Panasonic, Philips, Sony Vow Cheaper Blu-ray

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Panasonic, Philips and Sony today claim that their plans to create a single licensing firm for Blu-ray discs will make the cost of a license at least 40% cheaper. If those savings are passed on to the consumer, we could see cheaper Blu-ray players in the future. Who knew it was so complicated to get a license in the first place?

In examples of licensing, the partners expect a license to cost $9.50 for a read-only Blu-ray device and $14 for a burner. Discs will cost 11 cents for read-only discs, 12 cents for write-once BD-Rs and 15 cents for rewritable BD-RE discs.
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Good news for us blu-ray owners I guess. I'd kill for a burner, but the discs are just so expensive.
 
You know, I'd gladly trade cheap blank Blu-ray media for cheap Blu-ray new releases and quality players (that work right). $30 for a movie is just too much. Hell, even Hollywood might be happy if we bought more movies and didn't have a way to burn them to disk!
 
You know what would be funny? If Toshiba made sub $90 Blu-ray players like they did with their HD-DVD player. Now that would cause a furor among the Blu-ray consortium.
 
Great. Lower prices can allways help people to make the high def switch to blu-ray.
 
Azhar said:
You know what would be funny? If Toshiba made sub $90 Blu-ray players like they did with their HD-DVD player. Now that would cause a furor among the Blu-ray consortium.
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The only reason why HD-DVD players were that cheap in the first place was because Toshiba had a sinking ship with a large inventory, so they dumped them cheap.
 
If the license fee is even $15 per player now - they could get rid of the fee and it's still going to be an expensive player - $15.
 
Imagine if every cd or dvd you burned you had to pay a license for using that format... or hell you had to pay that when you bought blank media! I don't get it.
 
sfsuphysics said:
Imagine if every cd or dvd you burned you had to pay a license for using that format... or hell you had to pay that when you bought blank media! I don't get it.
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Ummm... I bet you would be shocked if I told you we already do pay for CD's and DVD's including blanks. We also pay fees to the RIAA/MPAA groups for every blank we buy.
 
You know, 2x 25gb write once media is available for about $3.80 which isn't bad. Cheaper is always better though and yes the movies are way too expensive.
 
Ockie said:
Ummm... I bet you would be shocked if I told you we already do pay for CD's and DVD's including blanks. We also pay fees to the RIAA/MPAA groups for every blank we buy.
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Well I wouldn't be THAT shocked in reality, however that amount we do pay is a pittance compared to what companies pay who put these things called "MOVIES" on DVDs.

I mean what's 100 cds cost nowadays? 2 bucks or something? How much are they really making off those.
 
Ockie said:
Ummm... I bet you would be shocked if I told you we already do pay for CD's and DVD's including blanks. We also pay fees to the RIAA/MPAA groups for every blank we buy.
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i think that the "CD Music" cd's and tapes like DAT/cassette etc had these fees... i think black CD/DVD's are considered computer media and dont have **aa taxes
 
Please stop repeating the garbage that blu ray discs cost 30 bucks.

I routinely pay 15-22 bucks for them on Amazon.com and with free shipping they come to my door with no tax, no shipping, no extra fees of any kind.

Slightly more than dvd, and you get what you pay for in better video and sound quality and a disc that doesnt scratch nearly as easy as a dvd
 
11 cents tax for license on a disc and yet they still cost $10 per disc? i smell PRICE FIXING.
 
choppedliver said:
Please stop repeating the garbage that blu ray discs cost 30 bucks.

I routinely pay 15-22 bucks for them on Amazon.com and with free shipping they come to my door with no tax, no shipping, no extra fees of any kind.

Slightly more than dvd, and you get what you pay for in better video and sound quality and a disc that doesnt scratch nearly as easy as a dvd
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show me a 50gb bd-r for <$22
 
choppedliver said:
Please stop repeating the garbage that blu ray discs cost 30 bucks.

I routinely pay 15-22 bucks for them on Amazon.com and with free shipping they come to my door with no tax, no shipping, no extra fees of any kind.

Slightly more than dvd, and you get what you pay for in better video and sound quality and a disc that doesnt scratch nearly as easy as a dvd
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I specifically said, "cheap new releases". ...which are typically priced (on Amazon) for around $25.99-$29.99.

...if I'm going to buy a movie, it's more than likely going to be something that's just coming out. $15-22 would be fine for a new release (and I mean new, not just re-released). Unfortunately, the majority of stuff for that price has been out forever and a day already. Iron Man and Tropic Thunder are the only decent recent releases for the price ($18.99) that you've stated (that I know of).

Oddly enough, UK's Amazon site is even cheaper than what we pay in the US. I bought Planet Earth from the UK site and only paid $35 (yes, dollars and not pounds) including shipping and VAT to the US. ...plus, you get 5 discs in the UK version. It's $56 on Amazon US and only get 4 discs!

Anyways, if studios are fighting piracy, $9.99 is reasonable for a DVD new release and $14.99-$19.99 for a Blu-Ray. Any more and I'll stick to renting.
 
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