DVDis dead!

[pixelthis]

I think you're right that low prices on these oldies will give a good many customers an incentive to switch to Blu-ray.

How good are these BR remasters?? I guess many are made from film, (35mm? 70mm?), that presumably have plenty of resolution for BR, so there would seem to be plenty of potiential (for the video if not the sound).

On the other hand Sir ToT has been telling us how expensive it is to switch production to BR, how much more difficult to master, etc.. So I wonder what the trick is that they can produce these oldies for $8.00 per copy? Obviously the cost of the original filming is totally irrelevant, but what about the post-production costs?

I've always made the point that the incremental cost to put one more physical copy on the shelve is unrelated to the $30-40 MSRP of the new-movie product.

Sir Talky tells a lot of stuff, a good percentage a tad delusional.
The biggest cost for a title is always royalties, these older titles are cheap in that regard,
some are even general issue.
And transcoding up to BLU can be expensive, but lets face it, a lot of these old gems arent having much time wasted on them.
You "upconvert" an old movie everytime you watch it on a 1080p telly, really.
NO BIGGIE.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

Sir Talky tells a lot of stuff, a good percentage a tad delusional.
The biggest cost for a title is always royalties, these older titles are cheap in that regard,
some are even general issue.
And transcoding up to BLU can be expensive, but lets face it, a lot of these old gems arent having much time wasted on them.
You "upconvert" an old movie everytime you watch it on a 1080p telly, really.
NO BIGGIE.

Ummmm Pix, from what position that you sit that you can judge what I post as delusional? Have you ever worked in the film industry? No you have not, you don't even know the difference between a matrix format, and sound enhancements.

Royalties are not the biggest cost, it is restoration, compression and authoring. And you do not trancode up to Bluray resolution, either the source is equal to 1080p (most 35mm film) or you have to down rez to Bluray (IMAX, 65mm or 70mm)

When you state that someone elses information is "delusional", it might help that your comments are at least accurate, or in the ball park. Much of the time your comments are neither.

All movies on Bluray are encoded at 1080p, so there is no need for upconversion of any Bluray disc.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

Universal also announced that they will begin issuing DVD/BD flipper discs that put both formats onto a single disc. On the surface that seems like a good idea, but I recall that the DVD/HD-DVD flippers were plagued with high defect rates and not especially durable. If that issue is not resolved before these flipper discs go out, that would make for a lot of bad PR for Blu-ray. I'm not so sure that this would reduce the production costs by all that much, but it would eliminate the need for dual inventories (which studios and retailers alike hate) and I think that might be the primary motive here.

Personally I think someone at Universal is smokin crack on this. The HD DVD combo disc cost Universal a fortune to replicate, and then turn around and replace. The bonding that glues the two sides together did not hold, which caused the disc to either rot, or fail after a few months. They had a high failure rate during replication, and often the failed disc made it into the distribution chain and to consumers which they had to replace. The Ant Bully costs Warner a fortune because of the amount of disc that failed and had to be replaced.

Combo disc cost quite a bit of money to replicate, which is why Warner gave up on the HD DVD/Bluray combo disc even before it came to market. The best way to get rid of dual inventory is to do what many studio are currently doing...offering a Bluray disc, and a DVD disc (and digital copy) in the same box. This is cheaper than the flipper disc, and has proven to be quite consumer friendly. We at Disney have gotten a great response from this practice, and plan to continue doing it until DVD goes away.

[L.J.]

The best way to get rid of dual inventory is to do what many studio are currently doing...offering a Bluray disc, and a DVD disc (and digital copy) in the same box. This is cheaper than the flipper disc, and has proven to be quite consumer friendly. We at Disney have gotten a great response from this practice, and plan to continue doing it until DVD goes away.

Yeah I was hoping that would catch on. I started a thread over a year ago asking would the BR with bonus DVD become the norm. This is huge to me. I put the DVD in a separate case to go in my kids room or bring along to play on the laptop. Hopefully more studios join Disney on this.

[frahengeo]

Yeah I was hoping that would catch on. I started a thread over a year ago asking would the BR with bonus DVD become the norm. This is huge to me. I put the DVD in a separate case to go in my kids room or bring along to play on the laptop. Hopefully more studios join Disney on this.

Night at the Museum II: Fox
Harry Potter 6: Warner Bros ($14.99!!)

[pixelthis]

Ummmm Pix, from what position that you sit that you can judge what I post as delusional? Have you ever worked in the film industry? No you have not, you don't even know the difference between a matrix format, and sound enhancements.

To call being a PR hack "work" is streching it a bit, but I will concede the point

Royalties are not the biggest cost, it is restoration, compression and authoring. And you do not trancode up to Bluray resolution, either the source is equal to 1080p (most 35mm film) or you have to down rez to Bluray (IMAX, 65mm or 70mm)

And you said awhile back that film wasnt HD because its not 16:9.
And I worked at a disc plant for awhile, talked to a lot of the bigshots on several occasions,
and remarked on how much goes into making a title one day while watching a machine the size of my house wash a batch with purified water.
THE manager watching said (after I REMARKED AT HOW EXPENSIVE making a disc must be) that royalty payments and other such were far and away the most expensive part of disc making.
BLU is probably higher, but the average cost (packaging, authoring, pressing, the truck)
is two dollars for one disc.
WHICH IS WHY i DONT GREIVE MUCH about how sales of CD's are tanking.

When you state that someone elses information is "delusional", it might help that your comments are at least accurate, or in the ball park. Much of the time your comments are neither.

Awww dont be like that talky! I was just kidding(mostly)

All movies on Bluray are encoded at 1080p, so there is no need for upconversion of any Bluray disc.

Maybe now, but they started out making some at 720p, and there are still 720p discs out there, mostly at firesale prices.
And the fact that most are 1080p is why you set your receiver to "through", BTW

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

Maybe now, but they started out making some at 720p, and there are still 720p discs out there, mostly at firesale prices.
And the fact that most are 1080p is why you set your receiver to "through", BTW

No Pix, your lying again. The standard is based on 1080p encoding, and there are zero Bluray disc out there at 720p.

To call being a PR hack "work" is streching it a bit, but I will concede the point

At least I have a job Pix.....

And you said awhile back that film wasnt HD because its not 16:9.

Actually film is not HD because HD is based on a video standard, not a film standard. Film is encoded into high definition video.

And I worked at a disc plant for awhile, talked to a lot of the bigshots on several occasions,
and remarked on how much goes into making a title one day while watching a machine the size of my house wash a batch with purified water.
THE manager watching said (after I REMARKED AT HOW EXPENSIVE making a disc must be) that royalty payments and other such were far and away the most expensive part of disc making.

One thing you forgot in your statement, you cannot make a disc without the process that happens before it is complete. And here is what you really said, and it mentions nothing about disc replication.

The biggest cost for a title is always royalties, these older titles are cheap in that regard,
some are even general issue.

The biggest cost for getting a title to disc is the restoration of the film elements, authoring, compression. These three alone cost more than the entire replication process combined including royalties.

BLU is probably higher, but the average cost (packaging, authoring, pressing, the truck)
is two dollars for one disc.
WHICH IS WHY i DONT GREIVE MUCH about how sales of CD's are tanking.

Not accurate at all. The current pricing for an order of 5,000 bulk BD25 discs would be $9,350, including replication, AACS and mastering (but excluding shipping and taxes). That is to say, overall unit price would be $1.87 per disc without shipping and taxes. When you add shipping and taxes, the per disc price raises well above two dollars per disc.

The cost of a 5,000 bulk BD50 would be a along the lines of $2.60 with replication, AACS and mastering. And this is for a smaller replication facility that handles mostly non studio clients. For larger orders, the price comes down per disc, but the overall costs go up. So the "rough" estimate you got is not accurate at all.

When you add in the fact that most movies are utilizing the BD50 disc, you can see the per disc price is well above your $2 estimate.