That's because DVD codecs cost almost nothing but the programmers' effort (and maybe a few bucks to use the licensed DVD logo,) but Sony and alt. saw a big money-making opportunity there and chose to license for a huge fee every aspect of BluRay from the
start.
This is absolutely not tolerable since they are in a situation of monopoly and there is no other alternative for true HD content. Hopefully this license will disappear eventually, or its cost will go down. I can't even start to fathom how many hundreds of millions
this is bringing to the licensees every year just by doing nothing, long after the full R&D cost has been defrayed. There's even a few cents on each pressed BD, and guess who has the only BD pressing facilities in the whole world? Sony.
I am not buying any PS3, TV, BD/DVD player or any other device from Sony, their attitude is just too arrogant, it's an insult to customers. It's already a pain in this globalized world that they kept a BD regional zoning similar to DVD's, and that every BD
device now needs to connect to the Internet and self-update just to play BDs just because of a stupid copy protection design, but the license fee on top is just too much.
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