Our friends over at EMediaLive.com have done their best to explain the trials and tribulations of getting Blu-Ray replicates created in this article, including estimated replication costs, content protection (AACS & BD+), and other associated licensing fees.
The closing paragraphs in the article sums it up for those of us in the corporate word looking to use Blu-Ray.
The Cost of Doing Blu-ray Business,
With its slew of legal agreements, upfront charges, recurring fees, and other imperatives, BD replication is a time-consuming, expensive, and all-around frustrating proposition for small- and medium-sized publishers.
Quantitatively speaking, for 1,000 copies of a simple title, all these demands add at least $7.54 overhead to the price of a single disc (calculated as a one-shot deal). Based on my earlier examples, this works out to roughly $11-12 (SL) to $13-14 (DL) each for a finished product. Ordering more units and amortizing the one-time and annual fees over multiple titles and years will dramatically reduce these estimated figures, but cost-efficient replication is, obviously, geared toward frequent high-volume production.
As the prices of writable hardware and media come down and compatibility matures, there should be little doubt that the best long-term solution for independent, in-house, and boutique high-definition publishers will be BD duplication rather than replication.
