Blu-ray AACS Liscenscing Too Expensive, Preventing GrowthVideo 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
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.
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…
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.