Re: Toshiba Announces Discontinuation of HD DVD Businesses

But check this topic out...

http://www.dvdtown.com/messageboard/topic/6486/6/0

FYI...

> Blu-ray Victory Means Royalties, Royalties, Royalties
(from Cnet.com's CRAVE News - 2/19, w/reader comments)

"The royalties will be split among several players - Blu-ray has a lot of grandfathers. A lot of people call it a Sony standard but by our estimates Sony doesn't even have 30 percent of the IP," Doherty said. The top four intellectual property holders are likely Sony, Panasonic, Pioneer, and Warner."

-JIMI (the Voodoo Child)

Quote:
"The royalties will be split among several players - Blu-ray has a lot of grandfathers. A lot of people call it a Sony standard but by our estimates Sony doesn't even have 30 percent of the IP," Doherty said. The top four intellectual property holders are likely Sony, Panasonic, Pioneer, and Warner."

And then there was silence.

Good read.
Royalties are one of the reasons I think it will be a while before anything BD comes down in price.

No - just the opposite. To make more royalties, sales must INCREASE, and if prices don't become more affordable (cheaper), then sales will DECREASE (slower, less growth), which means less royalties, not more.

It's like Walmart. They are the #1 retailer with the largest volume of sales, yet the prices are mostly LOWER than their competition. So, their profits are realized by large-scale consumer sales, giving the company 'small profit per item', that then add up to large, MAJOR profits OVERALL.

For Blu-ray to become successful (like DVD), prices will have to become more affordable (both the players and discs, and computer drives etc), so that the masses will adopt and BUY the format. If successful, then the Blu-ray royalties will increase and benefit the patent holders. If unsuccessful (due to higher costs that stagnate adoption), then the royalties will be small, and of not much financial value to their creators, compared to VHS or DVD royalties.

-JIMI (the Voodoo Chil)

Good point JIMI, you are on the ball but when a person buys a player SD DVD, HD DVD, BR... or whatever, a lot of different people get a portion of the profits. So if a product is already more expensive to make (just guessing hear, I don't know) and then you have to pay royalties to a butt load of other folks that will jack the price up even more. That's why SD DVD is the big money maker cheaper to produce, bigger market (more people with regular tvs and players), etc., etc.



Just thinking out loud really....
L8R fellas

FYI...

> The Death of HD-DVD and the Art of Backroom Deal Making

(from 2/25/08, on the Gearlog Gadget Guide for Geeks)

"When mapping the trajectory of the two formats, it's Warner's pull out at the beginning of the year that is largely considered to be the straw that broke HD-DVD's back... Was Toshiba's abandonment of the format simply a case of it having "no chance to win," as the company's president, Atsutoshi Nishida suggested, or was it perhaps another case of a backroom favor? Slashdot points out that Sony announced an agreement to sell Toshiba a chip facility for $835 million, just after Toshiba announced their all-important decision to abandon their beloved format."

-JIMI (the Voodoo Child)

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[Post edited by Love Hendrix! on Feb 28, 2008]

I noticed something kind of interesting. You know at the top of the browser where on this page it says, "Re: Toshiba Announces Discontinuation of HD DVD Businesses". Well on Toshiba.com they list some of the products they sell up there. HD DVD players used to be up there, but they removed it.

@hendrix

I remember reading about that MONTHS ago. Before the WB announcement even.

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[Post edited by NutManIV on Feb 29, 2008]

Maybe Toshiba decided to get out before all of the CH players get out and flood the market.

Aren't they capable of playing HD DVD?

In other news this man announced that he fell of a horse.
And oh yea the sky is blue.

Thanks for the heads up.