Manufacturers’ cost to produce HD/BD discs? (1 Viewer)

[Dan Hinson]

I was wondering if it is known how much it costs to produce an HD-DVD versus how much for a Blu-ray disc. And, if one is in fact more costly than the other, is this due to physical manufacturing costs, or some kind of licensing fees paid to Sony and/or Toshiba? (...or both?)

 

[Clinton McClure]

The production costs should be near the same. I don't have any hard numbers but the technologies are so similar it would stand to reason that production costs would parallel. The Blu-Ray titles seem to be about $10 more expensive than HD-DVD titles, which I'm just chalking up to Sony being Sony.

 

[Jeff Adkins]

The Sony titles are the same as most HD-DVD releases....about $29.95 list. The Warner and Paramount titles are identical in price to their HD-DVD counterparts. The Fox and Disney titles are higher.

 

[Clinton McClure]

Why is Superman Returns on HD-DVD selling for $24.99 and the Blu-Ray version selling for $34.99 locally? Around here, unless it's a dual format HD-DVD, the selling price is $19.99-$24.99 (dual format is $29.99) whereas the cheapest BR I've seen is $29.99 and the most expensive is $34.99. These are all B&M prices spanning Wal~Mart, Target, Best Buy and Hastings.

 

[Jeff Adkins]

I can't answer as to what individual retailers are doing, but what I can tell you is that the wholesale cost on a $29.95 Sony BD and a $29.95 Universal HD-DVD are the same. What a retailer chooses to price it at is their own thing.

 

[Clinton McClure]

Looks like local mark-up then. Gotta love B&Ms. Yet another reason to purchase online.

 

[Ed St. Clair]

The production costs are not the "near the same", because the technologies are not so similar. HD DVD is based on DVD & BD is a "new" technology unto itself.
However, having posted that, nearly "everyone" believes over time both production cost will be the same or as you say "parallel". At this time, as it has been from the start, HD DVD is cheaper.

 

[MarekM]

Well, you don't know COST of HD DVD or Blu-ray disks, right ?
So you don't know if they are "near the same" or NOT "near the same", right ?

Do you have some links where is STATED that HD DVD is cheaper ? Or do you think that if something is new it is automaticaly more expensive ?

It's not always the CASE !

Marek

 

[ppltd]

From the mastering perspective, this is true. But that is where most similarities stop. Pressing the HD-DVD can be done on slightly modified DVD pressing lines, BD requires entirely different equipment, thereby it's higher initial pressing costs. Given enough time, the costs should normalize and become a negitable part of the total COG.

 

[Chris Dugger]

I thought the production of HD was somewhat less costly as production plants had very little re-fit to produce HD...

On the other hand, the BD neeeded a complete refit...

Dugger

 

[Paul_Scott]

I just read recently that Sony was going to be subsidizing the cost of disc replication for the major studios for the next five years.
If that were true, that would be quite an incentive for studios to align themselves with that format. In fact, I could see that easily trumping a nominal disparity is sales, given that both formats at the moment represent but a microscopic portion of the entire home movie sales market.

In general though, I believe Bd is defintely more expensive to produce.
I would think one of the barometers to measure this would be seeing how many smaller independant lables (like Synapse or BCI or Blue Underground, as well as porn of cours) publish on one vs the other.

here are some figures from Home Media Retailing


I seriously doubt replication costs on the HD DVD side are 10x the cost of sd dvds.

 

[Ali B]

OK, to give you an idea of the cost prices in the UK at the moment for HD-DVD and Blu-Ray, here are some comparisons across the studios (btw, £13.61 is the standard dealer price for a normal DVD over here):

Warners:

Blu-Ray - £17.35
HD-DVD - £17.35

Entertainment (New Line etc):

Blu-Ray - £17.01

Sony:

Blu-Ray - £12.25 (new release £17.01)

Fox:

Blu-Ray - £19.14

Paramount:

Blu-Ray - £20.42
HD-DVD - £20.42

Universal:

HD-DVD - £13.61

Optimum (who license the Studio Canal catalogue):

HD-DVD - £13.61

I'm a little disappointed with Fox and Paramount's pricing strategies. It's interesting to see Sony is knocking 10% off a normal DVD dealer price for their catalogue releases