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Taiwanese Makers Will Squeeze DVD Recorder Prices

Posted by timothy on from the you-betcha dept.

GeXX points out this PC World article predicting vastly lower prices on DVD recorders, in large part because cheap, high-volume Taiwanese manufacturers will have a greater percentage of the market, currently dominated by Japanese makers.

25 of 102 comments (clear)

  1. Re:$30 isn't cheap enough? by alex_ware · · Score: 2, Informative

    $30 is for a player not a recorder.
    show me a $30 recorder

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  2. That's good news. by Lispy · · Score: 4, Informative

    But, living in germany, the taxes on DVD-recorders (german, sorry) will probably eat up the win for the consumer.

    Google translation here.

    1. Re:That's good news. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      That doesn't mention taxes, it is royalties that the chinese companies aren't paying that they should, to the companies that own patents relating to DVD players.

  3. I wonder. by ceeam · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Article mentions recorders @ $220 a piece. Considering I could buy perfectly ok recorder @ $80 at the local shop... Well, when was the article really written? I guess prices did plunge since then alreayd.

    1. Re:I wonder. by sane? · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Err, I think they mean consumer DVD recorders that take the place of your VHS recorder (since they mention MPEG2 chips). These are still not $110 (65) a piece, so hold your horses.

  4. hmmmm by vmircea · · Score: 4, Insightful

    although one might see this as good, you have to wonder whether or not the extremely cheap products will be of good quality, not to say that they won't, but if they are significantly cheaper you have to be at least a bit wary... but hey this is great, because everyone will have to drop their prices to compete, meaning that all the buyers win on this... but you have to consider the companies who are currently selling their burners for high prices... what happens if they have to cut their prices in half to stay competitive? they could go under, which would be a bad thing..

    1. Re:hmmmm by Simonetta · · Score: 2, Interesting

      When the CD recorders first appeared cheaply (less than $200 US) about six years ago, I bought one from Mitsumi and it lasted eight months with light use. They wouldn't honor the warranty; they wouldn't pick up the telephone for the customer-support line or answer e-mails.
      A second CDRW, a BTC, lasted eleven months before dying and I was able to get a warranty replacement that still works five years later. A third, a brand and model recommended as a best-buy by PC World magazine lasted six months. Again a worthless warranty due to the companie's refusal to answer e-mail or phone calls.
      My current CD-RW, an Artec WRA, has lasted two years with no problems with moderate use.

      So with time, devices like CD/DVD writers get better in quality even as the price drops.

      I considered buying a 8x DVD writer for $99 at the local discount electronics store. But, reviewing my notes at the difficulties with the quality of early CD recorders made me postpone buying one. I'll wait several more years, or until I have a pressing need to put 4.7Gig on a single disk.

      I've found that using the 'DVDdecoder' program I can copy movies from DVDs to my hard drive in VOB files that are 700 megabytes in size each. In this manner a movie can be backed up from DVD to CD-R using about six or seven CDs per film. It's inconvenient, yes, but it does work until the DVD recorders become more reliable.

      Thank you,

  5. Hard to believe by dbarclay10 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This is kind of odd, really; I can get good capable-of-all-relevant-formats DVD burners for about $100CAD (about $75USD) each. Good CD burners cost around $60CAD. So what, DVD burners are going to go down to that level soon? Not that I won't be happy, but it's kind of hard to believe. The March of Technology goes on, I suppose.

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  6. Interesting... by dncsky1530 · · Score: 4, Informative

    heres another source I found: DVD recorder prices fall as production surges in Taiwan

    But it apears that they are already cheap if you know where to shop.

  7. Are the format wars over yet? by mst76 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I haven't been following the DVD formats, so can someone tell me if the DVD+/-RW thing has been settled yet? And whether we'll have to go through the whole thing again with DVD-HD and Blu-Ray? And whether for backups I'm not better off just buying some cheap IDE hard disks and put them in an external enclosure?

  8. Re:If you can't innovate by 3riol · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Sums it up, really. By the way, not everyone wants to innovate. Look at DELL, all they do is look at the competition and deliver the same cheaper. Dell says it himself in an interview (if you can survive the fawning interviewer, berk): they look at the market and decide what's worth making in high volume, low cost. And judging from a quick google search, that seems to be equated with genius by marketroids and their journalists.

    I still don't understand why this made the front page on /., but anyway, bummer about your G5.

  9. The big question is... by mangu · · Score: 3, Funny

    ...will they be able to copy the custom DVD's the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is creating?

  10. Semantic Key For The Clueless by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    DVD Burner - A 5.25" boxy thing you put into your computer case. Almost gratis.

    DVD Recorder - A stand-alone consumer electronics device you connect to your TV-set. Includes shiny packaging and remote control. No computer needed. Costs a bundle.

    1. Re:Semantic Key For The Clueless by Biogenesis · · Score: 4, Interesting

      That's a good point why is it that a DVD burner costs (in Australia) $150-$200 while a DVD recorder costs ~$1200? Like when you consider say a TV tuner card for $100 (which I believe is quite expensive, I haven't looked at them for a long time) you can record TV with your computer for $300 tops. Now does it really cost $900 for the dedicated ADC chip to encode the AV signal?

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    2. Re:Semantic Key For The Clueless by prewashedironman · · Score: 2

      I believe that the $100 Tv tuner isn't doing any encoding, it's just offloading that to the processor - the mpeg encoder chip increases the price quite a lot. Plus with a dvd recorder the picture will be much much better - have you seen the quality of wome of the cheap Tv tuners?

    3. Re:Semantic Key For The Clueless by Jeff+DeMaagd · · Score: 2, Interesting

      A Hauppague PVR-250 and 350 cost something like $150 and $250, respectively, and both have on-board MPEG and some other goodies, although I think they only record 480x480 when the standard for NTSC DVD is 720x480.

      I do agree some tuners on the cheap cards are somewhat nasty, and the chip capturing that tuned signal sometimes isn't so hot either. Unless you reneed Linux support, I suggest using Philip's SAA series chips over BookTree's (now Connexant) 8x8 series. Connexant does make a better video capture chip, 238xx series, I think, which happens to be somewhat compatible with the old Bt8x8 series.

  11. Re:Is price still an issue ? by 3riol · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Right, as for the pollution issue: well, yeah. Again, the little 'energy-saving' and other stickers add to the price, and let's not wonder why products are (hardly) never manufactured in our countries anymore, where there are environment-protection and workers' rights laws (well, I speak for my own here). But whatever the side effects of mass production are, blame the buyer, not the maker. He'll only manufacture stuff that sells.

  12. DVD-Recorders, not DVD+/-R/RW Drives by BWS · · Score: 2, Informative

    just to be clear, they are talking about DVD-Recorders; those are the things you hookup to your TV and record TV shows...

    not the DVD-/+ R/RW drives your computer uses..

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  13. It's a cycle! by igrp · · Score: 3, Interesting
    If you like at the big picture, it's all part of a cycle. CD-R drives and USB sticks are so cheap and in wide-spread use these days that they've widely replaced conventional discs (at least, if you're looking at the middle class in developed countries).

    These days, it's actually not uncommon to be looked at strangely if you pull a 3.5" disc out of your briefcase. In a few years, a 3.5" disc will be as much of an exotic, strange relict as 5.25" discs are today. Many people these days, have never even seen or used a ZIP drive or a magnetic tape.

    As DVD records become cheaper (I rememeber when they were around $1500 not too long ago and people would ask why anyone would want a DVD burner) and, perhaps more importantly, DVD media reaches price levels currently associated with CD-R media more and more low-budget computers will come equipped with DVD-burners and not CD-RW drives.

    That's, at least in my humble opinion, one of the main reason CD-RW never really took off. There was just no reason to use rewriteable CDs. With relatively high-capacitiy recordable DVDs becoming widely available, CD-Rs just became so cheap there was no reason to reuse a CD-R.
    In a couple of years, CD-R will only be used to burn audio CDs. Most computers can already read DVDs so there's no reason for DVD-R/DVD+R not to be used even more widely.

    And the next DVD standard is already in the pipelines. Early adopters, new developments, consumer demand and, probably, the industry's demand for IP protection will eventually push the prices down enough for the new standards to replace the current DVD standard. The only thing that I think could interfere with this cycle is distributed computing along with truely distributed storage.

  14. Re:SCSI DVD-R by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    ATAPI tends to hog the I/O bus and send CPU usage sky high.
    SCSI plays nicer with other processes.

  15. DRM by t_allardyce · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Outside hardware manufacturers are less likely to be controlled by hollywood so hopefully we can get cheap hardware that also ignores drm right? - broadcast flags, fast-forward flags etc. If the market can be flooded with these things then people will be less likely to take the MPAAs bullshit on broadcast flags. Technically they wouldnt be able to use the DVD logo but its not like the music industry cares about messing with formats (RIAA and MPAA are pretty much the same thing).

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  16. Is cheap good? by mratitude · · Score: 2, Interesting

    When VCR's were as cheap as $100 and came with all the bells and whistles, I bought a Sony that cost $500. On the surface, that didn't make any sense to most anyone at the time. However, 10 years later I still have that VCR and it functions as well as the day I bought it. The only problem I've had with it is the occasional head demag and I've had to replace grease that had crystalized and wasn't allowing the tape-grab assembly from keeping tension on the tape as it inserted/ejected the tape.

    So, I can get a DVD Recorder cheap but can I buy only one and enjoy its use till the media format nears obsolescence?

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  17. But there will be newer things.... by John+Seminal · · Score: 2, Insightful
    Just like at one point my 8X CD-RW cost $200, I can now get a 52X CD-RW for $35. But who really wants a CD-RW, who longs for one? DVD+/-RW will continue to fall in price, but there is something new just around the corner. Dual Layer DVD's are there, and for those who want to back-up their DVD collection 1 disk to 1 disk will want the Dual Layer DVD+/-RW. There is always something new and better. The question is knowing what to buy and when. I got screwed 10 years ago buying an IBM PC because I beleived the salesperson that microchanel would become a standard and the AT clone machines would all cruble. I could not upgrade that machine because everything was proprietary and cost three times as much.

    I think this is just like hard drives. When I had my PIII500, I thought the 12 gig hard drive that came with it was all the space in the world, that I would never need more. Then I found napster, and those 12 gigs seemed so small.

    I for one am happy with these price falls because I am one who can not afford to buy the newest and greatest.

    The only thing I hate is the mail in rebate. If this 50% price fall comes in the way of the mail in rebate, they might as well not lower the price at all.

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  18. Re:So what by gilesjuk · · Score: 2, Informative

    59 UK pounds for a dual layer writer is expensive?

    It's only about 2x the price of a CD writer for about 9 times the storage capacity.

  19. AUD != USD by novakreo · · Score: 2, Informative

    "That's a good point why is it that a DVD burner costs (in Australia) $150-$200 while a DVD recorder costs ~$1200?"

    Here in the USA, an 8x multiformat DVD burner is around $80-$90 if you shop online.

    A DVD recorder is around $200-$300. Prices have fallen signifigantly. Look at this. $229 for a DVD recorder. Not bad at all.

    So, it looks like people in Australia are just getting ripped off. DVD recorders have been under $300 for about five months now in the US.

    Biogenesis was using Australian Dollars. Currently $1 USD is approximately $1.40 AUD (or if you prefer, $1 AUD is around $0.71 USD). Prices are actually a bit lower than what he/she has quoted too.

    So your $90 (USD) DVD burner is about $126 in Australia (I've seen them for $120 here), and your $200-$300 (USD) DVD recorder is $280-$420 Australian (again, close to what I've seen advertised). Not much of a difference at all.

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