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This topic comprises 4 pages: 1 2 3 4
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Author
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Topic: HiDef DVD is price prohibitive? (and other surprising facts)
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Mike Blakesley
Film God
Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 03-16-2006 07:51 PM
THis is from the IMDB Studio Briefing. Link
Video Distributor Says Hi-Def DVD Format Is "Price Prohibitive"
Image Entertainment, which distributes classic movies on home video, is likely to hold off releasing such films on high-definition DVDs. Martin Greenwald, the company's president and CEO, told an investors conference in Las Vegas that the cost of mastering high-definition discs is currently price prohibitive for companies like his. As reported by Home Media Retailing magazine, Greenwald said that at a meeting with Sony execs in Japan about Sony's Blu-ray format, he learned that mastering costs would be $40,000 per movie versus $2,000 for a standard DVD. Each disc would cost $2.00, twice as much as a conventional DVD. "We have to wait until that price point comes down to a level that actually works for us," Greenwald remarked.
(end article)
So from this we learn that it only costs $2000 to master a conventional DVD, and a paltry ONE DOLLAR for each disk, when they sell for around $20 each. If this is true, I wonder why there isn't full-scale bitch-fest like the one that's constantly plaguing the music industry about CD prices.
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David Stambaugh
Film God
Posts: 4021
From: Eugene, Oregon
Registered: Jan 2002
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posted 03-16-2006 08:50 PM
quote: Mike Blakesley
costs $2000 to master a conventional DVD
Maybe, if there are NO extras, no frills at all, and you don't care about the transfer quality.
quote: Mike Blakesley
a paltry ONE DOLLAR for each disk, when they sell for around $20 each
And movie theaters "make" $3.75 on each $4.00 tub of popcorn they sell. ![[Wink]](wink.gif)
The mfg. cost of the stamped media, when produced in high volume, is very low. Now add in the packaging, marketing, royalties, and probably 3 levels of markup (manufacturer ==> distributor ==> retailer ==> consumer), and you easily have a $20 retail price. When I worked for a personal computer manufacturer, the rule of thumb was the retail price had to be a minimum of 3 times the "burdened" cost of manufacturing the product, or it would end up unprofitable.
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 03-16-2006 11:34 PM
quote: Mike Blakesley
If this is true, I wonder why there isn't full-scale bitch-fest like the one that's constantly plaguing the music industry about CD prices.
1. You get a lot more for your money with DVD Videos than music CD.
2. For some odd reason, prices on music CDs hardly drop. As Mark stated, DVD prices fall. After about six months or so, a $20 disc will fall to $14. In another few months you'll have it for under $10. A little later you might find it for $7.50 or even $5. Old music CDs never seem to do that.
For instance, I bought two CDs a couple weekends ago. One was the new CD from The Strokes, the other was a Foo Fighters CD I was replacing (the Color and Shape). That freakin' album was released 9 years ago yet I paid just as much for it as that new Strokes album. The music purchase cost me $33 at Best Buy. I could have snagged two new release DVDs for the same money.
Back to the HD-disc thing.
High mastering costs are one issue. Consumers being extremely turned off by restrictive hardware functions is another issue.
I know some in this forum have heard the news this week about the Playstation 3 launch being pushed back to November -mainly because of Blu-Ray issues. Other experts point to high component costs, stating a PS3 unit could cost Sony more in parts prices than Apple has to spend to build an iMac. Wow.
Hollywood studios are now apparently having some second thoughts about the functions of AACS and restrictions of HD-quality signals passing only through HDCP-compliant DVI and HDMI connectors. Fox has come and stated it doesn't want to support that feature on their Blu-Ray releases. Other studios are voicing concerns about it as well. The studios have not said why they are concerned. But perhaps it could be from market research showing there is a LOT of HDTV sets in the marketplace lacking HDCP compliant digital connections. That may equal a LOT of customers sticking with regular DVD instead of upgrading. Warner Home Video is the only studio holding strongly to the view of restricting HD quality video signals only to HDCP protected digital connections.
Meanwhile, lots of HDMI-equipped HDTV sets have no ability to receive a 1080p quality signal from a HD-disc player or Playstation 3.
There's lots of good reasons to sit on the fence regarding HDTV for at least the next several months to maybe a year or more until all these business people can get their shit together.
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Evans A Criswell
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1579
From: Huntsville, AL, USA
Registered: Mar 2000
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posted 03-24-2006 03:13 PM
About going to the movies not being special anymore: The main reason I rarely go to the movies any more is that the theatre experience has largely lost its luster. Going to see at least one movie every couple of weeks was something I looked forward to tremendously until about a year and a half ago, then I mostly stopped caring. The only time I go any more is if a friend wants to go. I've had a free ticket for "Pink Panther" in my car for a couple of months and haven't used it. That's unheard of for me -- to miss a chance to go to the movies for free?!
I'm seeing fewer movies in theatres than ever, mainly due to the tacky ads and less attention paid to presentation quality than ever before. People in theatres seem ruder and more distracting than ever -- children making noise, people kicking seats, letting cell phones ring and talking on them, and even talking to each other during the movie. I've foudn that as I've gotten older, my bladder just won't hold for an entire movie like it used to and I find that getting up to run to the restroom at least once is a necessity if I've eaten a meal and had a full glass of tea any time within an hour or so of the start of the movie. I miss a couple of minutes when I do that.
At home, I can, with friends, watch a DVD on a wide screen that looks great (sometimes better than the shoddy presentations I occasionally encounter in the theatre). Yeah, 35mm should always beat DVD, but it doesn't, not because the 35mm medium isn't capable, but because the sound systems often don't play in digital and play in analog on neglected, miscalibrated systems, or drop in and out of digital frequently. No attention seems to be given to having a properly aimed projector with a properly cut aperture plate with proper masking stops, and having a nice bright evenly-lit, in-focus image on the screen, or getting the image properly in-frame (for flat films).
With DVD, I can stop the movie, back it up a little to re-hear unclear dialogue (and even turn subtitles on for a minute if needed), pause the movie to go to the restroom or for any other needed reason, adjust the volume to my liking on a system I've calibrated myself, and view the image on a set I've calibrated properly with test patterns.
Movie tickets are too high and there is too much advertising in theatres. For the price of a friend and I going to the theatre, I can buy a DVD that can be controlled and played as much as I like, when I like.
As for High-Def DVD -- unless it's just as convenient as DVD currently is -- it won't fly. My set has component inputs, like most currently-installed HDTVs. Not being able to get 1080i out of a a high-def DVD player is criminal and I will not buy any such device until I have a TV with their special connector, which won't be until that TV goes bad on me.
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 03-24-2006 03:46 PM
With the HD-DVD and Blu-Ray formats nearing launch, studios are clearly seeing just how badly certain features of those formats are being received by the public.
More articles are now appearing that show studios are backing away from a number of unpopular features that were to be mandatory for the HD-movie disc formats.
The AACS group is now saying no HD-DVD or Blu-Ray player will require an Internet connection for operation. The only time an Internet connection may be required is if a disc uses certain "managed copy" features, where the user would validate his disc with a movie studio clearing house before making a copy to his computer hard drive or streaming content to another device.
There also seems to be more strength in the push to make HD-DVD and Blu-Ray allow HD-quality video on standard component video cables for backward compatibility with a few million HDTV monitors in the marketplace.
When one considers the overall lackluster quality in both the concept and execution of most movies these days, it makes little sense for the studios to have militant attitudes toward copy protection. If there is little to no value in the movie, why protect it? It would seem more important to produce movies the public even gives a shit about in the first place.
That also seems pretty clear to the studios. They know they've been feeding the public the same old flavor of regurged swill for a long time. And it is pure hell to have a backlog of that kind of stink when you're wanting to launch a new generation of video playback formats. In that regard, HD-DVD and Blu-Ray are clearly starting off at a terrible disadvantage compared to DVD. When DVD-V was launched in 1997, it had a much more impressive pool of recent films on which to draw for sales.
quote: Evans A Criswell
Not being able to get 1080i out of a a high-def DVD player is criminal and I will not buy any such device until I have a TV with their special connector, which won't be until that TV goes bad on me.
You'll be able to get 1080i, at least from some movies, across component video cables. Warner Bros. appears to be the lone holdout demanding HD-quality content be restricted to HDCP compliant digital connections.
Blu-Ray and HD-DVD will both output 720p and 1080i signals. The first generation of discs will be encoded for either of those formats, and probably 1080p as well. The folks who want 1080p output (myself included) may have to wait several months after initial launch for such capable players to appear.
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