soundsgreat
New Member
Hi,
Hey all you Blu-Ray fans and high def junkie's hold all your purchases of Blu-Ray for the Chinese are about to give you a cheaper alternative and are also about to kick the Blu-Ray where it hurts :yahoo: !
Here's the complete scoop on this !
ust when Blu-ray thought it had clear sailing, a tempest has risen in the East: China Blue Hi-definition Disk (CBHD). Toshiba has licensed its HD DVD to them and it will be the unit world leader in HD optical technology in just 12 months.
Why? The Times Online reports that the CBHD players are outselling Blu-ray in China by 3-1 and the CBHD disks cost a quarter of Blu-ray.
Blu-ray, we hardly knew ye
What happened to Blu-rays dominance? Blu-rays dominance.
Conceived by Sony at a time when few thought upscaling would succeed, the idea was that HDTVs would require HD content on optical media. Reliving the glory days of DVD adoption they forecast tens of billions in revenue from players and disks, enormous licensing fees and consumer-proof DRM.
Watching the CD business crater, studio thought that HD would drive their business to new heights while eliminating piracy. It was an optical gold rush - that has turned into a mirage.
The fundamental problem is that the slightly sharper HD picture isnt worth the extra dollars. 10%-15% max.
Enter the dragon
China has good reasons to support a home-grown HD format. First, the exorbitant Blu-ray royalties hurts Chinese manufacturers ability to compete on price.
An equally important, but unspoken, issue is the econoclypse. The Chinese government has made a deal with the Chinese people: leave us in control and well deliver rising living standards. The current slow down has hit China hard: millions have been laid off and economic growth is anemic.
CBHD is a double win for the Chinese government: billions saved in royalties; and a much cheaper, locally manufactured, luxury item for the restless masses. Blu-ray is simply collateral damage.
Studio knuckle-draggers no doubt are salivating at a tough new form of Region encoding: incompatible formats for the West and Asia. But will that really work?
English is the #2 language in Asia, so English-language CBHDs will be popular. Shanghai vendors will happily sell CBHD players and disks on Ebay. The economics are irresistible and, other than the studios, who will turn down HD content at DVD prices?
The Storage Bits take
Toshibas gambit is brilliant. Instead of taking a total loss on their billion-dollar HD DVD investment, theyll get incremental revenue and, no doubt, valuable future consideration from the Chinese government.
It is a nice win for the Chinese government and manufacturers. Blu-rays high cost has slowed its acceptance to a crawl, so Chinese CBHD players will rapidly climb down the cost curve to prices lower than DVD-only players since they arent paying DVD royalties either.
The studios get a couple of years to make some money on Chinese CBHD releases, but will piracy disappear? Not anytime soon.
The big loser is the Blu-ray camp. Boo-hoo. Theyve consistently misjudged the market and Blu-rays appeal. Guys, Im sorry you made a bad business decision, but its time to man up and take your write-offs.
CBHD vendors should not ignore the writable CBHD market. Many consumers would like something larger than DVDs for backup and much cheaper - and more compatible - than Blu-ray.
Heres hoping the CBHD storage market is running wild by this time next year. CBHD will be the worlds #1 format in unit volume by next year.
The above is a post of ZDNet and the Author is Robin Harris,All rights and other such stuff is belongs to him !
Regards.
Hey all you Blu-Ray fans and high def junkie's hold all your purchases of Blu-Ray for the Chinese are about to give you a cheaper alternative and are also about to kick the Blu-Ray where it hurts :yahoo: !
Here's the complete scoop on this !
ust when Blu-ray thought it had clear sailing, a tempest has risen in the East: China Blue Hi-definition Disk (CBHD). Toshiba has licensed its HD DVD to them and it will be the unit world leader in HD optical technology in just 12 months.
Why? The Times Online reports that the CBHD players are outselling Blu-ray in China by 3-1 and the CBHD disks cost a quarter of Blu-ray.
Blu-ray, we hardly knew ye
What happened to Blu-rays dominance? Blu-rays dominance.
Conceived by Sony at a time when few thought upscaling would succeed, the idea was that HDTVs would require HD content on optical media. Reliving the glory days of DVD adoption they forecast tens of billions in revenue from players and disks, enormous licensing fees and consumer-proof DRM.
Watching the CD business crater, studio thought that HD would drive their business to new heights while eliminating piracy. It was an optical gold rush - that has turned into a mirage.
The fundamental problem is that the slightly sharper HD picture isnt worth the extra dollars. 10%-15% max.
Enter the dragon
China has good reasons to support a home-grown HD format. First, the exorbitant Blu-ray royalties hurts Chinese manufacturers ability to compete on price.
An equally important, but unspoken, issue is the econoclypse. The Chinese government has made a deal with the Chinese people: leave us in control and well deliver rising living standards. The current slow down has hit China hard: millions have been laid off and economic growth is anemic.
CBHD is a double win for the Chinese government: billions saved in royalties; and a much cheaper, locally manufactured, luxury item for the restless masses. Blu-ray is simply collateral damage.
Studio knuckle-draggers no doubt are salivating at a tough new form of Region encoding: incompatible formats for the West and Asia. But will that really work?
English is the #2 language in Asia, so English-language CBHDs will be popular. Shanghai vendors will happily sell CBHD players and disks on Ebay. The economics are irresistible and, other than the studios, who will turn down HD content at DVD prices?
The Storage Bits take
Toshibas gambit is brilliant. Instead of taking a total loss on their billion-dollar HD DVD investment, theyll get incremental revenue and, no doubt, valuable future consideration from the Chinese government.
It is a nice win for the Chinese government and manufacturers. Blu-rays high cost has slowed its acceptance to a crawl, so Chinese CBHD players will rapidly climb down the cost curve to prices lower than DVD-only players since they arent paying DVD royalties either.
The studios get a couple of years to make some money on Chinese CBHD releases, but will piracy disappear? Not anytime soon.
The big loser is the Blu-ray camp. Boo-hoo. Theyve consistently misjudged the market and Blu-rays appeal. Guys, Im sorry you made a bad business decision, but its time to man up and take your write-offs.
CBHD vendors should not ignore the writable CBHD market. Many consumers would like something larger than DVDs for backup and much cheaper - and more compatible - than Blu-ray.
Heres hoping the CBHD storage market is running wild by this time next year. CBHD will be the worlds #1 format in unit volume by next year.
The above is a post of ZDNet and the Author is Robin Harris,All rights and other such stuff is belongs to him !
Regards.