Blu Ray vs. HD DVD Duplication

DVD duplication is a topic burned into consumers' minds. Yet why does the new Blu Ray disc cost so much more than a traditional DVD, or even an HD DVD? Is there that much of a difference? While $40 may seem like a lot to shell out for a movie, you won't mind paying extra for your discs when you see how much it costs to set up at home!

Have you ever purchased something at a store and then asked yourself, "I just paid $40 for this but it probably only cost 40 cents in materials to make?" It's sort of a natural instinct, especially for anyone who's worked in retail, to size up the value in their heads. Therefore, when browsing the new selection of Blu Ray titles, one will naturally wonder, "Why can I get a DVD at Wal-Mart for $10, but these new discs are retailing at $40?" Are you paying extra for the interactive features and additional hours of video, or is it just that much more expensive to burn high-definition? In essence, it's more expensive all around, especially if you're in the business of HD DVD duplication.

Remember the days when you could buy a DVD duplication burner for under $200, get a 100-pack of DVD-R's for $22 and have a full movie copied in just forty minutes? Those were the days! Yet with the advent of Blu Ray disc technology, the film industry is getting more and more expensive for consumers and may be just the speed bump industry leaders need to stave off the downloading generation just a few years longer.

The Understanding & Solutions research firm for Home Media Magazine has announced they will invest an additional $250 million, installing 80 new production lines, to meet consumer demand for the new Blu Ray disc movies and PS3 games. In addition to AACS encryption, mastering, DVD authoring, replication and packaging costs, a single line of 50 GB Blu Ray discs can cost as much as $2.7 million to produce. For a small independent DVD duplication center, the financial hurdle can be challenging. However, when faced with do or die, many hope to keep their businesses alive.

According to optical disc industry officials, the cost of DVD duplication for a Blu Ray disc is quite high. A single layer HD DVD, with the capacity or 15GB, costs $1.15 to manufacture. A 25 GB Blu Ray disc costs $1.30, whereas your standard Dual Layer DVD would cost $0.50. This of course is all assuming that you're buying 25,000 discs at a shot. Across town, at another Blu Ray DVD authoring plant, single-layer Blu Ray discs are going for $1.35 - $1.45, while the 50 GB dual-layer Blu Rays are going for $2.15 - $2.25! If you're doing the math, that's roughly 45 cents per GB. Also, don't forget there's a setup cost that could be as much as $5,000 per line.

You may be wondering, "Well, what if I wanted less than 25,000 or more than 25,000? "If you need, say, 5,000 (50 GB) Blu Ray discs, then you're looking at a cost of approximately $12,250. For a 10,000 disc unit run, you're looking at $13,000 for your Blu Ray player and $14,500 if you want an interactive disc for your computer. While DVD duplication for Blu Rays seems more expensive than the now-extinct HD DVD, the numbers are deceiving. You get more giga-bytes with a Blu Ray disc, so you're actually getting more for your money.

Despite the high costs of Blu Ray-DVD duplication, there may be some hope on the horizon for consumers who just want to do their own Blu Ray DVD authoring at home. Pioneer and Mitsubishi Chemical Media have opted to create a new disc using an "organic dye recording layer, which is sometimes referred to as "LTH format," that will reduce material costs and also allow existing CD-R and DVD-R manufacturers to upgrade their facilities to BD-R, using modified equipment, rather than a whole new line. However, consumers will need a firmware update to be able to play LTH format in their Blu Ray Disc players. Mitsubishi and Pioneer said they hope their BD25SL BD-R discs and LTH BD burners will be on the market this spring. Additionally, they are pioneering a metal nitride recording layer that will improve burn speed from 2x to 4x or 6x.

You may have been using a DVD duplication burner for many years now. Many consumers like burning back-up discs for their collection or (illegally) sharing their movies with friends and family. There is also a chance you'll want to burn home movies onto a BR-DVD to watch on TV, and if you're an amateur filmmaker or musician, then there are obvious benefits to being able to record in the new Blu Ray format. For a regular computer, Pioneer has a line of relatively inexpensive bare bones (single layer) Blu Ray burners for $155 - $179. Of course, the drives for laptops are slightly more expensive and must be bought internally at the time of purchase. The ranges go up to $660 for LaCie and $360 for the more futuristic-looking Lite-On. Most burners will also burn CDs and regular DVDs. Then, of course, there are the brand new double layer burners retailing currently at $500 that allow copy protection and the ability to burn to 50 GB. This is only the beginning of consumer costs, though, because you haven't eve n gotten into BD-R disc costs yet.

As you know, DVD duplication is no easy task. It's not like burning a CD, where you can just easily rip it onto your computer in five or ten minutes. Instead, you'll need special software to break through copyright barriers and you'll have to wait much longer for the information to copy. Software company "SlySoft" claims to have AnyDVD HD software that can break Blu Ray's BD+ protection to make copies of commercially released Blu Ray titles. The large film studios were originally enticed by Sony's BD+ copy protection, which they felt was far superior to Toshiba/Microsoft's HD DVD. SlySoft promises that they'll be continually trying to keep up with the latest innovations that Sony can come up with and that they're currently offering the ability to bypass the beginning warnings, age restrictions and limitations on some BR discs.

Sure, you can purchase the new Pioneer BD-R 101A Blu Ray-DVD duplication burner for $999 from Tiger Direct. One would assume that you'll pay a little bit more to get started, but in the end you'll be saving a ton, compared to the $40 Blu Ray disc price listed at stores. However, at this point, everything costs! To purchase a blank BD-R disc to burn onto, you're looking at an additional $25 per single-layer disc and $48 per (50 GB) double-layer disc! The days of paying 10 cents per giga-byte have been replaced by its 70-cent/giga-byte successor. Perhaps those Amazon Blu Ray sales aren't so bad after all!

Maybe in the future, HD DVD duplication won't be so brutal, but right now it's unwise to think you'll be raking in huge cash or getting the best deal by burning your high-definition movies at home. Until new blue laser/large capacity/multi-layer burning technology is available to catch up with the latest innovations, you'll be saddled with higher costs no matter what. If you're not the patient type, then your best bet is to buy the system and look for Blu Ray sales at Amazon, Blockbuster, Circuit City or Best Buy.

• HD DVD