Expect DVD Chip Price Wars 108
prostoalex writes "With more companies developing the chips for DVD players the price wars might ensue. According to this DigiTimes report, 'Boosted by rising shipments, the higher price of DVD player single-chips is likely to push up the average chip price to US$9.56 in the fourth quarter from US$8.58 in the first half. However, the increasing number of chip suppliers also implies that a new price war may soon develop'. The predictions of DVD chips sales slowing down add to the expectations for price wars."
Re:This is good right (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:This is good right (Score:1)
erm (Score:1)
Is this a big deal for us? (Score:2)
Re:Is this a big deal for us? (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, it matters. It may create a domino effect to other DVD parts as well, thus creating a cheaper system in overall. It happens in all electronic products throughout history. It always starts with a measly drop of a key component.
Re:Is this a big deal for us? (Score:1)
Re:Is this a big deal for us? (Score:1)
Yes, but imagine having a cheaper portable DVD player, perhaps? How about exporting cheap players to third world countries? Imagine the possibilities.
Re:Is this a big deal for us? (Score:1)
Re:Is this a big deal for us? (Score:2, Funny)
Markups (Score:2)
Re:Is this a big deal for us? (Score:1)
the rise in chip prices won't hurt the consumers (Score:1)
Everybody who wants a DVD player now has one... (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't have one because:
* Region coding - I object to it on principle, but there is also lack of information - for example, both Europe and Japan are region 2, but if I buy an NTSC disc from Japan, would it play on a European player? Also, does buying a code-free DVD player break the law where I live? I don't know, therefore I won't buy one
* Already have a laserdisc player - and a *lot* of laserdiscs. Sorry, but I'm not about to switch formats to gain, at most, a slight improvement. We're not talking HDTV here, we're talking primarily YUV component colourspace instead of PAL encoded composite colourspace.
* MPEG artifacts - analogue artifacts like dot crawl don't bother me much at all - they look natural now. Blocky digital artifacts bother me a lot, they jump out and scream, 'hello I am a compression artifact' at me, (not really, but you see what I mean).
* Sillyness - 'must watch' chapters on DVD, no, sorry, I'm not going to pay for that, forget it. 10 second copyright notice is possibly tollerable, but not adverts - no way.
* VHS is a lot better than it used to be - sorry, but it's true, in the early 80s, VHS was a terrible format, but modern machines are better than my 1970s U-Matic decks. It's not as good as laser, or DVD, but frankly, I don't cry my eyes out because I have to watch something on VHS.
* Watching fewer films now anyway - this is actually a major reason for not buying DVD. I am getting seriously bored of watching rubbish. The last film I saw at the cinema was Deep Impact - nothing has appealed to me since.
* Compressed audio - there was NO excuse for compressing the audio on DVD. I hate compressed audio, and don't want it. I want uncompressed, 2 or more channels of 48 Kbps 16-bit PCM, or nothing. It's bad enough that the cinemas are using these stupid compressed soundsystems, but don't let it invade the consumer market. Oh, you have. Another reason why I don't have a DVD player.
So, to sum up, I don't have a DVD player, and I don't want one.
Re:Everybody who wants a DVD player now has one... (Score:1, Insightful)
Of course, it will. European TVs, VCRs and DVD players will quite happily play NTSC media. Region coding is obsolete. Over here in Denmark you can buy region-free players and region 1 discs everywhere.
MPEG artifacts - analogue artifacts like dot crawl don't bother me much at all
Like there are bad videos and films, there are badly compressed DVDs, too. Incidentally, the thing that really struck me when I first saw a DVD movie (on a 100 Hz Sony trinitron tube) was how flawless and sharp the picture was. It was unreal.
Compressed audio - there was NO excuse for compressing the audio on DVD
Unless you're running a high-end home theatre sound system, you cannot hear a difference between a compressed, Dolby Digital sound and an uncompressed stream.
Furthermore, by compressing the audio track you get nice things like multiple language support. I like to watch movies in English but also I like to brush up my German and French by watching the movie with a foreign language soundtrack.
Also commentary tracks (director, actors/actresses, producers,...) are a major reason for why I keep buying movies and TV series on DVD.
Re:Everybody who wants a DVD player now has one... (Score:1)
Yes, there are some very bad compression artifacts on DVD, and yes its filled up with alsorts of stupid copy-protection, but until someone comes up with a better digital format with no compression, no protection and a 1TB+ CD-sized disk with lots of titles availiable, its the only digital format we have.
I once thought like you, but then i saw this [yahoo.com] narrated by William Shatner! sweet..
Artifacts and Compression (Score:1)
Was the player set up correctly? I heard that one reason for people's negative reaction to DVD was that there is meant to be a *bit* of softening of the image.
That's the theory- I got a new PC with a DVD drive, and wanted a movie to test it out. I picked up a copy of 2001 for UKP 7.00 (US$10.50) and played it. My reaction?
Not impressed... jaggies and conspicuous compression all over the place. Tried another movie, was much more impressed, then went back to 2001. Seems the `softness' setting must have got checked somehow; for a small reduction in sharpness, the picture was vastly improved. Sure, you can still find artifacting if you look for it, but it's not noticable in the vast majority of cases- unless you're looking for it.
DVD isn't perfect, but it beats the heck out of VHS (well, PAL VHS anyway).
OTOH, I agree with you about movies sucking; most of them do. And you didn't mention the higher cost of the disks vs VHS, nor how fragile they seem to be.
Re:compressed audio makes sense (Score:2)
Re:Everybody who wants a DVD player now has one... (Score:2)
This isn't a feasible option- at least not without giving up a lot of the audio options that make DVD's cool.
A DVD holds about 8GB of data, correct? Uncompressed stereo PCM takes roughly 600MB an hour. For a two hour movie, that's 1.2GB.
One of the big selling points of DVD's is obviously the 5.1 surround sound. If you add another 4 channels of uncompressed sound on top of the stereo PCM, you could be talking 3.6GB of data just for ONE audio track. Already, this is cutting WAY into the space available for the video.
Another huge selling point of DVD's is multiple audio tracks for different languages and director's commentary and such. Two uncompressed 5.1 audio tracks would consume nearly the entire DVD.
I suppose that once the technology becomes available, perhaps they'll come up with a format based on optical media with a raw capacity much higher than DVD, like maybe 50GB. Then your wishes will become feasible.
I wouldn't hold my breath for such a standard, though- an increase in output quality would simply not be noticeable on the AV setups found in 99.9% of homes today.
Once there's an HDTV in nearly every house, you may see enough consumer demand for a format offering higher-fidelity than DVD. But not before.
Re:Everybody who wants a DVD player now has one... (Score:1)
* Region coding - I object to it on principle, but there is also lack of information - for example, both Europe and Japan are region 2, but if I buy an NTSC disc from Japan, would it play on a European player? Also, does buying a code-free DVD player break the law where I live? I don't know, therefore I won't buy one
Yes indeed, region coding is the devil's work, it is ridiculous, it is stupid...
However:
In Australia it's completely legal to sell a region free DVD player thanks to our ACCC deciding it was anti-competitive for the system to exist. This is the start of a worldwide trend...It's going to disappear... it will eventually be no more... and then all will be good. And really, has it hampered me in getting films from whatever 'region' I want? No... I have plenty of US DVDs, cause I bought a very easy to find MultiRegion player and can do so...
* Already have a laserdisc player - and a *lot* of laserdiscs. Sorry, but I'm not about to switch formats to gain, at most, a slight improvement. We're not talking HDTV here, we're talking primarily YUV component colourspace instead of PAL encoded composite colourspace.
You're hardly in the majority there, at least on a world scale. And aside from picture and sound quality differences, you've also got the HUGE benefit of the size and versatility of the format... Having to turn over multiple 12" discs during a movie is hardly my idea of an easy to use movie format.
* MPEG artifacts - analogue artifacts like dot crawl don't bother me much at all - they look natural now. Blocky digital artifacts bother me a lot, they jump out and scream, 'hello I am a compression artifact' at me, (not really, but you see what I mean).
Yes, MPEG/digital artifacts can be pretty darn horrible to look at... but have I seen any on any DVD that I own? Once... and that was on some extra documentary that was compressed to much... have I seen it on any actual movie? Not one single one...
* Sillyness - 'must watch' chapters on DVD, no, sorry, I'm not going to pay for that, forget it. 10 second copyright notice is possibly tollerable, but not adverts - no way.
Yup, they are stupid, ridiculous and hardly desireable... but do any of my over 100 DVDs have this (Other than copywrite info)... Nope... so it's hardly widespread.
* VHS is a lot better than it used to be - sorry, but it's true, in the early 80s, VHS was a terrible format, but modern machines are better than my 1970s U-Matic decks. It's not as good as laser, or DVD, but frankly, I don't cry my eyes out because I have to watch something on VHS.
OK, so because a shite format is slightly less shite than it used to be, you think that it's preferable to watching it on DVD? Oh lord how you lost me here... How many problems are there with this format?
* It wears out... the first and biggest on of the lot, the thing I hate most about analogue technology (Same as why I loath LPs)... it wears out... it gets hissy, develops dropouts, noise, and basically becomes more an more unwatchable as time wears on.
* Aural magnificance... Oh the joy of low frequency range Dolby Pro Logic Sound... weeee... I should through away my DTS amplifier now, cause I don't need no more than this! Did I mention the hiss?
* The resolution sucks... it sucks a lot, a widescreen movie on a VHS tape is really crap, there's no other way to describe it. (Well there is... quite a few ways actually, none of them nice though)
* Watching fewer films now anyway - this is actually a major reason for not buying DVD. I am getting seriously bored of watching rubbish. The last film I saw at the cinema was Deep Impact - nothing has appealed to me since.
So, this would actually be the biggest reason for you really... you just don't like films now... fair enough... although saying that Deep Impact was a good film, and that nothing since has been better... erm... ooooo kkkkk, each to their own.
* Compressed audio - there was NO excuse for compressing the audio on DVD. I hate compressed audio, and don't want it. I want uncompressed, 2 or more channels of 48 Kbps 16-bit PCM, or nothing. It's bad enough that the cinemas are using these stupid compressed soundsystems, but don't let it invade the consumer market. Oh, you have. Another reason why I don't have a DVD player.
Ok then... so keep watching those VHS tapes then, they'll sound SOOOO much better...
So, to sum up, I don't have a DVD player, and I don't want one. Which is fair enough, but your reasons seem very flawed... well, except for not liking any movies of late... that's fair enough if that's what your taste dictates... :(
From the rest of your comments you seem to have either had a really bad DVD experience at some stage, or have just been reading a lot about DVD, filtering out all the good stuff, picking the reasons why you can say you don't want it, and not actually seeing or hearing what the format is capable of... Never have I enjoyed movies as much as when I watch DVDs on my system at home... I get so much joy from the supurb presentation, and the ability to get completely lost in a film... it's really fantastic, and I'm sorry that you've lost the joy you obviously used to have for movies...
Re:Please don't call them chips (Score:2, Funny)
She said something about 'Fries', and I'm like, huh? What are you talking about? Do I want fries with it or something? HUH???
Then she explained that there is an electrical chain in the U.S.A. called Fries, and I was like, ahhh, right, you had me *really* confused then!
Re:Please don't call them chips (Score:4, Funny)
Fry's. Not fries. as in Fry's Electroncis [frys.com].
Don't feel bad, I ordered an old Compaq VRM from the U.K. because even after shipping it was like $30 cheaper than I could find in the U.S. I got this great email from the firm saying that "the goods have been shipped" and I was envisioning a little heroin bonus in the package.
DVD Chips (Score:3, Interesting)
In other news.... (Score:1)
Who's the largest consumer of DVD players? (Score:2, Interesting)
Who buys the most players? Is it the US? Singapore? China? More importantly, are the major markets for players doing well financially?
I'd say that drops in chip prices are all well and good, but the bottom line is price is going to be dictated by both demand, and what the market can bear in terms of durable goods.
Does anyone remember what the computer makers predicted for this quarter and what actually happened? Sales didn't just stay flat, in many cases compared to projections they nosedived. Durable goods are just that. Durable. Long term. You can only buy so many. Unless there is a compelling reason to upgrade, most people don't.
So who IS the major "market" for the players? Anyone have any good links/data?
Re:Who's the largest consumer of DVD players? (Score:3, Informative)
There are two reasons for this: 1) the price of players have dropped dramatically--you can even now get 480p progressive scan DVD players for under US$200 nowadays; and 2) the price of DVD discs are still pretty reasonable (US$20 to US$30 for new releases, US$10 to US$15 for older releases).
Because the price of DVD discs are still reasonable, the incentive to pirate movies is still very low. DVD's very sharp picture quality is one reason why VCD's have never really taken off in the USA. Say what you want about the MPAA, but the fact that movie companies have pretty much followed Disney's sell-through policy for pre-recorded movies in the DVD market has actually discouraged movie piracy for the vast majority of computer users out there.
Re:Who's the largest consumer of DVD players? (Score:1)
VCD came out years before DVD.
Re:Who's the largest consumer of DVD players? (Score:2)
But VCD's never really took off in the US market when they were first introduced, mostly because they never sold stand-alone VCD players like it was done in Asia. Besides, why bother with a video format with about the same picture quality as VHS tapes?
Re:Who's the largest consumer of DVD players? (Score:1)
I know; I was responding to the parent which was blaming DVD for VCD not taking off.
I don't know for a fact that your reason is correct, but it's the same one I guessed myself.
If the technology is coming into an established market, it's got to beat the existing product by a mile, or do something reasonably different. The only advantage I could see was random access. Not even recordable- why would I buy one over a VCR?
I've no idea why it took off in Asia; even in a virgin market, wasn't the VCR a better bet?
Re:Who's the largest consumer of DVD players? (Score:1)
1- no rewinding
2- the 'compact' in 'compact disc'
3- easy to produce
Lots of people like to burn their home movies to VCD, because it only costs a few pennies per copy and works like a charm in their 100$ DVD player. You can also shove 100 VCD's in a spindle that takes up about as much space as 4 VHS tapes. What ? Digging through 100 discs isn't convenient ? Digging through 100 tapes is worse, when you consider the piles you'll be building around yourself just to get to that gem in the far left corner of your TV cabinet.
And geezus.. why do I have to mention this : ANIME! Buckets of inexpensive Anime from the eastern markets.. stuff you'll never see on DVD for zillions of bullshit reasons. Try grabbing any of the Urotsukidoji series on DVD ? No go, too 'sick' to be granted a producer's license. So they release royalty-free VCDs and you get your tentacle-raping goodness without paying The Man.
Re:Who's the largest consumer of DVD players? (Score:1)
When people start to call DVD players illegal, the terrorists(*) have won.
--
(*) Bush, Ashcroft, RIAA, MPAA, Microsoft,
whoopee? (Score:3, Interesting)
APEX 1200 (Score:2)
At this rate, we will see DVD players in crackerjack boxes by 2005.
A new factor: graphics cards decoding DVD's (Score:3, Interesting)
ATI has been doing this since their Rage 128 chipset arrived around 1999; nVidia's GeForce4 MX and GeForce4 Ti also do this now, and Matrox's Parhelia board do it now, too.
In short, the market for seperate DVD decoding boards has pretty much vanished on the desktop and laptop computer market.
Re:A new factor: graphics cards decoding DVD's (Score:2)
I disagree on that. It was when CPU speeds went past 400 MHz that all-software decoding solutions became really viable. And even then, programs like WinDVD and PowerDVD took advantage of MPEG-2 decoding assistance on newer graphics card chipsets (ATI's Rage 128 and most of the Radeon line, nVidia GeForce series, SiS 305 and newer, the onboard video of Intel's 810 and 815 motherboard chipsets, etc.) so playback is a bit smoother.
WTF is a dvd chip? (Score:1)
Either way I could care less, we're talking about 10 dollars here. Whoopee. I already have a DVD player anyways.
Who cares? (Score:2)
Do the more expensive chips have more features? (Score:3, Funny)
And what about chips that support DVD-Audio? Jesus, how long has that format been just around the corner? As for me, I'm not buying a DVD standalone until it can play MPEG-4 and doesn't cost me much. If the established chip manufacturers are raising prices, maybe this will open a window for Sigma to get their better chips into consumer players. Hate them if you like for falsely taking credit for Xvid (I accepted their appology), but you still have to admit that MPEG-4 in the living room would rule! It's worth waiting for, in my opinion.
Any players that use these Sigma chips with Mpeg-4 (Score:1)
Interesting times for DVD. (Score:2, Interesting)
The history of DVD offers an object lesson in old rivalaries, protectionism and national politics, battles which still rage on today. It's as if we're still fighting WWII.
The key battle seems to be between Japan and China. The Japanese missed the boat on Video CD, only to watch Philips and C-Cube walk away with the prize in China. By fostering SVCD (Chaoji) as a low-cost (and no-license) alternative to DVD, the Chinese seemed determined to hose Japan again. Under this pressure, the Japanese countered by - slowly - offering DVD technology transfers though joint ventures and though US trade bullying on 'piracy' (which we all know is more about market control than it is about copyright.)
The DVD format is about seven years old now. As prices continue to drop and worldwide DVD player demand slackens, I have to wonder how long that lucrative (and onerous) DVD licensing scheme is going to last.
As it stands now, I think it's possible to make a DVD player without a single component from an original DVD Consortium memmber. They have no value-add anymore.
The Consortium's hammerlock on DVD persists though Hollywood's dominance of content in that format. But, Hollywood is getting more competition from indigenous material - notably in huge markets like India and China - the very material that helped propel Video CD. With Hollywood's recent product becoming increasingly parochial and cliche', one has to wonder how long before its grip, too, is softened in the non-US markets.
One way for the Consortium to add value is to offer a meaningful technology upgrade to DVD. But, there's no reason that it has to come from a DVD Consortium member. What if, for example, China mastered and deployed blue laser technology and high-density disc pressing to go with it, giving them the lead in HD format? It could be Video CD and SVCD all over again.
Here's another scenario: what if a net-new standard-def format (say, MPEG-4 with HTML-based navigation) was developed somewhere and introduced in China, as an upgrade to SVCD? What if it used its own high-density media that could be manufactured on DVD production lines? I could see China threatening exactly that.
- dvd_tude
(meta) Illegal comments (Score:2, Informative)
WTF is an "illegal" comment?
Given that Slashdot's servers are located in the United States of America, where all reasonable political speech is permitted, an "illegal" comment generally contains one or more of libel, copyright infringement (as in this case [slashdot.org]), or enticement to commit copyright infringement or access control circumvention (such as a link to non-Pigdog DeCSS software). Giving the secret code for a level select on one of these DVD chips may be considered such an illegal comment.