

$400 for an entry-level player, or $400 for the PS3?

Re:PS3

[Quasar1999 (520073)]

Umm PS3 is already $399... if it drops $100 then wouldn't it be $299?

Re:PS3

[EvilMonkeySlayer (826044)]

Hey now, this is slashdot. You can't honestly expect the same technical knowledge and math skills that you see in abundance on such sites as digg!

Re:PS3

[_KiTA_ (241027)]

Hey now, this is slashdot. You can't honestly expect the same technical knowledge and math skills that you see in abundance on such sites as digg!

Bah, Digg's not THAT good at math. I asked a few of them to add up the following random hex numbers and half the site freaked out:
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0.

So much for rapid adoption

[foxalopex (522681)]

I would have thought the Blu-Ray group would have liked faster adoption after the demise of HD-DVD but it seems by keeping prices high they might end up slowing themselves down. What would be even more ironic is if the Blu-Ray group collapses themselves in a few years due to lack of demand. That would be a good laugh.

Price go up, price go down

[Mogster (459037)]

Potential competition from HD-DVD helped keep prices low to attract consumers. HD-DVD has lost so there is less incentive to keep the prices low. Once there are more manufacturers producing Blu-ray players then prices will start to drop again.
Market forces at work

Still competing with DVD

[PIPBoy3000 (619296)]

If people continue to purchase DVD players (which are easily under $100), the Blu-ray player prices may drop after a few months. For many people, the quality of DVDs are just fine and they don't have the massive television displays to support them anyway. The cynic in me thinks we're seeing a price hike so stores get the cash from all the early adopters who bought HD-DVD and now feel obligated to buy a Blu-ray player.

Re:Still competing with DVD

[AbsoluteXyro (1048620)]

I certainly hope those prices do come down. I just bought an OPPO upconverting DVD player to tide me over until prices become palatable. I am not paying more than $200 for a god damn movie player, I don't care how H it's D's are.

Re:Still competing with DVD

[debest (471937)]

I am getting kinda tired from this meme

(referring to DVD being "good enough")

Hey, I agree that HD is tangibly better than standard DVD. But for me (and a whole bunch of other people), it is not nearly enough better to justify switching media formats (and, necessarily, upgrading hardware that is already paid for and working perfectly well).

And while I have no gripe with Blu-ray peacefully coexisting with DVD, what I fear is that Blu-ray gets enough penetration that the industry can start ignoring the DVD format (VHS started dying off seriously when tapes stopped being distributed for new movies). When a studio is able to justify releasing a "Blu-ray exclusive" title, DVD will be toast quickly. Then I'll be stuck with an unsupported format that will continue to be "good enough" (for me, anyway) for years and years to come. I really, really don't want to deal with new un-rippable, premium-priced discs that will force me to buy a new player at minimum (and a new TV to see any benefit at all).

Sure, this won't happen for awhile yet (heck, DVD may yet outlast Blu-ray in the market), but the swift end to the HD format war means that Blu-ray has much more of a chance of supplanting DVD.

Re:Still competing with DVD

[gad_zuki! (70830)]

>So my impression that Blu-ray rises just because people start to see reasonable displays to watch those HD discs with

I have a reasonably display (37") for HD and really dont have a need to jump to the format. DVDs from my old Sony 480p DVD player look amazing. What looks terrible is my SD directivo. Right now I'm motivated to buy a HD tivo and HD service from directv. The cost of this for 12 months is what a bluray player costs me today. I watch more TV than I do movies. I seriously doubt I'm unique in this regard.

That said, the first thing people are going to do when they get an HD set is pay for HD cable or satellite. They arent going to spend 600 dollars on some fancy player for movies. They might if it costs 200 dollars or less, but that wont happen for a long time if ever. Think of all the HD content Im going to get for only 10 dollars more than Im paying now.

That said I doubt the digital download revolution will ever happen but HD via cable and satellite is here. Toss in some on-demand services and theres very little incentive to get a bluray player. For film geeks and videophiles it'll be a must-have, but then again so was the laserdisc.

PS3 Sales the motivator here?

[Gat0r30y (957941)]

At 400 bucks, why not just drop an extra 60 for a PS3? [google.com] Perhaps Sony has a good marketing strategy, make all the other BR players so damned expansive that people wont mind dropping the extra dough for a game system even if they don't want/need it.

Wait till the spec shakes out

[powerlord (28156)]

I'm not really surprised but this, but not because HD-DVD is dead.

Blu-Ray recently add the "Profile 1.1" and "Profile 2.0" specs to their list (and yes, to all you HD-DVD supporters playing at home, Profile 2.0 does FINALLY bring Blu-Ray to feature parity with HD-DVD). Also, as we've been reminded time and again (especially by posters on /.), what percentage of TV owners even OWN an HDTV that could benefit from a next-gen format?

Once the specs have settled a little, and as HDTV adoption increases, I'd expect to see economies of scale kick in (as opposed to the price war going on between the BD camp and the HD-DVD camp).

Something else to keep in mind though, is that the PS3 is probably going to be leading the charge in the price war for the next few years.

If $400 is the average price for a BD player, then the $400 PS3, as a current "Profile 1.1" and guaranteed future "Profile 2.0" player (according to Sony's press release from last years E3), makes it a steal as the best priced (and more "future-proof") unit. On the other hand, so long as the PS3 is competing with the XBox 360, they can not keep the price that much higher than their competitor, and they MUST include the Blu-Ray Drive, since PS3 games are shipped on BDs.

It'll be interesting to follow the market as a whole as the PS3 ages into its life cycle, the price drops, and HDTV adoption increases.

  (I know at least 5 people in the past week that have finally decided to look into HDTVs that didn't know anything about it. Yes this is anecdotal evidence, but its more people than I have personally seen looking at getting an HDTV at a given time.)

hmm

[greywire (78262)]

this probably wont happen, but:

What if by declaring hd-dvd dead it causes hd-dvd to become more popular than blu-ray?

By this I mean, the prices of drives are dropping because they are getting rid of them. The movies, too. At the same time, blu-ray is going up.

Will a lot of people even know that hd-dvd is dead? They will just see how cheap it is.

If this were timed right, hd-dvd could hit a critical mass very quickly. Yes they'd lose a bunch of money on the current supplies, but that's going to happen anyway. If at the right time they could resurect it and keep the prices way below blu-ray they could make a comeback. In the mean time they don't really have to waste money on advertising etc.

Myself, I would buy an hd-dvd burner and media right now if the prices were really low, just for storage purposes. They should continue to sell them for pcs for storage purposes.

Just a crazy idea. And what a coup it would be...

Supply and demand at work

[DrXym (126579)]

With the format war over and uncertainty removed, retailers are starting to sell these things close to their MSRP again. I shouldn't worry though. More and more models are appearing from more and more manufacturers including no-names so the prices are going to head south.

Prices in Euros

[Goonie (8651)]

How much of this is due to the fact the US dollar has dropped a lot in value recently?

Not that this is a bad thing - it will help to correct the imbalances in the US economy far more than bleating about NAFTA or whatever other nonsense is coming out of your politicians at the moment...

Re:Just kill it already.

[ODiV (51631)]

It's not like the US doesn't already ignore NAFTA when it doesn't work to their advantage (see Canadian softwood lumber).

Yeah, reducing trade is such a great idea...

[Goonie (8651)]

Your ideas were tried in 1930 Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act [wikipedia.org]. It didn't cause the Great Depression on its own, but it made it a whole lot worse.

Psst... you haven't won the war yet.

[nobodyman (90587)]

This is an utterly foolish move by manufacturers and retailers, because it presumes that HD-DVD was the *only* obstacle to widespread adoption. In fact, Blu-Ray may have won the battle vs. HD-DVD, but it is far from winning the war. Digital download is becoming increasingly popular, and many consumers are just fine with their current DVD's.

Some advice to the Blu-Ray camp: You still haven't convinced us to buy, and raising prices ain't gonna help things.

What about the media?

[rworne (538610)]

I was buying blu-ray right and left in late 2007. Since Feb '08 I have not bought a single title. Why? Prices of media jumped beyond my threshold and I went back to DVD.

I find it hard to buy titles like "No Country for Old Men" for $26.00-29.99 on Blu-Ray when the same title can be picked up for less than $14 at Target on DVD. Another gripe is high prices on back-catalog titles I already own on DVD. Sorry, I will not buy a $26+ BR title when I have already purchased the same title on DVD two or more years ago.

When retailers start aggressively pricing media again, I'll go back to buying the format. Otherwise upscaled DVD looks quite good on my PS3.

Alternative Theory: Joe Consumer sees $400 DVD

[mkcmkc (197982)]

...player and says "Why would I want to buy that?".

Sell at a loss

[kindbud (90044)]

Make it up in volume. That's the ticket.

Perhaps this is an opportunity for HD-DVD

[DesScorp (410532)]

Though declared "Dead", the body is still warm. And you'd think that HD-DVD would be the natural successor to the DVD drives for PC's because they share the same filesystem, and HD-DVD drives are completely backwards compatible with CD and DVD formats. While Blu-Ray players can be made compatible with those formats, not all players are. At least some BR players on the market couldn't read standard CD's, for instance. Since Microsoft's Xbox 360 uses an HD-DVD drive, you might be able to get them to push the standard for PC drives.

Annoying memes.

[serviscope_minor (664417)]

There has been an annyoing meme on /. recently among a small, but noticable minority, namely: the free market KING and the goivernment should SFTU and GBTW so to speak.

This is a classic example of a free market failure. One player paid an enourmous amount of money ($400 million) to kill the other player. Now that the other player is as good as gone, the prices have risen.

This is an excellent example where the free market fails: corporate collusion destroyed it.

Looks bogus to me.

[guidryp (702488)]

I looked at the graph, it looks like a whole lot of nothing. Minor retail fluctuations with a blip up after the holidays. I would expect that of most products.

I thought I would check one of the high marks they are using as Evidence:

I looked at the Sharp BDHP20U listed as having jumped to $440. I checked amazon where it is show a LIST PRICE of $399 and selling price of $350. Only $90 different? Maybe Amazon is an outlier? Dell $329, Every retailer I have heard of was under $400.

The only number higher were listing of something called "storefront"? with a price of $100 more than list??

Anyway even if the graph was correct, it looks like a whole lot of nothing, but to top it, the data itself seems suspect. Have a look for yourself.

Bottom line nothing to see here. Just another attempt to stir up the dead war for TG page hits.

Re:Great- no more format war!

[the_other_chewey (1119125)]

This monopoly is so much better for the consumer.

Yeah, because we all know this evil DVD monopoly drove DVD player
prices to insane heights...

Seriously, this is basic supply and demand at work (more would-'ve-bought HD-DVD
buyers now go for BluRay) and will certainly improve over a probably rather short time.

Re:Great- no more format war!

[vivek7006 (585218)]

Yeah, because we all know this evil DVD monopoly drove DVD player

This time its different because the blu-ray consortium is not giving licenses to tom-dick-harry shop in china to make cheap players. So unlike the DVD, this time around we wont be seeing cheap DVD players. I still remember that it was some Chinese brand (apex?) which broke the $100 barrier for DVD-players and became the largest selling dvd player right behind Sony. With tighter licensing restrictions, thats not going to happen this time around with Blu-ray payers

Re:Great- no more format war!

[robertjw (728654)]

This time its different because the blu-ray consortium is not giving licenses to tom-dick-harry shop in china to make cheap players. So unlike the DVD, this time around we wont be seeing cheap DVD players. I still remember that it was some Chinese brand (apex?) which broke the $100 barrier for DVD-players and became the largest selling dvd player right behind Sony. With tighter licensing restrictions, thats not going to happen this time around with Blu-ray payers

If your statement is true, and I'm going to assume it is, this means we also won't see a huge blu-ray adoption. The VHS to DVD format adoption is easily the fastest I've ever seen. Faster than LPs to tape, faster than tape to CD. in fact, I remember buying my first CD player in about 1989. CDs had been mainstream since what, 82, but seven years later a good player was still $300? It took a long time for the CD to completely take over the market, mostly because the players were expensive.

If the studios are smart, and I think they are, the prices of blu-ray players will only be high for the next 6 months or so. After that, the studios will subsidize their production. The only way people are going to buy ANOTHER new copy of that old movie they love is if the player is cheap. The best way for the studios to make money is to get those players in the hands of the end users.

Re:Great- no more format war!

[Zymergy (803632)]

Don't Forget about the famed Apex AD-600a! http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/03/21/1233235 [slashdot.org]
http://www.nerd-out.com/darrenk/600/history.htm [nerd-out.com]

It was the model to have (with the correct firmware revision) with its famous "Engineering Menu" which allowed the "Macrovision" encoding to be *disabled* and you could change it to *any* region code as many times as you desired.
DRM sucks. This Apex model *Proved* that fact to me with its 'usefulness' back in 2000 (when I took off work early to go buy one from Circuit City). It's now 8 Years old and still kicking! Good Times.

Re:Great- no more format war!

[DrXym (126579)]

This monopoly is so much better for the consumer.

Monopoly? Last I heard, virtually every major CE manufacturer with the exception of Toshiba was competing for the blu ray money in your pocket. Even Toshiba has a 50% stake in a company producing blu ray drives so I'm sure they come out of their period of mourning soon enough.

Prices will drop through competition and economies of scale.

Re:

[Kensai7 (1005287)]

Rightly said. The raise will certainly be temporary. In a couple of months Blu-ray competition will drive the prices again down.

Re:Great- no more format war!

[RobBebop (947356)]

Calling Sony's victory with Blu-Ray over HD-DVD a "monopoly" is like saying Sirius' proposed merger with XMSR is a monopoly.

No sir, I don't buy it. With as many entertainment and content distribution options completing in the Audio and Visual domains... no one company can ever establish a monopoly. The only thing that can happen is the companies become entrenched with technology that isn't adopted, supported, or interoperated with and that leads to business failure.

And yes, Sony bought the format war with hundreds of millions of potentially well-spend bribes, but their is no way for them to bribe there way to some kind of vertically-integrated "entertainment" monopoly. It would cost too much. I am not worried, unless they make a play at merging with Comcast or something.

Re:Great- no more format war!

[fm6 (162816)]

Please. Do you consider DVDs to be a monopoly? How about CDs? A standard format is not a "monopoly", not unless the format is proprietary.

Here's what's going on: both Blu Ray and HD-DVD players were being sold at a minimal profit — a loss, even — because both sides were trying to grab market share. End of format war, end of need to grab market share.

The problem has been that everybody with any brains has been waiting for the format war to end before plunking down their hard-earned cash. When consumers don't buy, sales are low, and when sales are low, there are no economies of scale. No economies of scale means high manufacturing costs, and thus high retail costs — unless the product is being sold at a loss.

So of course prices go up. But that's a short term thing. Right now, every consumer electronics company on the planet is gearing up to manufacture Blu Ray players by the million. When you manufacture something on that scale (especially electronics, where the fundamental technology is subject to Moore's Law) prices crash.

In a year or two, Blu Ray players will be as cheap as DVD players are now.

Re:Great- no more format war!

[Trogre (513942)]

Okay, but what makes you think the BR consortium is going to suddenly start dishing out licences to the Chinese knockoff shops? I don't know what they charge, but even if they do loosen their exclusivity, I don't see the price of a licence being practical for cheap manufacturing to make a difference. They're really that paranoid about losing control.

This format (I'm not going to call it a standard) is much more tightly controlled than DVD or the CD.

Re:Great- no more format war!

[asdfghjklqwertyuiop (649296)]

Do you consider DVDs to be a monopoly?

Definitely*. Try producing a DVD player in the US without paying a lot of money to the DVD copy control association [dvdcca.org] and agreeing to implement their DRM. It won't take you long to hear from their lawyers. It only a few days for ME to hear from them back when I hosted some open source DVD stuff on my web server.

* I'm assuming you're talking about commercial, consumer video DVD stuff here since that's what the whole thread is about.