Article written on BluRay.com
PacificDisc Announces Lower Blu-ray Replication Pricing
Posted May 20, 2009 02:26 PM by Juan Calonge
Replication company PacificDisc has increased its Blu-ray capabilities by bringing the mastering in-house and announcing aggressive new pricing. According to Bob Novelli, VP of Marketing, “this makes entry into the BD space much more affordable for the independent producer, which is our target market.”
As a reference, current pricing for an order of 5,000 bulk BD25 discs would be $9,350, including replication, AACS and mastering (but excluding shipping and taxes). That is to say, overall unit price would be $1.87 per disc.
As is always the case in replication, the per-disc cost varies depending on order size. A larger order of 10,000 units would cost $16,600 ($1.66 per disc), whereas a small order of 1,000 units would run a bill of $3,580 ($3.58 per disc), again including mastering, AACS and replication.
These prices are noticeably better than those that were applied in the recent past. For example, the pricing for replicating 5,000 bulk BD25s (not counting AACS and mastering) has decreased from $3.15 per disc in August 2007 to $1.47 per disc now, or a drop of over 50 percent.
AACS fees have also dropped by around 20 percent (from $1,585 + $0.05/disc to $1,300 + $0.04/disc). However, they continue to be steep for smaller runs. For example, an independent producer ordering 5,000 discs must pay $1,500 in AACS fees alone - in other words, compulsory AACS costs him 30 cents per disc.
PacificDisc agrees that AACS fees, while insignificant for major studios, remain a huge obstacle for the smaller agents and put off many a potential producer wishing to take the plunge. This issue has been repeatedly raised in industry fairs by independent replication houses and producers, who demand a tiered license pricing scheme.
Most of PacificDisc’s recent BD projects have come from smaller independent producers, or corporate clients. These include: product demos, yoga and meditation videos, an HD eye candy series (fireplace video, aquariums, etc.) and some indie films. “We’ve not broken into the mass-market titles outside a handful of PBS stuff,” said a PacificDisc representative, “as this is not our niche.”
The typical BD orders the company receives range from 1,000 to 10,000 discs, though they have also had some orders for as many as 100,000 units.
As regards disc size, the vast majority of orders are for BD25s. PacificDisc doesn’t do BD50 in-house, and contracts out those few dual-layer jobs instead.
