Sony and Partners Announce New Blu-ray Licensing Firm, Player Pricing to Drop by Mid-Year
Sony and Partners Announce New Blu-ray Licensing Firm, Player Pricing to Drop by Mid-Year
Posted 02/26/2009 at 8:51am
| by Paul Lilly
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Despite winning the high-definition format war, Blu-ray adoption appears to be at a standoff with most consumers. Not everyone is willing to pay the relatively high prices associated with Blu-ray players, and that decision has been aided by the prominence of streaming media (a la Netflix) and upconverting standard DVD players. And it looks like consumers were right to wait.
Panasonic, Philips, and Sony have jointly announced plans to create a single licensing firm for Blu-ray patents, which should help drive prices down across the board. The new license is expected to cover all the essential Blu-ray patents to be overseen by an un-named licensing company in the U.S and run by Gerald Rosenthal, former head of intellectual property at IBM.
"By establishing a new licensing entity that offers a single license for Blu-ray Disc products at attractive rates, I am confident that it will foster the growth of the Blu-ray Disc marekt and serve the interest of all companies participating in this market, be it as licensee or licensor," Rosenthal said.
As it stands today, licensing Blu-ray requires talking to each of the three partner companies, but under the new plan, the group estimates the cost of a license to be "at least 40 percent lower than the current cumulative royalty rate." How much of that ends up being passed on to consumers remains to be seen, though we won't have to wait long to find out. The new plan is expected to be introduced by the middle of the year.
Image Credit: Sony
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killerfungus
February 26, 2009 at 1:59pm
I recently upgraded from standad DVD to BD and I was somewhat impressed by the image and sound quality but had it not been that I was lucky enough to get an HDTV and the BD player at lower than average prices I would still be in the waiting game. Yes, the new format brings a lot more interaction with the disc content and HDMI does bring out enhanced sound quality but there is really not that much more bang than that.
sinan
February 26, 2009 at 1:13pm
I bought an HDTV right before the superbowl and picked up an upconverting dvd player.
If BD players were cheaper at the time I would've bought one. Whether I buy the BD discs vs DVDs though is an entirely different matter. Until the price of the media goes down there is not much to be excited about.
TheDorkSide
February 26, 2009 at 11:47am
I still have to buy a new TV....and still pay a premium for the media. Nah, I'll skip it, thanks. This isn't like the jump from magnetic tape to optical disc. The average schmoe can't simply upgrade with a player.
Paul_Lilly
February 26, 2009 at 11:52am
Assuming someone already owns an HDTV, Netflix charges $1 more per month to rent Blu-ray flicks.
hades_2100
February 27, 2009 at 11:52am
Did you forget what happens when you assume?
You forgot to assume US residency, and a desire to be a Netflix member.
hades
Paul_Lilly
February 28, 2009 at 8:12am
Based on a recently announced year-over-year profit increase to the tune of 45 percent (during an economic downturn, no less) and a 26 percent increase in membership over one year ago, it wasn't much of an assumption.
-Paul Lilly
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