OT: Panasonic Blu-ray player in Sept.

Jay Gladwell wrote on 3/29/2006, 6:23 PM

LOS ANGELES - Panasonic will start selling a Blu-ray high-definition disc player in September for under $1,500 and sees up to 5 million of these new DVD players sold industry-wide in their first year.

Read more here.

Comments

Steve Mann wrote on 3/29/2006, 11:39 PM

If they can ever get the patent licensing settled. This and DRM is what's holding up the releases. According to IRMA (International Recording Media Association), CD's had some 15 patents to assess and distribute royalties (If I recal, 8-cents per disc). DVD's have over 100 (about 35-cents per disc). But Blu-Ray's have over a thousand patents to clear. Royalties are estimated to be as much as five to ten dollars per disc.

Kind of limits the lowest possible price of media.

Meanwhile, E-World Technology in Beijing (Enhanced Versatile Disc) is being manufactured by ten companies in China at a price under 150 Euros. A recordable version is planned for release at CeBit in 2007.

Remember all those high-tech jobs that we sent to Aisia?

Steve

JJKizak wrote on 3/30/2006, 4:25 AM

You forgot a bunch more meanwhiles. FVD---Taiwan (Microsoft codecs on standard discs), VMD---Russia, India, HVT and HVX holographic ? M2t and HD-WMV players on standard discs (Avelink and JVC) and what about D-VHS?

JJK

johnmeyer wrote on 3/30/2006, 7:11 AM

Remember all those high-tech jobs that we sent to Asia?

No, we didn't export jobs. THEY exported competition. While the high-tech industry may have "out-sourced" jobs, the automotive industry didn't do any of that in the early 1970s, and yet the Asian competition, primarily from Japan, absolutely killed them. Point is, the driving force is that a growing number of countries have a very well-educated population that can do things as well as the U.S. or Europe. Of course, the economic advantage some of these countries enjoy because of lower labor costs is a very short-lived phenomenon -- something that only happens during the transition out of third-world status.

JJKizak wrote on 3/30/2006, 8:11 AM

Ross Perot was right but nobody listened. My theory is after watching the news with 5 Presidents holding hands for passage of NAFTA that space aliens told the Earth people to even out the wealth. The rich people said ok, lets destroy the middle class. Their plan is working very well. Meanwhile the rich people get richer.

JJK