Expect DVD Chip Price Wars

prostoalex writes "With more companies developing the chips for DVD players the price wars might ensue. According to this DigiTimes report, 'Boosted by rising shipments, the higher price of DVD player single-chips is likely to push up the average chip price to US$9.56 in the fourth quarter from US$8.58 in the first half. However, the increasing number of chip suppliers also implies that a new price war may soon develop'. The predictions of DVD chips sales slowing down add to the expectations for price wars."

Comments

Re:Who's the largest consumer of DVD players?

[MtViewGuy]

Right now, the USA is probably the largest market for legal DVD players and discs.

There are two reasons for this: 1) the price of players have dropped dramatically--you can even now get 480p progressive scan DVD players for under US$200 nowadays; and 2) the price of DVD discs are still pretty reasonable (US$20 to US$30 for new releases, US$10 to US$15 for older releases).

Because the price of DVD discs are still reasonable, the incentive to pirate movies is still very low. DVD's very sharp picture quality is one reason why VCD's have never really taken off in the USA. Say what you want about the MPAA, but the fact that movie companies have pretty much followed Disney's sell-through policy for pre-recorded movies in the DVD market has actually discouraged movie piracy for the vast majority of computer users out there.

(meta) Illegal comments

[yerricde]

WTF is an "illegal" comment?

Given that Slashdot's servers are located in the United States of America, where all reasonable political speech is permitted, an "illegal" comment generally contains one or more of libel, copyright infringement (as in this case), or enticement to commit copyright infringement or access control circumvention (such as a link to non-Pigdog DeCSS software). Giving the secret code for a level select on one of these DVD chips may be considered such an illegal comment.