[DrPepper]

http://www.videostoremag.com/news/ht...rticle_id=8620

[DanDT]

Originally Posted by DrPepper

http://www.videostoremag.com/news/ht...rticle_id=8620

Yep, so now the panic striken boys thinking Bluray movies will cost much more than they should, will at last keep their rumours for themselves....

[Mr.D]

UK price £30... methinks.

[sbowler]

Me too.

It'll be interesting to see what Price HD-DVD come out at as I believe the manufacturing costs are lower than blu-ray. They've already got the cheaper hardware, if they bring out cheaper media as well it'll be bad news for the blu-ray camp.

[DanDT]

Originally Posted by robbroome

It'll be interesting to see what Price HD-DVD come out at as I believe the manufacturing costs are lower than blu-ray. They've already got the cheaper hardware, if they bring out cheaper media as well it'll be bad news for the blu-ray camp.

Yeah, till PS3 comes out at a cheaper price point, and gets 5 times the userbase of HDDVD in less than a week.

[Evil Engineer]

Originally Posted by Mr.D

UK price £30... methinks.

A five pound premium over the list price of the standard DVD doesn't sound unreasonable to me.

A lot of two disc editions have list prices of £25 but nobody pays that these days.

I reckon that by the time Mr.Amazon has done his magic we will be paying about £22 to £24.

I also think that the "more expensive" replication costs will have almost no impact on the retail prices of BDs compared to HD-DVDs. By the time you've factored in distribution, the studio's cut, the retailer's cut and Gordon Brown's cut you could double the actual cost to make the physical disc and it would probably still only amount to a quid extra.

[stevekale]

Why would you ever buy the disks in the UK?

[Miniholic]

Originally Posted by Sony

“We believe in a free market.”

Originally Posted by DanDT

Yeah, till PS3 comes out at a cheaper price point, and gets 5 times the userbase of HDDVD in less than a week.

I love the smell of fanboyism in the morning!

[SAH]

Originally Posted by robbroome

I love the smell of fanboyism in the morning!

He does have a point though.

Now all we need is a 360 with integrated HD-DVD ready for Christmas 2006.

[Wasabi]

A more detailed (not much more though) analysis at tomshardware, regarding Sony strategy

http://www.tgdaily.com/2006/02/08/so...lesale_prices/

Wasabi

[Evil Engineer]

Originally Posted by stevekale

Why would you ever buy the disks in the UK?

It depends on how the market develops.

When I first got a DVD player almost all of my discs came from America, six months earlier, with better features and for £5 less than the UK edition.

But now almost all of my discs come from Amazon.co.uk or Play.com. It's increasingly rare for the R1 disc to be significantly better than R2, the release dates are often simultaneous (so R2 would arrive first) and the price barely differs once postage from the US has been added.

The one notable recent exception is the Lost box set. The same money for half a season on R2? No thanks.

We could well be back to the "good old days" with HD discs. But we still don't where we stand with Regional Coding for Bluray in particular. Let's hope they see sense and either drop it or use a token system that's easily hacked.

[richard plumb]

HD DVD had already announced prices identical to these bluray ones. Sony have just pressed whatever buttons necessary to match the so-called 'cheaper' discs.

lets face it, manufacturing is a tiny part of the retail price, so Sony can absorb that short term to get support until replication prices go down.

[1080 jawbreaker]

the $500 saved on the HD-DVD players cost over Blurays will come in handy for a few titles

[rigman]

UK price £30... methinks

Who in their right mind would pay that price. £20 at most I think or else the format will die in the UK even with the PS3.

[Rasczak]

But we still don't where we stand with Regional Coding for Bluray in particular. Let's hope they see sense and either drop it or use a token system that's easily hacked.

The BluRay Association have stated that BluRay certainly can use Regional Coding - as per DVD it is an option for the disc producers and if most follow their standard def models then they will use it (at least for the latest titles). We also know what regions the world is to divided into:
- Region 1: North America and Japan
- Region 2: Europe
- Region 3: Rest of the world
We also know that regional coding is not part of AACS. What we don't know is whether regional coding forms part of BD+ protection and/or is a hardware implementation. Whatever it should be crackable as only AACS can adapt to hacking.

No region coding announcements have been made with respect to HD DVD since CES - where it was stated that the format would not have region coding. It would be useful to get clarification on the status of HD DVD coding though...

[stevekale]

We'll have to wait and see. Cracking region encoding is simply illegal. I'm surprised this forum encourages such discussion.

[Rasczak]

Cracking region encoding is simply illegal

Under which Act? Cracking region coding isn't illegal unless you are attempting to copy/reproduce material. And in some countries - such as Australia - Region coding DVD is illegal.

[Rob20]

Originally Posted by rigman

Who in their right mind would pay that price. £20 at most I think or else the format will die in the UK even with the PS3.

When a new format/product is released there are massive R&D costs that the companies involved will need to be recoup as quickly as possible. They know, (especially with new technology), there are always the propellerheads who must have the latest thing whatever the cost. This group will be prepared to pay a premium for products such as Blu-Ray or HD-DVD. I would be one of these people but don't have the finances for it. Though I probably do spend a disproportionate amount of my income on technologly and related products. Far more than friends or family. I'm the only person I know with a dvd recorder and HDTV for example.

For companies to maximise their profits they need to target specific groups of consumers over a products life cycle. Ideally they'd like to be able to charge people individually as this would provide them with their maximum theoretical profit. i.e. work out the maximum individual consumers would be prepared to pay.Tesco do this to a limted degree with their store cards. They monitor who buys what products before introducing a discount of 50p or so. They can then see which additional customers are now buying the product at the lower cost. When the price goes back up they maximise profitability by sending a 50p voucher only to the customers who weren't prepared to pay full price. The original customers go back to paying full price, but now the store have increased sales to this new group albeit at a lower profit margin. However, these are still additional sales. This will more than cover the 1p in every £ they supposedly give back to consumers. Back on topic, comapnies will start with the small group of enthusiasts who will pay a premium to have the product before everybody else, then they work their way down to the mainstream masses where price is more important. While £30 seems a lot to pay for a Blu-Ray movie, there will be a core group who will be prepared to pay this and more. Personally I think £25 rrp would be a fair price to pay. Still, with dvds ranging between £20-25 already, perhaps £30 for 1080p24 movies and 7.1 lossless sound isn't that unreasonable. If you have a £5k+ home cinema system, then £30 per disc probably isn't all that much relatively.

When dvd was released I felt £20 was too much to pay being a student and all. My decision to buy a dvd player in early 2001 was as much based on the ability to buy dvds discounted online or in 2 for 1 offers as it was the price of the hardware. The same will probably be true with Blu-Ray. Though no doubt I'll buy the odd £30 title to try out on my PS3.

[Evil Engineer]

Originally Posted by Rasczak

The BluRay Association have stated that BluRay certainly can use Regional Coding - as per DVD it is an option for the disc producers and if most follow their standard def models then they will use it (at least for the latest titles). We also know what regions the world is to divided into:
- Region 1: North America and Japan
- Region 2: Europe
- Region 3: Rest of the world
We also know that regional coding is not part of AACS. What we don't know is whether regional coding forms part of BD+ protection and/or is a hardware implementation. Whatever it should be crackable as only AACS can adapt to hacking.

This three region model for Bluray is just a RUMOUR that was passed arround the internet before Christmas. Without any official comment from the Bluray Assoc we just don't know whether it's right or wrong.

This "proposed" system makes absolutely no sense for the following reasons:

1. Why not stick with the DVD region numbers that everybody knows (and hates)?
2. Why is it okay for Japanesse consumes to buy American content but not Europeans?
3. Will the players be marked with two seperate region code symbols in Japan and won't this confuse people?
4. If the idea of regions in the first place is to protect revenues in different territories what logical reason is there for lumping two of the largest markets together?

Because of this I have tended to view it as internet nonsense along with the "HD-DVD to allow full rez analog outputs" stories that were floating around until the final AACS spec was announced. Of course, I could be wrong.

The last thing I read said that, when asked at CES, Pioneer stated that "nothing has been decided on regional coding". Of course this may just mean they don't want to tell us yet. But until we get the official announcement I think it still needs to be seen as an unknown.

The Bluray Assoc would be well advised to drop the whole idea. If HD-DVD is indeed region free this will drive hardware sales (if not software sales) massively in Europe. Also, if players need to be region free to comply with the law in Australia what's to stop the players or firmware making it to Europe?