A NEW HOPE for unification (1 Viewer)

[Cees Alons]

Article about Atsutoshi Nishida.


Cees

 

[Kevin. W]

Could it be that he just doesn't want too give away too much information as too tip off Sony and the Blu-Ray faction. The simple fact is know one but Toshiba knows what their making/losing per unit. Only Toshiba knows the pricing structure off all the components that make up the unit. Only Toshiba knows what deals were hatched with the component makers. In the end who cares wether Toshiba's losing $$$ per unit. Not You, I, or even the company that did the BOM know what Toshiba's game plan is and all this speculation is a waste off time.

 

[Lew Crippen]

Corporate officers by definition, speak for the company. For that matter, so do corporate spokesmen, but they can make statements with ‘plausible deniability’.

Not that I necessarily trust corporate officials to speak with complete accuracy, but they do speak for the company.

 

[MarioMon]

If this thread has gone off topic, I take part blame but the thought of unification still brings up the point of BOM. Other than the optical components, both format players share if not identical at least very equivalent components and technology. Processing power aside, current SD DVD players are conceptually the same as the new HD players and the only major difference I can ascertain is the laser optical components. The first SD DVD players were the first of their kind and somewhat a 'revolution' in concept (remotely similar to LD but far enough to be different) while the new HD players are an evolution and derivation of SD players. Revolution products can carry a high premium but evolutionary ones often can't justify that. IMHO, the bulk of the new high price being asked consumers to pay is for R&D of the HD-DVD or Blu-ray technology and not necessarily for the player design which is pretty much a knock off of a typical SD DVD player of today.

My point is that these two HD players are much more similar than they are different. Therefore, how the heck can Sony think that they will justify a $500 premium for Blu-ray players over HD-DVD? I think the market will decide once again with their wallets which format will win. As much as I like the technical advantages of Blu-ray, my wallet is going to swing to HD-DVD unless Sony does an about face and prices their product competitively. Sheesh, it took Sony many years to realize and admit that their high pricing was hurting their TV business and has since attempted to address that with more competitive pricing. Sony's sky high pricing for Blu-ray tells me they've already forgotten what they learned.

The price of unification seems to boil down to $500 (the difference in pricing of Blu-ray and HD-DVD players) which Sony is unwilling to forgo.

Back to regular scheduled programming....

 

[Rob_Walton]

None of these components are unique to Toshiba, so information concerning their wholesale cost to manufacturers should be known to plenty of other companies. Even the NEC drive is produced by a company Sony have recently forged a drive manufacturing unit with. Taking apart competitor's products to conduct BOM estimates is common practice in the CE industry, and beyond.

The interest regarding the true cost of the early Tosh units goes partly to the pulling of HD DVD products by other manufacturers, which could well be related. But the wider issue goes to the long term ability of the format to retain it's price advantage with consumers. If the true cost of these early Toshiba units is indeed close to the cost of early BD players then there's no reason to think price will remain a difference for very long.

Lew, executives can speak for a company, they can also just posit their opinions. The oblique nature of this gentleman's statements, combined with his distant position within the company suggest to me that this doesn't have the full weight of the company behind it. How difficult could it be for Toshiba to simply issue an official press release refuting the BOM estimate if that was indeed their desire?

 

[Lew Crippen]

Of course they could refute that BOM estimate directly. If I were them, I would not, as that course will just be followed by challenges to prove the estimated BOM incorrect. And that is something that no company will do—that is to put specifics as to their internal costs.

I can’t remember Australian law as to when an individual opinion becomes an utterance of the company, but I can say that it is not unusual for a Japanese to speak circuitously. And in the end it makes no difference because Samsung is not (nor will any other company) going to release how they cost and price products.

 

[PeterTHX]

Before saying it's unreasonable to charge $1k for a Blu-ray player, how much would it cost Toshiba to actually make a player (ie: not a modified laptop/transport). You think Panasonic or Pioneer want to charge $1300+?

 

[RobertR]

The consumer isn't concerned with how much it would cost Toshiba to make players, nor should he be. All he needs to ask is $1000 (or $1300) unreasonable for what he gets compared to what he gets for $500. At this point, with worse picture quality and smaller capacity, not only is the higher price unreasonable, ANY higher price is unreasonable.

 

[PeterTHX]

But what you've described is ****temporary***, with VC1 and BD50 titles on the way within the next couple months. These are long term investments. What will be the better investment 6 months to a year from now?

 

[RobertR]

IF BD50 becomes the norm for BD very soon (what is your basis for knowing without a doubt that it will?), and IF those BD50 titles are well mastered with VC1, then the question will be whether that extra 20 gb is worth double or more the price (this thread indicates it's questionable). That's a lot of ifs to assume it's the better long term investment.

 

[Paul Borges]

I thought VC1 was only used in HD-DVD. Isn't it a Microsoft technology? Isn't Blu-Ray going to eventually use the upgraded MPEG standard?

 

[RobertR]

Yes it is. Sony doesn't like that.

 

[Dave Moritz]

If Sony decides to keep MPEG2 for encoding Blu-ray discs then this consumer is going to go with HD-DVD only if this does not change soon.

I dont see any kind of unification happening ever. They would have done so allready if it was ever going to happen.