The question of money

One of the topics discussed last week was the notorious "repudiation" of the company Toshiba his brainchild - a new generation of optical storage media HD DVD. In just a few days to phase out the HD DVD in its gaming console, and Microsoft is said. All of this has led many to say that the HD DVD format finally lost the competition competitor - Blu-Ray format. But I think this is not quite the case. More precisely, is not the case: many large manufacturing companies are loyal to beleaguered format. For example, the company LG has announced its intention to continue to support the development and sale of devices that work with HD DVD. Daniel Aziz - Manager of Marketing LG Electronics - told reporters: "LG believes that at the moment is to the player, which will support both formats, and so provide a simple and convenient for existing users HD DVD. Following the recent statements by Toshiba Blu-Ray format will be, which will pave the way for high-resolution films, but that does not mean an immediate exclusion of HD DVD, as there are a certain number of consumers who have chosen HD DVD collection and began to collect the discs".

But passions around the next-generation optical formats razgorelis entirely for other reasons, and those reasons are far from "little things" such as, for example, the image quality. Moreover, the quality of both formats provide absolutely the same. That's only winner in the "format war" gets a prize in the form of royalties - royalty payments. Royalties, under international agreements, there are a wide variety. For example, a consortium of Blu-Ray could obtain them from producers of computers and consumer electronics, which will be used optical floppies Blu-Ray. Similar deductions will pay producers and studio discs. Also, each optical disk drive or Blu-Ray, down from the conveyor will be subject to a kind of tax - license reward - in favor of the Association of Blu-Ray disc. Exact figures deductions is not yet known. But to get an idea of their size can be, if we recall a similar story with a DVD discs. Not so long ago, when the DVD was monopolist among high-capacity optical discs, legitimate manufacturer to produce DVD players can only paying around $ 4 per player or drive for the PC. A few years ago, when there were only a few producers and demand has been enormous, those payments will reach $ 15 - $ 20. According to the license agreement, these deductions are made every time a DVD drive is a factory assembling of the computer. But seegodnya virtually impossible to find a modern desktop or laptop without a DVD drive. According to statistics, the worldwide order issued in the year 250 million computers. Plus a DVD drives sold separately as accessories.

One can imagine the volume of royalty. But not only equipment manufacturers pay licensing royalties. The second is the flow of money from companies that produce DVD-ROM (legally, of course). Only in January this licensing group DVD6C finally reduced payments on disks, bringing them up to four cents per piece. And above this amount is equivalent to 7.5 cents. But that's not all. Also, manufacturers must pay for "technical standards". What are these payments without ... e-e-e… special education and non id. But pay accounts. Incidentally. While the Association of Blu-Ray discs, and does not oblige producers players, it urges them to make Blu-Ray devices with the ability to play DVD disks format to ensure backward compatibility. I have something important to licensing payments. It Insufficient mechanisms calculation and payment of royalties led to a situation in which China summit called "DVD" mistake. The fact is that a few years ago because of the high competition, most Chinese manufacturers started a DVD player losses or, at best, "went to zero" left without a profit. But many owners of patents earned. DVD Forum repealed licensing fees players made and sold in China, but a large portion of goods leaving the country. And very often these were "grey" schemes supplies isklyuchavshie international supervision. Problems with the payment of royalties and were the main reason why that would begin the development of China's own standard optical media. That is, having a huge DVD industry, the Chinese do not want to lose money on royalties. Earlier, a similar situation exists with CD discs. Developers standard profit: Philips is received about 1.8 cents for each drive, and Sony - about 1.2 cents. However, when the term of the international patent over what happened in 2001, Philips admitted that its license revenue payments fell by $ 42 million

Apparently, the developer of the technology Blu-Ray (and, incidentally, also on the main role of Sony) will act more cautiously than the DVD Forum, in terms of issuing licences for the production of players and discs. It is believed that the studios preferred the Blu-Ray format including because the production of pirated discs Blu-Ray to build more complex than the production of pirated HD DVD. In addition, the Blu-Ray format used experimental element of protection called BD +, which allows you to dynamically change the encryption scheme. It should be broken encryption, producers can update the encryption scheme, and all subsequent copies will be protected by the new scheme. To have a story with the program DeCSS, destroyed hvalenuyu protect DVD seemingly should not happen again. It seems to… Incidentally, the BD + license holders can also take separate royalty.