Why is a blu -ray so expensive if they are cheaper to make?

Question

The design of the Blu-ray discs saves on manufacturing costs. Traditional DVDs are built by injection molding the two 0.6-mm discs between which the recording layer is sandwiched. The process must be done very carefully to prevent birefringence.

1.The two discs are molded.

2.The recording layer is added to one of the discs.

3.The two discs are glued together.

Blu-ray discs only do the injection-molding process on a single 1.1-mm disc, which reduces cost. That savings balances out the cost of adding the protective layer, so the end price is no more than the price of a regular DVD.

so why are they so expensive?

Answer 1

They are more expensive because the manufacturing process is different, requiring new machines and facilies.  Yes the process should and will be cheaper, but the machines cost money.  You can't expect manufacturers to eat the startup cost.  Add into that the fact that BD adoption an disc sales are still fairly low and it makes running those machines more expensive than if they were selling like DVDs.

I'm hoping it impoves quite a bit by the end of the year though.  Expect a drop in the cost of BD players in about a month.

Answer 2

If you are asking why they are more expensive to buy (as in finished films), it's because it's a new format, a better format, and studios see it as a way to increase their profits at a time when DVDs are declining.

Most of the big studios are listing the prices for bigger titles at $39.95 SRP.

I'm not an objective observer since my studio is about to release our first slate of Blu-ray titles next month, but we are committed to keeping the costs at DVD prices. ("Blu-ray quality at DVD pricing" is our mantra in our ads).

You will see costs start to come down when more people get the players (which, this holiday season, you will see sub-$200 Blu-ray players on the market, helping saturate it). This will help drive down the costs over the  next year or so.

Hope that helps!!

Answer 3

Because they can be. The average consumer has come to accept that if something is drastically better, surely it must cost more. Let's go back to when CD's came out. It cost less to manfacture a CD than a cassette tape, but since CD's had the longevity and higher quality sound...they charged more and the public accepted the higher cost because it's a higher quality format.

You're running in to that with Blu-Ray but in a different suituation. When DVD's replaced VHS for the most part, the discs weren't much more expensive than a VHS, if you could find it. Let's remember that maybe 10...15 years ago when a movie was released on video to the public it generally had a high retail of around $100 for a while..then got cheap. That's why you could generally only rent them at first. DVD's changed that by putting releases on shelves day-of. While there was a price inflation in some cases (and even so there's some dvd's that are still around $40).

there's two ways of thinking with blu-ray. the first being you're getting this stunning high-def expierence, of course they're going to charge you more for the premium expierence. there's also the possibility that studios want to charge more for a "more detailed" copy of "thier work"...and I'm sure you could also throw in the licensing fees paid to the blu-ray consortium for licesning to produce discs for the format and possibly the additional hardware they might of had to purchase (but probably already had) to make these things. the prices will drop euventually.

Answer 4

Supply, demand, manufacturing capacity and licensing.

There are less manufacturers out there that produce less disks for a smaller market so the price is up.

There are tonnes of independent manufacturers of DVD, especially in China, that do it very cheap. I think it costs about $3 to cut a bluray disk currently. It costs less than 50 cents to do a DVD.

- Don't forget the licensing costs that get added to every disk (that go to the Bluray group of companies).

- There is also the special scratch resistant coating on the bluray disk, which adds to the cost.

Answer 5

There's a couple of reasons why new technology costs more when it first comes out. First, the owner of the patents for the technology is trying to recoup its research and development costs. Second, the manufacturers had to retool to be able to develop the product. After awhile, as the R&D and retooling investments are paid off, the company putting out the product will lower the price to be competitive with other technologies.

Besides, blu-ray was just recently named the industry standard for DVDs. The manufacturers know they have a captive audience and that people will pay whatever it costs for awhile to get the technology.

Remember when the iphone came out and people were putting up $500 to get one right when they came out. Within a year, the price dropped to $400 and will drop even more, so that Apple can continue to move their products.