How much does a Blu-ray disc cost? How much profit?

[Maxell]

I'm just curious how much 1 blu-ray movie costs movie companies to make (not blank discs). Say I bought a movie for $30. How much of that goes into production, and how much is profit?
Does BOGO still create profit?

[Manco]

This is a good one for WickyWoo. Try to get his attention.

Also do some searches. There are some threads on BD production costs.

[Rike255]

I read something about this on the forums here not too long ago. Not sure if the numbers were accurate though can't remember if there was a source. I'll see if I can find it.

[LuBi]

Well I know private retailers make about 2-4$ USD on avg per disc. Back in February of this year replication costs were posted



I'm pretty sure they were updated since then.. It goes without saying there's no money in selling BR unless you have buying power like BB or Amazon.

Source: http://wesleytech.com/blu-ray-vs-hd-...-revealed/111/

[Maxell]

Thanks for the info.

[david2189]

i dont get it, it costs 2 dollars max to replicate the discs, packaging and shipping would be about another 2/3 dollars, they sell them for 18-20 dollars so theyre making upto 14 dollars per disc? half it, theyre stil making upto 7 dollars?

where have i gone wrong :s

[Papi4baby]

Originally Posted by david2189

i dont get it, it costs 2 dollars max to replicate the discs, packaging and shipping would be about another 2/3 dollars, they sell them for 18-20 dollars so theyre making upto 14 dollars per disc? half it, theyre stil making upto 7 dollars?

where have i gone wrong :s

Well your missing money for the studio which finance the film. Money for the seperate studio that did the transfer for HD and all encoding, and off course the directors get a cut, im sure there's more people that put their hand on the cookie jar. Oh i think the BDA gets a cut too.

[olarmy96]

I'd like to ask the question in a different way. How much more does it cost to produce a BD than a DVD. It seems to me that it shouldn't cost $15 more, so the margin for BD is better than DVD.

This should incentivize the industry to switch to a more profitable platform.

[lch]

the mass production side difference should be neg.
but the authoring, encoding side is relatively more.
nowaday, you can find many dvd quality are not really good and most are not post produce, just take the negatives and transfer.
for now, making hidef seem more tedious, video clean up, restoration, compression, ... they cost more.

[Anthony P]

i dont get it, it costs 2 dollars max to replicate the discs, packaging and shipping would be about another 2/3 dollars, they sell them for 18-20 dollars so theyre making upto 14 dollars per disc? half it, theyre stil making upto 7 dollars?

where have i gone wrong :s

you missed two things

1) if a disk sells for 30$ the studio did not get the 30$

2) fixed costs. When you sell 5M the fixed costs are almost negligible if you sell 500 or 5000 or even 50000 those fixed costs become MUCH more important.


PS the prices from replicators usually include packaging and stuff.

[buckshot]

aren't there a lot of costs with the audio as well, not just paying dolby or dts, but the techs who put the mix together for the disc, the director will make changes which takes more time, not to mention the special features, transfers, liscencing the compression codecs, paying the compressionists and using all of the equipement, power, etc etc etc. the low quantities will make shipping costs higher as well. i'd say they're making around $6 a disc on popular titles. maybe $4 on less popular titles. thats single discs. the spiderman set i'd say they're making $12 pure profit per sale. although i know about ordering very different materials and parts so i may be off a bit.

[jorg]

actrualy know for singel layer blu-ray discs is costs around max 1.50 hd dvd us on average 10 cents cheaper for singel layer

[Papi4baby]

Originally Posted by jorg

actrualy know for singel layer blu-ray discs is costs around max 1.50 hd dvd us on average 10 cents cheaper for singel layer

Thats just replication cost. Is how much the fab charges lets say Warner for every BD they make for them. That is cheap compare to all the other charger.

And yes the audio is more money if they use DTS or any advance codec. It is my understanding that PCM is free.

[Rustmonsteru]

I thought I read someplace that everything prior to replication, i.e. masters, encoding, technicians and so forth costs something like $30K to $40K per title. Sorry, I can't seem to remember the link, so don't take that as fact. Someone in the insiders thread would probably be able to pop off a figure.

[Anthony P]

Thats just replication cost. Is how much the fab charges lets say Warner for every BD they make for them. That is cheap compare to all the other charger.

depends what you are talking about. Let's make the math easier by saying it is 1$. If you sell 10M copies, that charge became 10M$ which dwarfs all others. On the other hand let’s say the rest are 30k$ and transformer sold 90k (from what I read that seams to be the confirmed FA VS number) that would make the rest 3$ a movie vs 1.5$ for replication. On the other hand how about a normal title that only sold 3k copies? Then that charge becomes 10$? And how about some of he worst sellers that are around 300 titles? Then that 30k becomes 100$ per movie.

I thought I read someplace that everything prior to replication, i.e. masters, encoding, technicians and so forth costs something like $30K to $40K per title. Sorry, I can't seem to remember the link, so don't take that as fact. Someone in the insiders thread would probably be able to pop off a figure.

it would obviously depend on the movie, but my guess is that it is a bit more then that, it would not surprise me if it is around 50k-60k or more. There is also other variable costs that could exist (such as royalties dependent on sales sometimes paid to directors or actors)

[truelies]

8 years passed. How much a Bluray cost nowadays? Just curious how much can a $5 Bluray earn by the movie company.

[Bluyoda]

I don't know if this is of any help, but I have recently made an inquiry concerning my own BD Audio. Just to replicate it 300 times, and have disc artwork would be over 2000 Euros, but I am sure the more the cheaper.

[AgentOrange]

Originally Posted by truelies

8 years passed. How much a Bluray cost nowadays? Just curious how much can a $5 Bluray earn by the movie company.

At $5 it's probably all going to the studio (or more likely the studio already got their cut). Once they get down that low it's either retailers clearing out old stock, or perhaps treating it as a loss leader.

It seems like they can keep cranking out discs for the $10-15 range and it must be somewhat profitable, but no way they intentionally produce with a $5 price target.

[Anthony P]

Originally Posted by Bluyoda

I don't know if this is of any help, but I have recently made an inquiry concerning my own BD Audio. Just to replicate it 300 times, and have disc artwork would be over 2000 Euros, but I am sure the more the cheaper.

most replicators won't replicate 300 copies, that is most likely duplication and that is much more expensive (per disk).

For those that don't know the difference,

replication= taking plastic and the rest of the materials and making the disk with the data at the same time

duplication= taking a prefabricated writable or re-writable disk and then burning the data on it.

[Travis9]

"For those that don't know the difference,

replication= taking plastic and the rest of the materials and making the disk with the data at the same time

duplication= taking a prefabricated writable or re-writable disk and then burning the data on it."

They should really try to avoid using synonyms to describe different things.