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Blu-ray Discs Won't Be Cheap 531

Posted by Zonk from the leeloo-dallas-multipass dept.
frdmfghtr writes "Red Herring has a story on the forthcoming price of Sony Blu-Ray HD DVDs. At $23.45 wholesale, they aren't cheap. From the article: 'Some of the movies to be released in the first batch by Sony are The Fifth Element, Desperado, Hitch, House of Flying Daggers, Legends of the Fall, and Terminator. Sony's wholesale price of $23.45 for Blu-ray discs is 56 percent more than the $14.99 it costs to buy a new DVD of Hitch from BestBuy.com. A Terminator DVD is available for $9.99.' Another reader suggested a link to an Ars Technica article with more information.
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Blu-ray Discs Won't Be Cheap More

Blu-ray Discs Won't Be Cheap

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  • Blast from the past! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Yocto Yotta ( 840665 ) * <<moc.liamg> <ta> <cisum.stlupatac>> on Thursday February 09, 2006 @01:08PM (#14678729)
    Hi, remember me? I'm the first DVD you ever bought. Back in 1997, I cost you $25 and had no extra features. I eventually went down in price.

    Would you like to meet my friend, VHS? He cost $25 a pop back in 1980, had no features, and was a linear format that degraded over each use. Maybe being from the past makes me naive (sorry no dots for you), but, it seems that the point of this article -- although factual -- is totally irrelavent.

    • Re:Blast from the past! (Score:5, Informative)

      by sammy baby ( 14909 ) on Thursday February 09, 2006 @01:13PM (#14678801) Journal
      You missed an important point. The $23.45 is a wholesale price. When the wholesale price of the item is about 60% more than the retail price of a competing item, there's enough of a difference to sit up and take notice.

      • Re:Blast from the past! (Score:4, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 09, 2006 @01:23PM (#14678938)
        What's the retail price for the average Xbox game versus wholesale on the average Xbox 360 game? How about the retail cost of a VHS _player_ versus the wholesale cost of a DVD player when DVD first debuted?

        Early adopters will cough up the money without taking notice. Late adopters won't ever have a price difference to notice.

      • Re:Blast from the past! (Score:4, Informative)

        by Yocto Yotta ( 840665 ) * <<moc.liamg> <ta> <cisum.stlupatac>> on Thursday February 09, 2006 @01:26PM (#14678988)
        Hi, my name is Inflation. Me and my buddy Bleeding Edge Technology are keeping DVDs and BDs (seperated by eight -- nay, nine -- years of economic and technological advance) at the same price when introduced. Our other kinda-friend (he's cool, but not much fun) the Inflation Calculator says:
        What cost $23.45 in 1997 would cost $27.64 in 2005.

        Also, if you were to buy exactly the same products in 2005 and 1997, they would cost you $23.45 and $19.90 respectively.
        Yes, I know it's 2006, but what do I look like? An inflation psychic?
        • "What cost $23.45 in 1997 would cost $27.64 in 2005."

          Sure, but isn't the trend for hi-tech stuff to go down? Computers, mp3 plahyers, satellite radios are going down in price.

          This reminds me of when CD's were introduced. LP's were $8 and CD's were $16. They told us "Unfortunately, there are only 3 plants in the world that can make these disks. As soon as more production comes on line, these will be cheaper than LP's because they're cheaper to make".

          I guess they were lying.

          But on the plus side, Sony woul

          • "This reminds me of when CD's were introduced. LP's were $8 and CD's were $16. They told us "Unfortunately, there are only 3 plants in the world that can make these disks. As soon as more production comes on line, these will be cheaper than LP's because they're cheaper to make". I guess they were lying."

            Huh? That was back in the 80's, right? I was buying them, too. My recollection is that it was a few years before they came down to $16, but let's use your number.

            $16 in 1985 dollars is $28 in 2005

          • "As soon as more production comes on line, these will be cheaper than LP's because they're cheaper to make".

            Oh, the CD's were probably cheaper to make, but the recordings are state protected intellectual monopolies. Pricing is set as a function of what the customers can pay, not as a function of production cost enforced by competition. Revenue when you have monopoly control is maximized when a higher number of customers are unable to afford the product, so that the more surplus capital the consumers have, t
        • Yawwwwwnnnnnnn. Maybe when I have an HDTV sitting in my living room I'll care more. But since it's Sony, probably not.
        • You have some serious identity issues.

        • Re:Blast from the past! (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Pollardito ( 781263 ) on Thursday February 09, 2006 @03:22PM (#14680268)
          Hi, my name is consumer. a lot of my population is already illegally downloading stuff for free over the internet rather than paying the current price. i'm predicting that the main inflation that you'll see is the inflated numbers of people that will illegally download this new content rather than paying the new, higher price.

        • Re:Blast from the past! (Score:4, Insightful)

          by hal2814 ( 725639 ) on Thursday February 09, 2006 @03:29PM (#14680341)
          Hi, Inflation. My name is hal2814 and I buy stuff. Since I can't tell the difference between DVDs and BDs on my TV (which has the same resolution as almost everyone else's TV in the US), I'm not going to buy the $27.64 BDs whe I can get a perfectly good $15 DVD. In fact, if the movie is old or doesn't rely a whole lot on special effects, I'll go ahead and buy the bargain basement $3 VHS of it if available since it looks almost as good and costs a WHOLE lot less.

          "Also, if you were to buy exactly the same products in 2005 and 1997, they would cost you $23.45 and $19.90 respectively."

          And you're wrong here because you're assuming everything keeps its value over time. I just bought that EXACT SAME James Bond DVD they were selling for $30 back in 1997 (to be fair, it might've been 98) new for about $10 a few weeks ago. Now if you do your Inflation magic, I think that means I just spent like $.36 1997 dollars for it or something.
        • First: the price quoted does not reflect underlying manufacturing costs, just what Sony thinks it can get for premium titles. I can't find any information on production costs, which is kind of how things were in the early days of CD and DVD where the companies with the big factories (e.g. Sony) were also content owners (e.g. Sony) and hid all their internal cost structures.

          You can make 500 DVDs, including packaging and inserts, for $1,395.00 -- that's $2.80 per unit in quantities of 500, e.g. http://www.dig [digitalcdr.com]

      • It reaches a stage when its very difficult to discern any real advantages "new media" has over older types. I mean, there is a limit to what resolution your eye can discern, just like in printing; There's no point in going any higher than 300 dpi (professional offset printing resolution). Once you don't have problems with blurriness or ghosting, it really can't get much better. They either need to produce an entirely different (immersive?) experience, or make bigger screens cheaper. I'd drop a grand on a 1

        • Re:But whats the point? (Score:2, Interesting)

          by Threni ( 635302 )
          > I mean, there is a limit to what resolution your eye can discern

          Yes, but it's not been reached with DVDs - this also applies to red book CDs (ears, not eyes, obviously).
          • Whether the "saturation point" has been reached with CD is a bit more debatable. People have a surprising amount of difficulty distinguishing between the "next gen" formats and correctly-downconverted CD audio in double-blind tests.

            Anybody excercising a certain degree of perception, though, can see that DVD could easily stand to be bumped up a little bit. Would it necessary matter to most people? That's a different question entirely.
        • I can easily tell the difference between 300dpi and 1200dpi or 2400dpi (which is the generally accepted limit of when the eye can't see a difference on a printed page). Look at the text in a 300dpi fax (i.e., a real 300dpi without resolution enhancement), and look at a printed hardcover book (roughly 2400dpi). If you can't tell the difference, please tell me you have nothing to do with any media business.

          Beyond that, when you're talking about printing, you have all sorts of colors, tints and effects that

        • You're in luck. A decent projector goes for about a grand now. Do you have a 10 foot wide wall?

          I dropped a tad over a grand a year ago for a 6 foot wall screen - it'd be bigger, but my viewing wall has an inconveniently-placed door...

    • price (Score:2, Informative)

      by jimbolauski ( 882977 )
      If this is the price for a single layer Blue Rray dish then the cost is about 1$ per gig. Even 7 years ago the price of DVD's was more than $5 for a single layer and cd's had more memory for the dollar but then, as with all things the cost to produce it dropped drasticly and now DVD cost about the same as a CD.

    • Re:Blast from the past! (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Chris Burke ( 6130 ) on Thursday February 09, 2006 @01:18PM (#14678878) Homepage
      A very good point, and given how recently DVDs came out I'd be surprised if people didn't remember that they were much more expensive. Though what these same people will remember is that it was just 5-8 years ago that they were asked to re-purchase their entire video library. Now they're going to be encouraged to do so again. Now given that VHS was pretty craptacular, in particular in the longevity and reliability department, the advance to DVD was huge and perhaps necessary. What is going to drive me to whichever of the Sons of DVD survives? A little better picture? Room for more extra features, when they already have a hard time finding enough non-drivel to pad out a DVD?

      Price is really only part of the picture that makes Son of DVD not look so hot. The price for incremental improvement is a put off, being asked to run the format treadmill so soon after a previous switch is another.

      • Re:Blast from the past! (Score:5, Insightful)

        by javaxman ( 705658 ) on Thursday February 09, 2006 @01:39PM (#14679149) Journal
        5-8 years ago that they were asked to re-purchase their entire video library. Now they're going to be encouraged to do so again.

        Well, to be fair, it's unlikely that most of us will re-purchase our entire video library, even those of us who feel we can afford a several-thousand-dollar HDTV before much decent content for it is even available. I mean, I don't have an HDTV set yet so maybe I can't speak for those people, but there's not a very high probability that I'm going to ever buy a Blu-Ray copy of "Best in Show" or "A Mighty Wind" to replace my current DVD copies, even if I could. I'll buy HD versions of a subset of my collection, like the Lord of the Rings films - things where the detailed cinematic scenes are really spectacular.

        The high-end, early adopter crowd *is* going to replace much of their collection... don't forget these are the people you knew who had laserdiscs. Most of us will replace movies very selectively, buy only new movies, and wait for the price to come dow,... and it will. To be honest, I thought these things would start out at around $50, about the price of a new video game, and from this it looks like they may be cheaper than that, really sooon.

        Another thing that's different- I think you'll be able to sell your old DVDs pretty readily. The HD discs and DVD discs will live side-by-side for some time. Premium stuff does sell, though, and there's a lot of demand for HD content that currently isn't being met by the 10 or so HD TV channels most folks in the U.S. are currently limited to.

      • Since we're on the topic of the past, let's not forget about Laserdisc and Minidisc formats.

        Recall Laserdisc had quality improvements over VHS (400 lines v 200 lines), and didn't stretch like VHS, and was more expensive. Kicker was the laserdisc was a 1980's technology, and it was released too close to VHS IMO.

        People took to DVD's because it had a lot of benefits - resolution, and likeliest the biggest factor, storage size was probably the biggest attraction. Retailers liked it too because they could stor
    • The price went down?!
      New DVDs are about 20 euro here. And that doesn't mean it's a super special edition.
    • But DVDs offered a lot over VHS, not just picture and sound improvements. With Blu-Ray there's a bunch of sound and video enhancements that you'll only notice if you have an expensive system. Kind of reminds me of SACD.
      • While your argument is quite true for video, it falls flat on its face for data purposes. The difference is between 5-12GB and 25GB per side--a rather large difference IMHO. These suckers would be great for backup purposes, or for distributing a full Linux distro, and I'm really looking forward to their introduction for that reason.

        On the video side, unless the encryption/DRM crap is broken on HD-DVD and Blu-Ray (or there is a full-featured player for Linux that I can use on my Myth boxen and desktops a

    • This article is such complete FUD. All new formats are slightly expensive and Phillips developed a method of pressing the disc in one 1.1mm polycarbonate layer, as opposed to two .6mm polycarbonate layers like DVDs, that offset the cost of using the Durabis 2 material, (which doesn't scratch, even from steel wool).

    • Re:Blast from the past! (Score:5, Funny)

      by stinerman ( 812158 ) on Thursday February 09, 2006 @01:31PM (#14679045)
      Hi! I'm the first audio CD you ever bought back in the late 80s. I cost you $20. I eventually ... um ... well fuck you ... you're stuck with me!
    • Hi, remember me? I'm the first DVD you ever bought. Back in 1997, I cost you $25 and had no extra features. I eventually went down in price.

      Would you like to meet my friend, VHS? He cost $25 a pop back in 1980, had no features, and was a linear format that degraded over each use. Maybe being from the past makes me naive (sorry no dots for you), but, it seems that the point of this article -- although factual -- is totally irrelavent.

      Slashdot has now been visited by the Ghost of Media Past. Will the Ghost o

    • Re:Blast from the past! (Score:4, Insightful)

      by The-Bus ( 138060 ) on Thursday February 09, 2006 @01:39PM (#14679152)
      The question is "Is it worth it?"

      When VHS/Betamax came out there weren't really any other widely available options for people seeing movies in their homes. Even at $25 (in those days), assuming you weren't talking about titles still in the rental window, that was a novelty.

      Laserdisc arrived but was cumbersome, with players pretty expensive in North America and titles not as widely available. There was good jump in technology but it was just not worthwhile for the average consumer.

      DVD had a similar jump in technology but actually increasing ease of use over VHS. When DVDs came out, they were at least $20 in stores. I still remember seeing a copy of Universal Soldier on sale for over $50 at Best Buy. But, if you looked online, especially during the .com years in 1998-1999, there were a lot of online retailers selling DVDs for $1 (or less) simply to drive market share and bring in consumers. And while standalone players were expensive, it was becoming more and more common to be able to view your DVDs on laptops or computers. Then the PS2 and Xbox came out and made it even more commonplace. There's at least six pieces of hardware in my house right now that could play a DVD, and not one of them is a stand-alone DVD player.

      I don't think the price of the discs is going to be this next generation's hurdle. TVs that properly display HD content are still at least $1000 even after dramatic price drops over the past couple of years. TVs where the average person can tell the difference between DVD and HD content are going to be even more expensive.

      But the main thing is plain and simple: What, besides video and audio quality, do BluRay and HD-DVD offer?

      Absolutely nothing. It doesn't make DVDs any easier to use. From what I have heard, I don't think they are scratch-proof. You can't easily record, like VHS or Tivo.

      There's been an endless parade of products which hawked higher quality without a change in convenience. If quality was everything that mattered, all movies would come with a DTS track, HD adoption would've spread like wildfire, and people would own SACD players and HD-VCRs. I don't think HD on DVD is going to fail. But what is going to happen is that people will only buy it after it's been out a few years and most new DVD players play the other two formats as well. Any studio exec that things that people are going to replace all of their exiting DVDs with BluRay titles should start acting a bit more logically before their unrealistic expectations bit them in the ass.
      • "DVD had a similar jump in technology but actually increasing ease of use over VHS"

        Hmmm. I don't what can be easier than putting the tape in and pressing play. Surely you're not suggesting that putting a disc in, waiting for the menu screen, and then fiddling with usually poorly-designed menus is easier?

        When it comes down to it, my grandmother has never had problems getting a VHS tape to play. I have had problems getting a DVD player to play (lost the remote and the disc wouldn't just play the $%$%#@ mov

        • Re:Blast from the past! (Score:4, Insightful)

          by The-Bus ( 138060 ) on Thursday February 09, 2006 @02:16PM (#14679580)
          Hmmm. I don't what can be easier than putting the tape in and pressing play. Surely you're not suggesting that putting a disc in, waiting for the menu screen, and then fiddling with usually poorly-designed menus is easier?


          As opposed to, putting the tape in, waiting for it rewind, then pressing play. Then adjusting tracking if necessary. No, wait, just a bit more, OK, now it looks good. Then pressing fast-forward to go over the commercials and trailers, then hit play again when the actual movie starts. Oh, you want to see the scene where hero loses the bad guy in a car chase. OK, I think that's about 25 minutes in... etc.

          Yes, I am suggesting it's easier.

          • Re:Blast from the past! (Score:4, Insightful)

            by hal2814 ( 725639 ) on Thursday February 09, 2006 @02:33PM (#14679772)
            Even in my ancient late-70's Curtis Mathes top-loader (which is interestingly enough the tape player my aforementioned grandmother is using right now), we rarely had to mess with tracking on a decent quality tape but I'll go ahead and conceed the point for those who didn't cough up the money for a decent player at the time or who watch a lot of homemade or low quality movies.

            But "pressing fast-forward to go over the commercials and trailers, then hit play again when the actual movie starts" is FAR superior to having to sit through previews every time you pop in the DVD becasue the DVD can circumvent your fast-forward controls to prevent you from skipping the previews. (This is especially prevalent on rentals.)

            "Oh, you want to see the scene where hero loses the bad guy in a car chase."

            No, I just want to watch the f'ing movie. If anything, I'm exceedingly happy that VHS tapes are bad at that sort of thing becauses it keeps my friends and family from jumping into replay after replay instead of just watching the movie. Unlike CDs where I might want to pick out a particular song in an album, I rarely skip around during the movie. I'm guessing if you put random access of the movie through the grandmother test, she won't do it all that often either (even if it is easy to do). Now TV shows on DVD are another story...

            Like I said earlier, there are a LOT of advances DVDs made over VHS. I still stand by my statement that DVDs are harder to use for their typical use (watching movies) than VHS tape. It is very nice though not having to worry about if you're getting an SP, LP/EP, or SLP tape when you buy a movie in the DVD age.

          • Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)

            by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Thursday February 09, 2006 @02:37PM (#14679818)
            Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:Blast from the past! (Score:4, Insightful)

      by wormbin ( 537051 ) on Thursday February 09, 2006 @02:59PM (#14680053)

      You're missing a big point and that is: how much value do the new formats give you over the existing format?

      VHS vs. broadcast/cable:

      • watch the movie when you want to; no waiting for the next time the movie is on broadcast/cable
      • watch the movie many times
      • pause, rewind

      DVD vs. VHS:

      • better visual/audio quality
      • random access
      • longer life
      • commentary, deleted scenes, subtitles, other extras

      BLU-ray vs. DVD

      • better visual/audio quality on HD TVs

      Both VHS and DVD offered a lot of value over the existing options. Not so with BLU-ray.

    • Re:Blast from the past! (Score:3, Insightful)

      by DrXym ( 126579 )
      Would you like to meet my friend, VHS? He cost $25 a pop back in 1980, had no features, and was a linear format that degraded over each use. Maybe being from the past makes me naive (sorry no dots for you), but, it seems that the point of this article -- although factual -- is totally irrelavent.

      Except of course Blu ray will never be as cheap as the comparable DVD which will never be as cheap as the comparable VHS. Why? Because each time, the manufacturers take the opportunity to hike the prices as far as

  • Newsflash! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by plover ( 150551 ) * on Thursday February 09, 2006 @01:09PM (#14678737) Homepage Journal
    Extry! Extry! Read all about it! People Pay More for Higher Quality Merchandise!

    Related Stories:

    • BMWs More Expensive Than Kias
    • Macs More Costly than PCs
    • Canon Cameras Sell For More Than Kodak Cameras

    But seriously, why wouldn't they be more expensive? You get a much, much nicer end product. Why would you pay $10 for a hamburger at Outback when you can get one for a dollar at Mickey D's? They both feed you (poorly!), but one is much more pleasant to eat than the other. How about a music file? Are you happy with a 64kbps encoding of a tune, or do you prefer a lossless encoded version?

    It's the same with an HD movie -- it's much more pleasant to look at HD than an NTSC quality movie.

    • You missed out the word "percieved". I'm not saying that all of the items you mentioned aren't actually higher quality, but that's not what people pay for, they pay for the perception or belief that it's higher quality, whether it is or not in reality is entirely up for debate.

      Hence all the advertising, marketing, branding...

       

    • Re:Newsflash! (Score:2, Funny)

      by Ucklak ( 755284 )
      I'd like to know where you can get a burger for a buck at any Mickey Property.
      Their Ice Cream bars alone are $3 and we paid $8 a pop for the cheap burgers in TommorrowLand.
      For my money though, the Captain America burger is much better at Universal.
      • Mickey D's is a nickname for "McDonald's". It comes from the "Mc D's" shortening that was eventually "cutsified" (hey, I invented a word!) into "Mickey D's".
    • But seriously, why wouldn't they be more expensive?
      You get a much, much nicer end product.

      Do you?

      For 90% of the population in the USA, you don't get a nicer product. These are the people with standard definition TVs. They've got no reason at all to spend the extra dollars on HD-BLU-DVD-RAY.

      For the other 10%

      The crucial "early adopters" who pay the big bucks and have esoteric systems are going to have problems, many of them still have non-HDCP displays. These guys are likely to be pissed about being left

    • Re:Newsflash! (Score:4, Insightful)

      by rAiNsT0rm ( 877553 ) on Thursday February 09, 2006 @02:22PM (#14679648) Homepage
      Except you miss the point of "Perceived" value. That $1 burger at McD is prolly worth close to a dollar, that $10 burger at Outback is prolly only really worth about $2.50... but the perception is that it is worth more through marketing and hype. Same for BMW, and the rest of your list.

      The cause for a bit of thought here is that there is no real perceived value to 98% of America and abroad who have not adopted nor will adopt HD for another 10 years when it is supposedly mandated but will continue to be pushed back as it has so far. If everyone owned HD gear and there were no HD media, then people would pay $40+ for a Blu-Ray... but that isn't the case and the natural reaction will be exactly the reactions seen here.

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Thursday February 09, 2006 @01:09PM (#14678741)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Movies haven't followed the same pattern as music. VHS got really cheap when DVDs became popular. DVDs are already becoming pretty cheap even before an alternative format is released. You can get movies as low as $5.00. Sure they're old movies, but I don't think you could get any DVD for under $25 when the format first became popular.
    • What does a blue ray disk offer to a consumer that a DVD doesn't? If a DVD can provide 480i quality full length movies, why should I pay double for the same thing on a new disk that I have to buy a new player for?

      Nah, prices will come down because they will have to compete against standard DVDs for quite a few years (until HD TV penetration gets significantly higher).

      Right now they are on bleeding edge prices. Just like DVDs when they were new. I paid $160 for a DVD Player drive in 98, and $20+ for 'The Cro

    • Re:Shocking prediction. (Score:5, Informative)

      by shark72 ( 702619 ) on Thursday February 09, 2006 @02:04PM (#14679452)

      "They'll claim that in time, the price to the consumer will come down. (See also: "The history of compact disc pricing")."

      For the benefit of our younger readers who might think CD prices have always been about the same: when I started buying them in 1984, I paid about $20 per CD, to play on my $250 CD player.

      That's the equivalent of a $37 CD playing on a $460 CD player, kids!

      By comparison, in 2003 the average price of a new CD was $13.42 [boycott-riaa.com], and by the end of 2004, it was down to $12.95. In other words, CD prices have fallen by 2/3 in the time I've been buying them. I wish I could say the same thing about clothes, food and gas.

      The point is: just be glad you were born in the 80's or 90's. You're paying 66% less for CDs than I was at your age, and if you happen to be a fan of P2P, you can get all the music you want for free. The other point is that people who try to tell you that CD prices haven't gone down are, quite simply, lying to you.

  • not surprising ... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by jest3r ( 458429 ) on Thursday February 09, 2006 @01:09PM (#14678742)
    Nothings cheap when its first released. I remember buying 1x blank CD's for $13 a long long time ago ... give it a couple years and prices will drop.
    • With a reliability rate of about 1 in 4!

      Blank DVDs £25 each. At least they tended to work.

      Want my prediction for the coming years?

      The price of blank media will fall, and its capacity and quality shall rise.

      Do I get my award now? Or a job in journalism?
      I've got more:

      CPU power will rise, but at a different rate to now.
      Storage capacity of home PCs will continue to outgrow actual usage.
      And for the finale':
      People will carry around devices that allow them to both talk to and see other people, even if they a

  • Hitch! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Radres ( 776901 ) on Thursday February 09, 2006 @01:10PM (#14678757)
    I can't wait to watch Hitch in High-Def! This type of movie is the exact reason why I bought an HDTV!!!
    • Yup, Eva Mendes in HD! Anyone know when the 2 Fast 2 Furious disc is coming out?

  • Adult Film (Score:5, Interesting)

    by SchrodingersRoot ( 943800 ) on Thursday February 09, 2006 @01:10PM (#14678758) Journal
    Judging from the wholesale price, I can only imagine that the retail price will be minimum of $30, depending on how high demand ends up. More likely $40-45, at least for new releases. Store cost for most DVDs when I worked at Circuit City was around $1-3 below retail, and it's been 10 years since DVD spec v1.0.

    I don't have an HD-TV quite yet, since I haven't had to buy a TV in years, but I'm not sure I'll be willing to buy these movies at these prices, had I one. Especially not until there's a much bigger library than the 50ish that are apparently expected this year.

    The real measure of success for the nextgen optical media will likely be the adult film industry (in addition to video game consoles). Everyone talks about gaming, but it would appear that there's going to be a pretty deep divide in consoles.

    And Blu-Ray very well may be the winner [avn.com] in the adult film realm.

    The adult film maker Digital Playground, which claims to control 40 percent of the US adult DVD market and is reported to have sales of $12.6bn in 2005, today told Adult Video News (AVN) that they've decided to support the Blu-ray format and release movies as soon as hardware becomes available.
    • Actually, the next generation of video will be challenging for porn. You'll have enough resolution to see every pimple on every methhead pornslut's ass. They're going to have to do a lot of preprocessing they didn't have to do before to smooth 'em out. Actually, this is a problem with DVD, too; a lot of women who looked great naked on VHS look terrible on DVD.

  • Move On Nothing To See (Score:3, Insightful)

    by masterpenguin ( 878744 ) on Thursday February 09, 2006 @01:10PM (#14678760)
    What a surprise sony's upping the cost of movies. Perhaps if we're lucky they'll add some new and improved root kit that opens more holes in our systems. Seriously, sonys stratagy is: up price, make everyone rebuy everything for 3 times the price they paid before, screw consumers with stealth software. Yep. Nothing to see.
    • Seriously, sonys stratagy is: up price, make everyone rebuy everything for 3 times the price they paid before, screw consumers with stealth software.

      Or maybe when a corporation is large the people that decide which DRM goes into their music aren't the same people wearing lab coats trying to bring people technology which makes their lives better and easier. :rolls eyes:

      Nah, that almost makes it sound like they aren't an evil-money-grubbing-out-to-cut-your-throat-rape-y o ur-wife-and-steal-your-belongin

  • In Other News: (Score:4, Funny)

    by acid_zebra ( 552109 ) <acidzebra.gmail@com> on Thursday February 09, 2006 @01:10PM (#14678761) Homepage Journal
    Blu-ray Discs Won't Be Bought.
    • My thoughts exactly. Considering that quality won't initially be there until after new releases start to come out, why on earth would anyone want to run out and adopt Blu-Ray? I love a high-quality show, but honestly, I am thinking that I am going to wait and see who wins the battle. If I have to buy a new TV, a new DVD player, and then pay out the nose for DVD's, why would I want to adopt Blu-Ray early especially when it is going to battle it out with HD-DVD?

      The other thing I am wondering about is what wil
    • Kind of like HDTVs.

      $400 for an 27" HDTV monitor with no tuner.
      $150 for a comparable 27" analog.

      Those are actual best in-store prices after a day of shopping...there's always someone who has a link to show that there's an HDTV for $xxx cheaper than what I listed, but I couldn't have walked out of a store with it that day so it's not really relevant.

      Two months ago I bought an analog TV because it was cost effective. I have absolutely nothing in my entertainment center that justifies spending $250 more on a TV
    • And the MPAA will blame it on the Evil Content Pirates(tm), thereby demanding even more laws to protect their income.

  • Solution to expensive DVDs (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Colin Smith ( 2679 ) on Thursday February 09, 2006 @01:12PM (#14678785)
    Don't buy them...

     

  • Summary drops some relevant info (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Miraba ( 846588 ) on Thursday February 09, 2006 @01:14PM (#14678827) Journal
    According to TFA, new titles will receive the $23.45 wholesale price. Older (ie less popular) titles will have a $17.95 wholesale price.
    • In other words, the premium for new movies will be close to the cost of the movie on DVD.

      The price seems way too high to make it in the mass market. Anyone that buys one of these things is going to look like a gearhead/idiot when you can get 99% of the quality for a third of the price on DVD.

  • Great Strategy (Score:3, Funny)

    by rothic ( 596907 ) on Thursday February 09, 2006 @01:17PM (#14678859)
    Great strategy. Switch up the format every decade or so and obsolete the old hardware so that people have to keep buying the same movie over and voer again if they want tomaintain a viewable collection.

    On another note, I still buy VHS every chance I get. At least when a HVS tape gets a little worn out it just keeps on going with some blips and squiggly lines instead of just.......stopping and displaying a "Can't Read" error.
    • That is why we are supposed to be able to legally make backup copies of what we buy. A right DRM is taking away from us forcing us to repurchase what we already bought. Kind of odd, with software you buy it is a license to use not an actual purchase, which means if you lose the CD's with the DRM on it and you cannot play the game anymore is the game manufacturer required to supply you with another? You purchased a license to use the software but they made it so you cannot use it without the CD. With the DRM

  • HD-DVD vs Blu-Ray (Score:4, Informative)

    by FalconZero ( 607567 ) * <FalconZero@Gm[ ].com ['ail' in gap]> on Thursday February 09, 2006 @01:17PM (#14678863)
    I should point out that "Sony Blu-Ray HD DVDs" is probabyly a bad phrase to use, as the main competetor to 'Blu-Ray' is 'HD-DVD' (Yes, HD applies to Blu-Ray too).
    With regard to the competition, ZDNet has coverage [zdnet.com] of Blu-Rays expected cost compared to HD-DVD based on the retooling cost, which experts expect could be up to $1 billion worldwide for Blu-Ray, and one tenth of that for HD-DVD (Which relies on pretty simmilar technology to existing DVDs).

    One other point which may help out HD-DVD is the materiel cost. HD-DVD uses the the same materiels as DVD, whereas Blu-Ray uses a "high-tech film layer currently produced only by Sony."

    What might be most damaging for Blu-Ray however, is Microsoft's direct support for HD-DVD. They've already announced that Longhorn will support HD-DVD, and the XBox360 will be recieving an HD-DVD addon. (Its in various news sources that I won't ref here).

    This may be a Betamax type thing where the technically superiour device doesn't win due to corporate activity.

    Obligitory wikipedia links:
    Blu-Ray [wikipedia.org]
    HD DVD [wikipedia.org]
    Betamax [wikipedia.org]
  • $23.45? Ars Technica [arstechnica.com] is saying the price will be from $23 to $39 for consumers, with newer releases tagged with the latter one. They'd better offer something major for me to be interested in paying that much.
  • I can't wait to watch these along with my SACD and DVD-A discs!

    Oh wait, I don't have any SACD or DVD-A discs. I do have a couple of DTS CDs, but I've had those for six or seven years.

  • So it's $24 or so wholesale. What is the price going to be when it hits Best Buy? IIRC, movies, CDs, and games get a big markup so they make a lot of profit (hence the prices we have today.) So I'm guessing it will be about $30 or so for a new DVD. This really isn't too bad if you're into bleeding edge technology, until you bring in the price of a Blu-Ray player (which was, what, $1500?). Alternatively, you could get a PS3, which will only set you back somewhere between $300 and $500.

    How will this affect PS

  • Who is talking about Blu-Ray? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by m93 ( 684512 ) on Thursday February 09, 2006 @01:24PM (#14678958)


    Only the Slashdot and like-minded crowd, that's for sure. Average Joe movie-watcher on the street knows nothing about Blu-Ray. When the DVD came along to be the next big format, it was quite clear to the consumer what the difference was between it and VHS. In this case the lines are a bit more blurry. Let's put it this way; I can explain to and show my 48 year old uncle why he might want to start watching DVD's instead of VHS; i'll have a much harder time telling him why he wants to buy a Blu-Ray movie as opposed to a cheaper DVD of the same title.

  • So what? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by The Rabid Panda ( 951579 )

    Bring me any consumer technology which doesn't have a higher price point when it first hits the public, and then lowers when demand increased. Let's try an easy one: DVD's. I got my player in 1998 and almost every DVD on the market cost upwards of $30. Did I still buy them? Yes! Why? Better resolution, amazing sound, no annoying tape winding, rewinding to find the spot I left off at!!!

    Seriously, even if Blu-Ray DVD's hit the consumer market at $30-40, people will STILL be buying them. There is a WHOLE

    • Do I want an entire season on one blue ray disk for $80 or an entire season on six DVD's for $45?

      The DVD's I can rip to DIVX AVI's- put an entire season on one DVD and take that on the road in my portable Toshiba DVD player that plays AVI's.

      Seriously- high quality HD format entire season on one DVD.

      If my copy gets destroyed (as one disk did during the trip), I just reburn it.
      If my blue ray disk is destroyed, stolen, or apparently even gets a minor scratch in the wrong place- I LOSE EVERYTHING.

      No thanks.

      ---
      P
  • Sony's wholesale price of $23.45 for Blu-ray discs is 56 percent more than the $14.99 it costs to buy a new DVD of Hitch from BestBuy.com. A Terminator DVD is available for $9.99.

    DVDs have been around since 1996 in Japan and 1997 in the US (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD/ [wikipedia.org]). Though I can't find the prices at which DVDs were originally released I'm sure most were more than $10. Note that Sony is not giving a suggested retail price. The company is letting the market determine that.

    • Re:Prices (Score:4, Interesting)

      by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Thursday February 09, 2006 @01:29PM (#14679026) Homepage Journal
      When VHS was still hot, a new release might cost as much as $80. DVD brought that down to about $40 at first IIRC and now it's sunk to about $25. I suspect this new format will dick around at $40 for a while and then come down to $25 a year or two later.

      • Re:Prices (Score:4, Informative)

        by tuffy ( 10202 ) on Thursday February 09, 2006 @01:41PM (#14679180) Homepage Journal
        When VHS was still hot, a new release might cost as much as $80.

        VHS movies had a rental window when they'd be sold to Blockbuster-style outfits for $80+ for a few months before dropping to $20-30 for everyone else to buy. DVDs never had rental pricing; they started at around $20-30 and went down from there as they got old and/or new "special editions" arrived on the shelves. I don't recall either format having an obscene initial cost for general consumption.

  • doesn't seem wise (Score:3, Interesting)

    by iknowrobocop ( 934493 ) on Thursday February 09, 2006 @01:26PM (#14678981)

    Fully understanding that new/better technology is traditionally more expensive than old/lesser technology, I think this is a poor decision. If the next-gen dvds were marketed at a price closer to that of current-gen dvds, adoption would catch on quicker ("Why not pay $2 more?") and the format war would seem less important. As is, you're paying a huge entry fee to get into one of the two next-gen formats, then getting shafted again in price comparison to current generation dvds. Is the quality worth the extra $10-$15 bucks per dvd AND the price of the player? Not to me; not to many, i would guess.

    Maybe I'm wrong, but I know that I would be more willing to adopt a format in speculation of the final winner if the prices weren't so much more than current dvds.

  • This Will Go Down Like CDs Did (Score:5, Insightful)

    by eno2001 ( 527078 ) on Thursday February 09, 2006 @01:30PM (#14679028) Homepage Journal
    And I'm not talking about prices going down here. Consider this:

    In 1984 I could buy a brand new record with up to 40 minutes of music for $7.00. When CDs first came out they were around $36.00 a pop for the same album at my local retailers. Of course people griped saying "how are we ever going to afford to buy those"? But then the prices dropped until you could buy the same 40 minute album on a brand new CD for $15.00 in 1988. Since then the average price of CDs has gone up and you are typically paiying $19-21 per new CD. Of course none of the arguments that the industry used at the time ("we need to make up for the cost of retooling from making records to making CDs") hold any water today. They're just greedy fuckers. But, the buying public, while they might moan and groan about it are still going to pay the price when they want the latest pap that and RIAA conjured "artist" puts out. There is one thing missing in the original CD Audio spec. DRM.

    Enter BluRay and other DRM controlled forms of media. After reading the Slashdot article on CableCard and DCAS the other day (end-to-end encryption for cable television), you better believe devices to play HD DVDs will be no different. Not only will you be completely lubed up and owned by the MPAA, but if you really want to watch their products you'll have to pay the money they ask. No matter how high or unfair the pricing. Welcome to corporate fascism. The price today might be in the $25.00 neighborhood. They'll say, "we need to amortize our investment in this new technology and then the prices will come down as the market grows". And the prices will go down temporarily. But in ten year's time, you'll be paying $30 a disc and likely will just accept it instead of raging at these assholes like I do.

    Now, add to this element that the only people who read Slashdot that count (in my book) are the so-called hobbyists... and that we are targetted as "undesirable crackpots", well you see where this is going. The funny thing is that there was a time in America when the guy who built his own electronic equipment at home was looked at as a neighborhood hero or potential "genius". Today, we're looked at like the Unabomber. We're told by these corporations and their brainwashed customers, "Why don't you just do what any other normal person does and just buy a damn HD DVD player fer christ sakes"! We do't want to do this because the commercial products are typically lacking in base functionality that we would prefer to have. For example, you SHOULD be able to skip the advertisting at the beginning of the DVD and get straight to the film. However, the MPAA doesn't want you doing that so commercial players aren't supposed to be able to do this. It's not a technical limitation (although they might try to make it seem like one), it's an artificial limitation calculated to benefit them. And it's unfair. Fortunately, players like Xine and MPlayer allow you to bypass these tracks altogether since they usually add nothing to your viewing experience. That's just a single example of the crippling that the MPAA forces on consumer devices. And it's only going to get worse.
    • "Welcome to corporate fascism."

      You've really got a lot of rage working there. Just FYI, nobody's FORCING you to buy Hitch on DVD. The great thing is, you get to choose - if you don't think $30+/disc is worth it, you DON'T HAVE TO BUY IT. Jackbooted thugs from Sony are not going to break into your home at 2AM, grab $35 from your wallet, and force you, a la Clockwork Orange, to watch Hitch.

      I wish a lot of things were cheaper - I try not to translate that wish into hatred of those who won't sell them to me

  • I think I'll wait (Score:3, Insightful)

    by NorbrookC ( 674063 ) on Thursday February 09, 2006 @01:39PM (#14679165) Journal

    Let's see if I get this right. I'm going to pay more money for a DVD that I can only play in a player that will cost $1800. Yeah, right. Oh, and it may not end up being the generally acceptable format? Ooookay!

    I've got a better idea! Why don't I just sit here and wait? That's right, I'm going to wait about five or so years. That way, the price will have dropped on the players, and the battle over formats will have settled out. I figure I can somehow struggle along without having seen the movies you're releasing in this format, probably because...well... I've already seen them.

    This is yet another repetition of the past. A NEW! HOT! TECHNOLOGY! which is supposed to IMPROVE! our ENTERTAINMENT! EXPERIENCE!. Ok, fine. But.. um, we have a couple of different formats and the prices are enormous! Betamax/VHS. DVD/VHS. Players running around one to two grand. Been there, done that, got the t-shirts. What I've learned is that there's no rush. Wait. Prices will come down on players. Format types will standardize. You won't feel scre^H^H^H^Hvictimized by the manufacturers/retailers.

  • Netflix (Score:5, Interesting)

    by interiot ( 50685 ) on Thursday February 09, 2006 @01:41PM (#14679186) Homepage
    So... 1) Netflix will probably have to charge a higher monthly fee for people who want HD discs, and 2) for companies like Netflix, HD is going to make them a ton of money.
  • The developers are going to have to recoup their development costs and as competition increases price wars will ensue.

    I remember how expensive CD's and CD players were at first, too. You will pay a premium for being an early adopter. For everyone else it means that non blue ray DVD's will drop in price.

  • So why can't I trade in my DVDs? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by seigniory ( 89942 ) <bigfriggin@@@me...com> on Thursday February 09, 2006 @01:47PM (#14679258)
    Serious question here -

    I recall one of the biggest arguments against P2P sharing of movies, music, etc. is that I don't "own" the content - I license it. If I license the content by owning a copy of "Movie A" on DVD, why is it that I have to buy another license of "Movie A" on Blu-Ray at full price, instead of just the price of the new media?

    In the licensing model this makes sense, but it's not going to be available. The "ownership" model would support having to purchase new content when the format changes, but then I'd technically be able to put it on P2P or back it up to my HD, no?

    Why the catch-22?
    • I think your argument would be valid if what was coming out on Blue-Ray was the exact same collection of VOB files that existed on the current DVD.

      But it's not; on the Blue-Ray disc you get the high definition version of the movie and this is a different product.

      The reverse question makes some sense, though -- if you buy a Blue Ray of some movie and it is otherwise identical content-wise to the DVD version of the same movie, shouldn't you be entitled to get a DVD copy of the movie for the cost of the media,

  • The price is no surprise... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by aibrahim ( 59031 ) <slashmail AT zenera DOT com> on Thursday February 09, 2006 @02:03PM (#14679440) Homepage Journal
    it is basic economics.

    Right now, people are clamoring for HD content, and these movies are really the first taste. There is a HUGE demand relative to the available supply.

    I am utterly unsurprised at this pricing. It means we can expect retail prices about double DVD's for some time. The only good news there is that DVD prices will continue to fall as HD movies see increased competition and lower their prices.

    This will continue until two things happen:
    1. The HD format war is settled
    2. There are enough movies available so that simply being Blue-Ray HD isn't worthy of attention.

    This will allow volume effects to occur that allow for pricing reductions. Until then studio's will make more money from their "outdated" DVD sales pipeline than they could possibly generate from HD movies.

    So, give it a year or so. When there are a few million PS3's out there with BD-ROM's and people use them for watching movies (like they do PS2) then prices will tumble.

    Since I am in a predictive mood, I'll say that we'll get price breaks on per movie costs when we have two or more studios with 100+ titles released in HD format. We'll start to approach current DVD pricing when we have four or more studios with 1000+ titles available for purchase, and there are 200+ TV series for sale.

    If you think that is unreasonable drop by a Best Buy and count the number of titles they have on display.

    As an additional side effect, there will be a point when HD discs "take over" the market from SD video. WHen that happens DVD prices will tumble well below what we have seen VHS prices drop to- because DVD is much cheaper than VHS to replicate on a per disc basis. You can make a profit at retail on a $5 DVD, but you can't on a $5 VHS.

    Unlike the RIAA which depends on you buying a pice of music you are going to listen to time and again, the film industry depends on you buying LOTS of content you use infrequently and continuing to buy more and more. As a result of this difference the film/video folk will drive prices down for older products to clear inventory so they can get new product out the door.

    Remember that with time you'll be able to make a profit at retail on a $5 BD-ROM, so they have no qualms about dropping prices. They have already seen the value of volume sales.

  • Price of Blu-Ray starts at $17.95 (Score:3, Informative)

    by doctor_no ( 214917 ) on Thursday February 09, 2006 @02:38PM (#14679836)
    The price of Blu-ray wholsales for $17.95 (which is the same price as when DVDs first launched), the $23.45 price point is for new-releases only.

    Being that the average profit for large retailer for DVDs is ~$4, I would expect Blu-ray disks to cost $20-$25 catalog titles, and $25-30 for new-releases depending on how agressively the retailer is trying to sell them. Many retailers (BestBuy, Walmart, etc) also also sell them close to cost to bring foot traffic into their stores.

    IMHO, seems like a resonable price for 1080p movies, the title of this thread should really say "Blu-ray Discs Won't Be Cheap (but not that expensive either)"

    Also correction for Zonk, the poster of this thread.

    >>Movies like "Hitch" and "Terminator 2", etc. are catalog releases, and won't be sold wholesale at $23.95.

    >>Also, for the statement "forthcoming price of Sony Blu-Ray HD DVDs", Blu-ray isn't HD-DVD. They are different formats.

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