BDA not licensing Blu-ray technology to Chinese manufacturers - Engadget HD
No cheap players for you!!
No cheap players for you!!
BDA not licensing Blu-ray technology to Chinese manufacturers
- Thread starter teamerickson
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They want to keep profits (read: prices) high for Blu-Ray. They don't want $30 or $50 players for sale at Wal-Mart so soon. However, it was those cheap players (along w/ major advantages over VHS) that made DVD such a smashing success.
It took several years after the advent of DVD that we saw any sub $100 players, let alone sub $50. We are only in year two of BD. In 2-4 years, if we don't see basic model players in the $99-$149 range, than there would be something to worry about as far as the future prospects for BD go. Also keep in mind what you actually get in a $30-$50 DVD player in terms of quality, features, and connectivity. Any future BD player will need to have an internet connection, HDMI with upconversion, capability to bitstream/pass all high-def audio formats, etc. That's a lot to ask for in $30 device by anyone's standards.
Remember Apex DVD players? They got in trouble because it turns out they did not pay the proper royalties for DVDs. The BD crowd is probably trying to be sure the players are all going to be properly licensed, they do not trust the Chinese manufacturers to pay up.
Capability to bitstream? What? The #1 Blu-Ray player of them all doesn't even bitstream high res audio. The first Sony and Pioneer players didn't even play CD's. Nearly everything is optional with Blu-Ray. Take the Sony BDP-S300. It doesn't bitstream, it doesn't decode Dolby TrueHD or DTS-MA internally and it doesn't even look good with that hideous blue bar along its face. However, it's still $350+ street. If you tell me that thing costs more than $120 to build I will ask you to pass it to the left. (You've had it enough.)
Internet connections are cheap. This is a 10 cent port to add to a circuit board. Add another 2 cents for the ASIC to control the ethernet port. Add another $5 for the 1GB of flash memory required for profile 2.0. The parts cost excuse is old and tired.
The difference between the Chinese and Japanese companies is that the Chinese companies have no problems accepting a profit of $1 to $2 per player if they can sell 500,00 players vs. that Japanese who want $50-100 per player regardless of the number of units.
