Posted by Jeff Rife on 09/29/05 04:04

Jay G. (Jay@tmbg.rg) wrote in alt.video.dvd:
> Can you give a reference to this "rule of thumb" of yours?

Personal experience with people who build electronics from parts. It's
also pretty much the rule of thumb for food service markup (except for
cash cows like soft drinks) at normal (i.e., not captive audience) venues.

> >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.

The PS2 was released *after* DVD had already been out for quite a while,
unless I am really getting the date wrong. PS2 was 2001-2002 timeframe,
and DVD had been out for nearly 5 years.

Also, to actually play DVDs as if it were a real player, you did need
an add-on remote for the PS2, didn't you?

> > 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.

You're right, I did. The first release players for both formats seem to
have price tags around $1000 based on announcements. I was being *very*
optimistic about pricing with my $500 guess. If the MSRP of standalone
BluRay players is closer to $1000, and the PS3 plays BluRay out of the
box for $300, which do you think will sell?

> >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?

Well, anybody who doesn't really care about games. At $300, I would
very likely pick up a PS3 to play HD movies instead of spending $500-1000
on another player.

> >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.

No, that's just a red herring. It costs the studios nothing to make the
DVD "enhanced for 16:9 TVs", doesn't hurt people with regular TVs (unless
they have a truly crappy player), and helps people with 16:9 TVs. It's
a win-win for everybody.

On the other hand, HD-DVD (of whatever sort) will look no better than DVD
to people who don't have HD displays, will cost more, and won't play in
their existing DVD player. There is zero reason to buy the player if
you don't have an HD display, and there is zero reason to buy the disc if
you don't have the player.

DVD (enhanced for 16:9 TVs or not) had only the drawback that it would
not play without a DVD player. Once you bought the player, the discs gave
you:

- better picture
- better sound (even if you used your TV speakers, the sound was still
better)
- multiple languages on many releases
- optional subtitles on many releases
- bonus content on many releases
- etc.

HD-DVD will have only one distinction over the previous entrenched medium:
better picture *if* you have the right display, which most people don't.

If you add the requirement for a constant Internet connection, players
are going to sell like Yugos (or Divx discs, or decaying DVDs, or...).

> >> 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"

I really don't care what some bozo typed into a glorified blog.

> >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,

This is true, but *every* single hardware DVD player is "authorized" by
definition.

> >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.

Actually, that's the whole point of "digital rights management". Being
able to *manage* the user's ability to exercise their part of copyright
rights. CSS doesn't do this, because it is either "on" or "off", and
the setting is determined at the time of pressing.

--
Jeff Rife | "I feel an intense ambivalence, some of which
| doesn't border entirely on the negative."
|
| -- Ned Dorsey, "Ned and Stacey"

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