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Toshiba Subsidizes $200/Unit on New HD Player
WestTexasWaltz writes "According to a teardown analysis, Toshiba is losing $200 per unit, of its new HD DVD player, in order to gain some marketshare. Interesting that integrated circuits account for more of the cost than the drive itself. Also, this particular analyst concludes that Blu-ray and HD-DVD will "not be a repeat of VHS vs. Beta" and that a stalemate is the likely outcome."
What a crock. Thanks, but no thanks, I'll just stick with DVDs until Blu-ray loses this battle and the prices come down on HD-DVDs.
The cheap china manufacturers coming out with units that play both HD-DVD and BluRay discs... and pick up a player cheap at WalMart (or whathaveyou) for $100.
It's DVD-R and DVD+R all over again. Only with slightly better picture quality, if you have the right setup.
I don't give a rat's ass about HD-DVD or BluRay or any new format... until a player comes out (third-party hacked or not) which overcomes the MPAA's nefarious ideas about region encoding or forced chapters. If you want some market share, grow some balls and deliver a machine that plays the media *I* purchased anytime that *I* want to, without sending a colorectal scan to the governments and corporations of the world. And while you're at it, make false advertising phrases like "Own it on HD-DVD today!" completely off limits.
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I predict the winner will be... DVD!
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"Open source is good." - Steve Jobs
"Open source is evil." - Microsoft
It would be against Best Buys best interest. They can stock both players, and some people will buy both. Then they can make more money later selling combo versions to the same people.
Blockbuster and Netflix have an interest in seeing one win, but thats because they don't sell hardware, so they only get the negatives of dual inventory, not the profits.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
I'll have a Blu-ray by proxy, as I'll pick up a PS3.
FanFictionRecs.net
While Sony, by cramming a $500 to $600 PS3 down our throats, has decided to lose the war.
...
It's that simple.
Look, the major revenue is not the players themselves - it's the licenses for the patents from the manufacturers, the license fees from the people cranking out the discs (HD-DVD or Blu-Ray), the license fees from the music, the movies, the motion
You get the drift.
You can either play to win - or you can lose and look good doing so.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
My decision was already made the other day, courtesy of Slashdot's story on the first 3 Blu-Ray offerings, of which "50 First Dates" was given as the reason to go HD and see Adam Sandler's every pore. Clearly, these people are not SERIOUS about selling to any but the most fanatic Early Adopters.
I can wait. Specifically, I can wait until they issue "Apocalypse Now" and other cinematographer's triumphs in 1080p and you can get a large 1080p TV and a player for it (that either plays the winning format, or both formats if the War is protracted) for a total under $1500.
With DVDs, I note that one can currently get computers (MythTV, etc) that will ignore all the playing restrictions. Here's my "horror" story on that.
I have a nice Pioneer DVR/DVD player (520H) that never met a DRM instruction it didn't obey slavishly. Not only will it not so much as record from a protected video tape, or tape made from DVD (that THAT, analogue hole) but it won't FFWD during the FBI warning or any of the corporate logos, or *ADS* if they choose to put that rule on their disc. The screen shows "That Operation is Forbidden by This Disc" when you hit the remote button repeatedly while waiting some minutes for your movie to actually start.
The other day, I popped in a disk while some news was on, and it started loading. Just at that moment, major breaking news hit the TV channel...and the DVD screen started showing the FBI warning. Frantically, I hit the STOP, then the EJECT buttons on the remote. But no, even those just got "That Operation is Forbidden By This Disc". Nothing could make it stop showing the FBI Warning and go back to the TV feed.
On discs with trailers and ads you can't skip, I've learned to pop in the disc and walk away from the TV for several minutes, because I get so mad if I stay. It's so great to put DVDs in my computer upstairs, where Kaffiene cheerfully skips all that crap and goes right to the movie I paid for, when I hit "go to Menu".
Maybe the computer world will defeat the DRM on an HD disk enough so that I can be the one to say what the computer is forbidden and allowed to do; that would make me opt in to this new technology, too.
But for a couple of years, I'm just going to wait and see. See DVDs. With a Linux media-computer that puts me in charge of my own damn living room.
I don't think 100K units is even remotely a problem.
If you'll look at the released Blu-ray movies, you'll note that somehow they mostly have fewer features on them than their supposedly smaller DVD counterparts. The released HDDVD's on the other hand, all have at least the same amount, and some of them have movie length added features.
How could this be? with Blu-ray's huge storage advantage? For that, you need to look closer at what they've actually managed to ship.
Shipping: HDDVD - 30GB dual layer discs. VC1 and H.264 encoded movies (at about 18Mb). Leaving about 10-15GB free for added features.
Shipping: Blu-Ray - 25GB single layer discs (They _still_ can't replicate dual layer discs with any meaningful yields) with Mpeg2 encoded movies (at about 25Mb). Leaving only 2-3GB free for specials.
Even aside from their lackluster video quality inherent in high bandwidth MPEG2, and that Sony has told studios not to use BD-J until at least next year, and that the Samsung player states clearly in it's manual that it cannot play dual layer discs, some people still continue to insist that somehow blu-ray is a better format.
When you compare it to titles that have embedded video special features, something blu-ray can't do at all. And picture quality that just can't be beat by Mpeg2, you can see why the format hasn't died, even with less support currently (it'll come). Of course, it can't hurt that the studios are getting huge amounts of support and help from Microsoft and Toshiba, while Sony, being Sony is giving them the usual cold shoulder.