Writing in Content Agenda, Paul Sweeting notes in his Media Wonk blogicle attempts by British company New Medium Enterprises (NME) to market HD-VMD, a lower-cost, HiDef optical format and players.
Despite Blu-ray's triumph over HD DVD, it's far from clear that Blu-ray will become the sole--or even dominant--HD format around the world. Its high costs will remain a deterrent to consumers in many markets, some of whom will be open to lower-cost alternatives....
Blu-ray costs will eventually come down, of course, but they'll always remain higher than the alternatives, if for no other reason than the high royalty costs associated with the physical format as well as BD-J, BD+, AACS and other mandatory features. And as always, Blu-ray's enemy is time. It will take time for BD drive volumes to increase, and for mastering and replication capacity to come on line sufficient to lower costs to mass market levels around the world. And the world is not going to wait for Blu-ray.
One interesting question is whether Bollywood and other non-US
centers of media production and distribution will give up on the kind
of copy protection / DRM for HiDef video represented by Blu-ray's BD+.
And what technology and copy protection choices will the Adult
entertainment segment make? Alternatives to Blu-ray may have substantial wiggle room
