Six Deals You Need To Know About In Australia Today

5 responses to “Six Deals You Need To Know About In Australia Today”

1. 

   mraedge

   June 26, 2018

   Wi-Fi Mouse Pro free = not free @ AEST 9:30am

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   1. 

      ompster

      June 26, 2018

      was really looking forward to trying this too 🙁

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2. 

   skrybe

   June 26, 2018

   Jeez it’s time the *baseline* 4k Blu-ray prices dropped 20%. Still $30 for Logan and Deadpool (the first one), $36 for Black Panther and $40 for Guardians of the Galaxy 2 on 4k.

   People talk about discs “dying” and there being a slow take-up on 4k discs. It’s no wonder when there’s such a premium attached to their costs. Was looking at some info about manufacturing costs and it’s hard to justify such a hike. It’s not like it costs $8 more per disc to manufacture UHD compared to regular blu-ray. Or, in the case of Deadpool $17 difference between blu-ray and UHD Blu-ray prices…

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   1. 

      zak

      June 26, 2018

      The only excuse I can see for now is that most 4K releases also include the blu-ray disc. Which is also the only the reason I’ve started buying some 4K movies even though I haven’t splashed the cash on a 4K setup yet. One would hope that when (if?) adoption rates increase, single disc 4K releases will become a thing and the price drops closer to blu-ray prices.
      Until then, it’s very hard to justify paying twice the cost of a cinema ticket for a home copy. 🙁

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      1. 

         skrybe

         June 27, 2018

         I don’t have current figures, but I did some research and about 10 years ago it was costing roughly $2 to manufacturer a blu-ray disc (not counting the mastering process). So that doesn’t really justify a $17 difference for Deadpool.

         I couldn’t find figures on how much it costs to physically make the 4k Blu-ray disc so I’m not sure whether they’re a similar price or higher. That said, I can’t imagine the price to be massively higher per disc.

         Mastering prices are (were in 2007ish) pretty high being an estimated $40k for a blu-ray movie. But that’s a one off cost spread among all discs sold. Again, I’m not sure what the 4k Blu-ray cost would be but I can’t see it being high enough to justify the big price hike. Especially on a film like Deadpool that’s sold literally millions of copies.

         I have concerns that the prices will never drop due to a combination of factors. With streaming being a bigger thing now (than when blu-ray was released) there is more format competition. So casual viewers are more likely to stream than buy. This is compounded by the current high cost, since it encourages people to stream rather than fork out $40 for a single movie.

         It’s also not helped by the fact that 4k setups have been expensive until quite recently so the amount of people even able to utilize 4k movies is still quite low. This is also compounded by the fact that for a lot of people regular blu-ray is “good enough”. It’s not the noticeable quality leap that DVD-Blu was (at least for a lot of people).

         I worry this means we’re stuck in a vicious circle of; we need to sell more to justify lowering prices, but the prices are too high so people won’t buy them.

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