#2 - Yeah it's $30.00 licensing per player. I know DVD has a high per-player fee ($10-$20?), so this isn't exhorbitant. It's more that Microsoft's coupons will create a $30 DIFFERENCE.
Microsoft DOES care about royalties, but NOT about player royalties.
Microsoft cares about the WMV-HD royalties that they will make PER DISC shot out in that format. That is where the money is -- even with today's DVD, it's in the disc, not the players.
While BD also supports WMV-HD, with HD-DVD, the capacity is too small to use anything but WMV (H264 yes, but WMV has a lower royalty). I'm guessing that Microsoft is backing the lower-capacity format because it will all but require WMV-HD, and provide a bigger payoff.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
EatingPie @ Dec 29th 2005 9:29PM
#2 - Yeah it's $30.00 licensing per player. I know DVD has a high per-player fee ($10-$20?), so this isn't exhorbitant. It's more that Microsoft's coupons will create a $30 DIFFERENCE.
Microsoft DOES care about royalties, but NOT about player royalties.
Microsoft cares about the WMV-HD royalties that they will make PER DISC shot out in that format. That is where the money is -- even with today's DVD, it's in the disc, not the players.
While BD also supports WMV-HD, with HD-DVD, the capacity is too small to use anything but WMV (H264 yes, but WMV has a lower royalty). I'm guessing that Microsoft is backing the lower-capacity format because it will all but require WMV-HD, and provide a bigger payoff.
-Pie