Blu-ray AACS Liscenscing Too Expensive, Preventing Growth
Blu-ray Disc, DVD, DVD Copycat News, Uncategorized Add commentsVideo and Film professionals who wish to shoot and publish their projects in Hi-Def have, to this point, been frustrated with the prohibitive costs associated with manufacturing a Blu-ray Disc.
Say an average filmmaker or video professional wants to make 1000 copies of their film and put it on Blu-ray(BD) Disc. Unlike DVD, they will have to pay a mandatory up front AACS licensing fee. Going rate is about $1500 to $2000 plus an ongoing royalty.
After paying this mandatory licensing fee, it will cost approximately $3.5 per unit to manufacture a Blu-ray package that is ready for distribution and sale.
For a typical standard definition DVD, there is no mandatory licensing fee for encryption and the cost would be approximately $1.49 per unit to manufacture.
Comparing these costs, a filmmaker will have to pay an extra 266% over the cost of a standard DVD to publish on Blu-ray Disc. Almost every client I have spoken to about these costs has declined to go Blu-ray.
As economies of scale take effect, the costs to manufacture Blu-ray Discs will likely come down and eventually be similar to DVD costs. However, the real barrier to smaller companies adopting hi-def is the mandatory AACS licensing fee imposed by AACS Licensing Administrator, LLC. This additional $1500-$2000 (plus per piece royalty), will likely be too expensive for most, and is just one more barrier to widespread adoption of Blu-ray Disc technology.
My hopes are that AACS Licensing Administrator, LLC. drops the mandatory licensing fee for smaller Blu-ray Disc orders. If they do not, I suspect that an entire market of filmmakers and video professionals will be choosing DVD over Blu-ray Disc for the distribution of their projects.
For more information on Blu-ray Disc Duplication and Replication you can contact us directly:
Brian G Fisher
DVD Copycat
745 Fillmore, #101
San Francisco, CA 94117
415-929-1581
December 3rd, 2008 at 12:30 pm
x2 that Brian !!!!!!
AACS fees are a show stopper for me as an owner of a production company whose end product right now is solely on a DVD. WISHING is about as close as I get to a Blu-ray DVD.
Where are the burner manufacturers in this? They have to be feeling the slow sales of Blu-ray burners. 80% of that slow sales rate is the “inaffordability” of Blu-ray authoring caused by AACS fees!
Jeff Bach
Quietwater Films
Madison, WI.
February 26th, 2009 at 9:38 am
I agree 100%. Every time a client requests Blu-ray they immediately say no when they hear about the price to manufacture. The only Blu-ray work I can really get right now is for one-offs for screenings and trade shows. Most inde filmmakers or other smaller scale video folks rarely have needs of more than 1000 units… If this continues I fear it will kill Blu-ray before it ever takes off…
March 5th, 2009 at 9:09 am
Brian,
While I agree about the unfortunate expense, please note it is NOT the fault of AACS — it is due to the Blu-ray association’s decision to make AACS mandatory. Not that it’s any use anymore, but HD DVD did not require AACS, and was (on that point) friendlier to small publishers.
March 9th, 2009 at 10:28 am
I couldn’t agree more…My client hear the cost for Blu-Ray manufacturing with print and packaging and decide to distribute on DVD.
March 28th, 2009 at 7:16 pm
[...] Eric Manning pointed out to me in a previous post about the mandatory AACS fee, the Blu-ray Association has required all manufacturers to pay a mandatory AACS fee. If the [...]