After having a few days to digest this year’s NAB show, I’ve come to
the conclusion that this may be only Hollywood’s party. To get invited
to the party you have to pay to party.
As a small independent DVD author/service provider, I’d like to be at
the party, but with the current AACS fees as high as they are, my
clients just aren’t going to go blu. When I started my business in
2000, DVD was brand spankin’ new. My clients said “why do I need a DVD
when I have a CD.” I showed them what a DVD could do and once they
realized the potential of the shiny discs, they were sold. There was a
compelling reason to switch from CD or VHS to DVD. Sure, the price was
high but there were huge benefits to switch to DVD.
Where is the compelling reason to switch to Blu-ray? Sure you’ll want
put your HD content on a Blu-ray disc, but is it so compelling that the
small independent content owners will be able to pay the exhorbant fees
to make Blu-ray discs?
As it currently stands, to replicate a Blu-ray disc there’s a one-time
AACS content fee of $3,000. The per title fee is $1,300 ($800 title fee
& a $500 content certification fee) plus a $0.04 per disc fee. Then
there’s the replication fee of about $2.00 for a single layer disc.
Then of course the author needs to mark-up the price. When you do the
math it’s about $7.00 - $8.00 per disc for a minimum run of 1,000
discs. This doesn’t include the fees to capture, compress, graphics or
authoring. A simple title could cost $13,000. What small independent
content owner is going to shell out this kind of money? BD-R
duplication at this point is also not a viable option with blank discs
costing $17 to $40 per disc.
The small independent filmmaker doesn’t need or want AACS. Why should
AACS be mandatory? If Hollywood wants AACS to be mandatory, fine; just
make it free to everyone.
I think Blu-ray has a short life with the coming of faster Internet
downloads. Why not make Blu-ray accessible to all; today! Filmmakers
are hungry to put their films on an HD format. It needs to be
affordable otherwise they’ll continue to put their HD content on DVDs.
To be invited to the Blu-ray party, there should be no barriers. The BD
format then has a better chance of success. Failure is entirely
possible. Remember the Laserdisc, MiniDisc and of course Betamax? The
BD players need to be priced lower and faster then DVD players were.
The BD titles need to be priced the same as DVDs. Profile 2.0 should be
mandatory. Make all Blu-ray players Internet ready. The BD titles
certainly will be. Why piss off the consumers with functionality that
only works on profile 2.0 players when they'll be playing titles on
profile 1.1 players.
I know that Hollywood knows this. Does Hollywood care? Are they willing
to risk the formats success and be bullheaded or are they in favor of
dropping the barriers to small independent filmmakers and service
providers, so they can be at the Blu-ray party?
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