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Posted by Jay G. on 09/29/05 02:05
Jeff Rife <wevsr@nabs.net> wrote:
>
>Jay G. (Jay@tmbg.rg) wrote in alt.video.dvd:
>> I know
>> on the retail end that a fair number of electronics are sold at a much
>> smaller profit margin, often only a few percent above cost.
>
>Correct, but by the time the get it, the original parts cost is 2x to 3x
>inflated already by the manufacturer's profit and any middleman profit
>(like shippers).
I also mentioned electornic devices with a 3-4x profit margin at the
retail level, which would make a 6-12x end-user price.
Can you give a reference to this "rule of thumb" of yours? I searched
online for it, and could only find this newgroup message from someone
at HP saying that "the only rule of thumb regarding electronics
manufacturing costs tends to be that there are no rules of
thumb."
http://groups.google.com/group/sci.electronics/msg/2c2f139f8058d40a
Another post in that thread mentions a variable price point of 2-4x
the cost of parts. It doesn't say what the total manufacturing cost
of the item is though.
>> >Correct, so with $300 the end-user price for the *drive*, there just won't
>> >be any players less than $500.
>>
>> Except for the PS3.
>
>There is no way to know if the PS3 will play BluRay movies without some
>additional hardware. It might just have the drive so that game makers
>can put HD content (or lots of SD content) into the games. Additional
>hardware to play back BluRay would be an additional reason that Sony would
>be willing to eat the cost of the drive at first sale.
This reasoning would apply to DVD on the PS2 as well, yet Sony chose
not to go that route in the past, to its apparent benefit. Sony also has
a vested interest in Blu-Ray suceeding as a format, and considering
there's competition this time round in HD-DVD, getting as many Blu-Ray
movie players out there as fast as possible seems like an even better
reason for Sony to not charge more.
> Sony wants to
>sell $500+ standalone BluRay players, too, so I suspect that they will
>pull a stunt like this.
You're the only one to mention the $500 price tag, a number you made
up.
>Otherwise, everybody would just buy a PS3 (and
>no games, which is where Sony makes their money) instead of any other
>BluRay player.
And why wouldn't they buy video games as well, seeing as they already
have the system? Sony will also make money off of the Blu-Ray movies,
and not just titles they own. Sony will get licensing fees from every
Blu-Ray disc sold.
>> >With that cost, the need for a new display,
>> >and the lack of titles (even if they manage to release 1000 titles in
>> >the first year, that's nothing compared to DVD),
>>
>> Nothing compared to what DVD has now, or when it was first released?
>
>Now, which is what counts, because unless you have an HD display, the
>new format won't be any better than DVD. This is exactly unlike DVD, where
>even on relatively crappy displays it was far better than VHS.
Actually, it's exactly like anamorphic video on DVD, which has won out
on the format despite the majority of people being unable to use it.
In any case, you're arguing an issue with playback, not with the
number of titles. If a person can't playback the content in HD,
it doesn't matter if the format has 10 or 10 million titles.
Again, DVD started out with only a few titles, so initial scarcity of titles
compared to existing formats (like VHS and Laserdisc) isn't really a
factor.
>> People always seem to forget that DVD has DRM too.
>
>No, it doesn't.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_rights_management
"An early example of a DRM system is the Content Scrambling System
(CSS) employed by the DVD Forum on movie DVD disks"
>Every player can decode the encryption with no check of
>whether it is allowed to or not.
Actually, there are checks. CSS encryption is used to restrict playback
on only authorized players, and region coding is used to check whether
a disc from a certain region can be played on a certain DVD player.
>Likewise, there is no way to make a "pay for play" model for DVD.
That's not a requirement for DRM, although it's certainly an option.
-Jay
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