DVD costs cut as Blu-ray looms

Posted on 5 Sep 2008 at 10:56

The DVD licensing body is cutting the royalty rate for the DVD encoder and decoder technology, just as Blu-ray gears up for a “huge” end-of year.

The DVD6C Licensing Group (DVD6C) has reduced royalties it charges device and software manufacturers for a worldwide license to DVD patents held by its nine members: Hitachi, Matsushita/Panasonic, Mitsubishi, Samsung, Sanyo, Sharp, Toshiba, JVC and Warner Bros.

The new prices will have a particular benefit to manufacturers of low cost devices, as they are pegged at a maximum of 4% of the device’s selling price.

DVD players face a tough market in the run up to the holiday shopping season, with Blu-ray backers anticipating that this will be the year that the high-definition technology goes mainstream.

“It’s going to be huge”, according to Andy Griffiths, director of consumer electronics at Samsung UK. “We are heavily back-ordered at the moment.”

Griffiths attributed that to cheaper players, greater availability of content and the conclusion of the HD DVD v Blu-ray battle.

But don’t plan to hang on to your Blu-ray discs for long. Griffiths reckons the technology has a five-years before it it superseded.

Author: Simon Aughton

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