Wednesday, February 08, 2006
New DVDs -- Expect To Pay More
In the constant stream of stories about Blue-ray DVDs versus HD-DVDs (a format war that consumers could care less about), they've always failed to mention one little detail: exactly how much do studios expect people to pay for these new-fangled DVDs? Now we know -- after forking over $500 to $1000 for a new player, the new generation DVDs themselves will cost 15% to 20% more. So say, $25 instead of $20. Not too much, but they better plan to lower it as time goes on. Studios launched CDs successfully, but instead of being happy that people ran out to buy albums they already owned on LP all over again, record labels decided it was a good idea to increase the cost of an album from $10 to $15 -- and then pushed them higher and higher up to $18 today -- all while illegal downloads made every song ever written available online for free. And they wonder why CD sales collapsed. The same situation now applies to movies and TV shows. People can download them for free hours after they air -- studios should be battling back by offering a better product at a lower price. Instead, they're gonna try and jack up the prices and then wonder why DVD sales slow down significantly in five years.
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5 comments:
That says how much Blue-ray will cost. HD-DVD undercut them on players -- putting one out for $500 instead of $1000. Maybe they'll undercut them on price too.
That's me truthisoutthere
I won't buy either until the format war is over. Why bother? I'm sure they look cool,but DVDs are still great so I;m in no rush.
I still don't know the difference between 'em.
Two diff camps -- basically it's the next leap in DVDs, both vastly superior to current DVDs and akin to high def in quality. (I can't swear to the specs.) HD-DVD has a smaller capacity (for holding multiple episodes of tv shows and extras w movies) but is easier to make and plants don't need to be built from scratch. Blue Ray has a significant advantage in capacity which leaves room for new "extras" and flexibility for future innovations, just as the original DVD had lots of "extra" space that quickly filled up with docus, commentary tracks, games and so on. The picture quality is truly a jump forward but they also think we're going to flip over extras that are smoothly interactive with the film/tv show rather than separately accessed in what will seem a cumbersome manner once we get used to the future.
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