An Open Letter to the Blu-Ray Association

**PFC5** · 05-14-2009, 04:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mshulman

Yeah, a single TB drive is cheap. But how about 10 Terabytes as you mentioned? Now back that up.

My point is that while we are on our way there, we are still far away. You want 10TB's? You're looking at a couple thousand at least to get a properly configured system for this. X2 if you want to back it up.

I do think we'll get there, but its going to take some time and won't be for everyone. I'd say were at LEAST 5 years from this being feasible. Probably longer.

I agree if we are buying these downloads for "permanent' ownership then backing it up is imperative. But if they do it ala the way I here the 360 handles it, then if a hard drive crashed then you just use bandwidth to re download them all again. With caps that will be tougher to swallow. Also even IF we had the means to back it all up, would the DRM on the downloads allow this to be restored or would it lock it out like it was put on another persons machine?

**bruceames** · 05-14-2009, 07:02 PM

Yeah, Chris had more HD DVD than even myself for a while there.

I have 5 HD DVD players hooked up around the house, but I mainly use only one (the XA2 in the bedroom). I have 2 Blu-ray players connected and I feed them my Netflix supply.

There's no question the firmware updates are going to be a major drag on the format as it gets more mainstream. DVD and VHS never needed these to play a movie, and although only some Blu-ray players seem to be affected in the short term, I think most of them sold today will eventually fail to play at least one movie in the next few years because of either BD-J or BD+ issues with future discs. I guess it's the nature of the beast, but I can see people prefering DVD because it's more reliable and faster to load (and cheaper, of course), even though Blu-ray looks better.

fmw · 05-15-2009, 08:35 AM

They are a drag right now. It is inexcusable that someone buys a player which won't play what it is supposed to play within a couple of years. I have installed the latest firmware in my Sony 300. I have no idea whether or not it fixed the problem. I'll find out when I put Frost/Nixon back in my queue or buy a copy. The player did play a rented BD yesterday (Express) but I have no idea whether it would have played it without the firmware update. It is inexcusable to hassle a customer like that. I'm willing to take the rap for loading the wrong update. They have to take the rap for requiring the update in the first place.

The move from VHS to DVD was a quantum leap in picture quality. The move from DVD to Blu-Ray is a nice but really unnecessary enhancement. I get about the same entertainment value from a DVD as I do from a Blu-Ray. They have way too much arrogance for the product they are providing.

I wish I knew what percentage of BD's are pirated. It would be interesting to know if it really deserves all this hassle

Nikopol · 05-15-2009, 09:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fmw

They are a drag right now. It is inexcusable that someone buys a player which won't play what it is supposed to play within a couple of years. I have installed the latest firmware in my Sony 300. I have no idea whether or not it fixed the problem. I'll find out when I put Frost/Nixon back in my queue or buy a copy. The player did play a rented BD yesterday (Express) but I have no idea whether it would have played it without the firmware update. It is inexcusable to hassle a customer like that. I'm willing to take the rap for loading the wrong update. They have to take the rap for requiring the update in the first place.

The move from VHS to DVD was a quantum leap in picture quality. The move from DVD to Blu-Ray is a nice but really unnecessary enhancement. I get about the same entertainment value from a DVD as I do from a Blu-Ray. They have way too much arrogance for the product they are providing.

I wish I knew what percentage of BD's are pirated. It would be interesting to know if it really deserves all this hassle

If by "pirated" you mean available as an illegal download, the ratio is about 99.9%. The 0.1% is the handful of new discs, that need an update for the ripping software, which usually takes a few days/few weeks max.

How many people are watching d/l BD's on top of those who buy/rent, i have no idea. Probably not too many, HD playback from a pc is still a little more challenging than DVD playback this way. And the majority of pirates like their movies to fit on one or two CDR, max a DVD5.

Have no illusion, copy protection is broken and hasn't been fixed. They keep patching it, but it doesn't prevent the releases from being available soon. And by soon i mean before street date.

If by "pirated" you mean a copy on a physical BD-R which gets "traded" or actually "sold" like DVD copies on a DVD-R, i have no idea how popular that is. It's rather expensive to do that, pirates like "cheap".

fmw · 05-15-2009, 02:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nikopol

If by "pirated" you mean available as an illegal download, the ratio is about 99.9%. The 0.1% is the handful of new discs, that need an update for the ripping software, which usually takes a few days/few weeks max.

How many people are watching d/l BD's on top of those who buy/rent, i have no idea. Probably not too many, HD playback from a pc is still a little more challenging than DVD playback this way. And the majority of pirates like their movies to fit on one or two CDR, max a DVD5.

Have no illusion, copy protection is broken and hasn't been fixed. They keep patching it, but it doesn't prevent the releases from being available soon. And by soon i mean before street date.

If by "pirated" you mean a copy on a physical BD-R which gets "traded" or actually "sold" like DVD copies on a DVD-R, i have no idea how popular that is. It's rather expensive to do that, pirates like "cheap".

It's really hard for me to judge. Pirating a BD is nearly impossible for me. We have only satellite internet available out here in the country. I have to do the downloads between 3 and 5 AM. That isn't enough time to download a BD. I suppose people with fast internet can do it far more easily than I can. I'm willing to bet that the percentage of illegally watched BD's is pretty small. Of course I don't know. I rather doubt that the studios know either. I suppose they would put people through this harrassment for a single instance of piracy even if it weren't economically sound to do it.

There is a solution, of course and that is to price the legal discs at the prices people want to pay. That has always been the problem with DVD's and CD's as well. Maybe reducing prices would not maximize profits but sometimes it does. If BD's and DVD's were $5 apiece I would buy most of them. At $20 or $30 I buy very few indeed.

fmw · 05-15-2009, 03:02 PM

By the way, I did conquer BD on personal computer. I finally got some software to go with my LG BD optical drive and it plays BD's and HD-DVD's just fine. Less hassle than playing them on the BD player as it turns out.

**PFC5** · 05-15-2009, 03:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fmw

It's really hard for me to judge. Pirating a BD is nearly impossible for me. We have only satellite internet available out here in the country. I have to do the downloads between 3 and 5 AM. That isn't enough time to download a BD. I suppose people with fast internet can do it far more easily than I can. I'm willing to bet that the percentage of illegally watched BD's is pretty small. Of course I don't know. I rather doubt that the studios know either. I suppose they would put people through this harrassment for a single instance of piracy even if it weren't economically sound to do it.

There is a solution, of course and that is to price the legal discs at the prices people want to pay. That has always been the problem with DVD's and CD's as well. Maybe reducing prices would not maximize profits but sometimes it does. If BD's and DVD's were $5 apiece I would buy most of them. At $20 or $30 I buy very few indeed.

All people with faster service need is one over the cap bill to stop downloading full BD movies if they can find them.

I have not even looked myself and do not plan to even attempt it. I will just buy or rent them myself.

I think SD DVDs have been much fairly priced compared to CDs which shocked me when I went to buy one for my kids during the holiday a couple of years ago.

Movies cost a lot more to make than a CD so they should cost more, but the opposite can be true when you look at SD DVD movies compared to CDs.

If they could price BD movies within $2.00 of SD DVD and lower the price as they become catalog titles to still track within $2-3.00 then, I would say that is fair IMO. I would certainly buy more if that happened.

fmw · 05-15-2009, 06:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PFC5

All people with faster service need is one over the cap bill to stop downloading full BD movies if they can find them.

I have not even looked myself and do not plan to even attempt it. I will just buy or rent them myself.

I think SD DVDs have been much fairly priced compared to CDs which shocked me when I went to buy one for my kids during the holiday a couple of years ago.

Movies cost a lot more to make than a CD so they should cost more, but the opposite can be true when you look at SD DVD movies compared to CDs.

If they could price BD movies within $2.00 of SD DVD and lower the price as they become catalog titles to still track within $2-3.00 then, I would say that is fair IMO. I would certainly buy more if that happened.

The price of the actual product they are selling is probably less than $1. For DVD's probably not more than 40 cents per copy. So what we are paying for the cost to make the movie, company overhead and payroll, profit etc. etc. etc. My point was that perhaps they would get more gross profit selling the product for $5-$10 than they do at the prices they charge. The old "make it up in volume" concept. I don't know that it would be the case. I know that my movie buying budget is very small and would be significant at $5 per copy. I may be atypical. I don't have all the answers. I just think what they are doing about piracy isn't working and they should try something else.

Chris Gerhard · 05-15-2009, 06:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fmw

The price of the actual product they are selling is probably less than $1. For DVD's probably not more than 40 cents per copy. So what we are paying for the cost to make the movie, company overhead and payroll, profit etc. etc. etc. My point was that perhaps they would get more gross profit selling the product for $5-$10 than they do at the prices they charge. The old "make it up in volume" concept. I don't know that it would be the case. I know that my movie buying budget is very small and would be significant at $5 per copy. I may be atypical. I don't have all the answers. I just think what they are doing about piracy isn't working and they should try something else.

Another claim that the Blu-ray disc, package, royalties, licensing, etc. costs less than $1. I will call BS once again, that is false. The price varies but there is no way it is less than $1 for a major Hollywood Blu-ray release, and rarely if ever under $2 and most often around $4 or so ignoring the fact the movie might have cost $100,000,000 to make. The business model for making a movie, spend a fortune and try to make it back and reasonable profit by theatrical revenue and home video sales means I think the price Blu-ray discs are sold for is very reasonable.

Chris

**PFC5** · 05-15-2009, 08:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fmw

The price of the actual product they are selling is probably less than $1. For DVD's probably not more than 40 cents per copy. So what we are paying for the cost to make the movie, company overhead and payroll, profit etc. etc. etc. My point was that perhaps they would get more gross profit selling the product for $5-$10 than they do at the prices they charge. The old "make it up in volume" concept. I don't know that it would be the case. I know that my movie buying budget is very small and would be significant at $5 per copy. I may be atypical. I don't have all the answers. I just think what they are doing about piracy isn't working and they should try something else.

They have to recover some of the cost of actually making the movie, marketing, editing, disc & packaging costs, etc as part of the cost. Most studios make most of their profit on the disc sales and are likely close to break even during the theatrical run except for the blockbusters.

I suspect that the cost of a BD disc and the additional mastering & encoding needed to make it a worthwhile buy is likely about $2-3.00 more than the SD DVD disc at the average current volumes. This cost will likely be reduced as the volume of disc sales on BD go up, but they also get the added benefit of additional DRM protection too, so I think charging $3-4.00 more is OK. But they need to lower the BD price to track along with the drops in the SD DVD price as well. That is where the real price disparity ends up happening from what I have seen.

Maybe adding a SD DVD disc with the dual disc packaging might only add about 50 cents to a buck to add a SD DVD, but I doubt a BD disc only costs ONE dollar to make at this stage.

As I said earlier, when you consider the costs of making many of these movies compared to the cost of making a CD, movies on disc are a relative bargain compared to CDs. Maybe that is why more people feel "justified" stealing the music than they do with movies. Some will just steal when they think no one will catch them though regardless.

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05-14-2009, 07:02 PM	#32
bruceames Moderator Join Date: May 2006 Location: Novato, CA Posts: 10,576	Yeah, Chris had more HD DVD than even myself for a while there. I have 5 HD DVD players hooked up around the house, but I mainly use only one (the XA2 in the bedroom). I have 2 Blu-ray players connected and I feed them my Netflix supply. There's no question the firmware updates are going to be a major drag on the format as it gets more mainstream. DVD and VHS never needed these to play a movie, and although only some Blu-ray players seem to be affected in the short term, I think most of them sold today will eventually fail to play at least one movie in the next few years because of either BD-J or BD+ issues with future discs. I guess it's the nature of the beast, but I can see people prefering DVD because it's more reliable and faster to load (and cheaper, of course), even though Blu-ray looks better.

05-15-2009, 08:35 AM	#33
fmw High Definition is the definition of life. Join Date: Jun 2007 Posts: 947	They are a drag right now. It is inexcusable that someone buys a player which won't play what it is supposed to play within a couple of years. I have installed the latest firmware in my Sony 300. I have no idea whether or not it fixed the problem. I'll find out when I put Frost/Nixon back in my queue or buy a copy. The player did play a rented BD yesterday (Express) but I have no idea whether it would have played it without the firmware update. It is inexcusable to hassle a customer like that. I'm willing to take the rap for loading the wrong update. They have to take the rap for requiring the update in the first place. The move from VHS to DVD was a quantum leap in picture quality. The move from DVD to Blu-Ray is a nice but really unnecessary enhancement. I get about the same entertainment value from a DVD as I do from a Blu-Ray. They have way too much arrogance for the product they are providing. I wish I knew what percentage of BD's are pirated. It would be interesting to know if it really deserves all this hassle

05-15-2009, 03:02 PM	#36
fmw High Definition is the definition of life. Join Date: Jun 2007 Posts: 947	By the way, I did conquer BD on personal computer. I finally got some software to go with my LG BD optical drive and it plays BD's and HD-DVD's just fine. Less hassle than playing them on the BD player as it turns out.