MegaZone @ Aug 15th 2007 3:29AM

The key difference with DVD+R and DVD-R is that those two formats are nearly identical. There is no hardware difference in drives that support both formats - many drives could be upgraded to support the other just through firmware. And there wasn't much of a licensing cost bump to support both, as they're both based on DVD - to license the non-DVD Forum '+' was minor.

BD and HD DVD are physically different and require different lenses, or a more expensive dual-format lens. And the licensing for the two formats has minimal overlap, so vendors need to pay twice to support both. Making a dual-format player is always going to cost more than a single-format player because of these issues. And it is more complex, since there are major software differences and you basically have the development costs of developing two code bases - one for BD (BD-J, BD+, etc) and one for HD DVD (HDi, etc).

Toshiba is subsidizing their players to try to buy market share while there is still time (in their mind) to do so. That's why their players have been cheaper than other players, which aren't being subsidized.

Blu-ray being dramatically more expensive than HD DVD is a myth. Most of the basic components are the same - it is only the lens assembly that is really different. And the cost of the BD assembly isn't that different from the HD DVD lens. On the disc side, even a couple of years ago costs were given as $.05 per BD, $.035 per HD DVD, and $.03 per DVD. But BD has lowered their cost-per-disc aggressively, supposedly down around $.04, and is aiming for cost parity with HD DVD in the near term. As more BD presses are coming online, the capacity will create more competition to keep costs down.

HD DVD's main advantage is in infrastructure costs - BD requires investing in new presses, HD DVD can reuse DVD presses with modifications. And that's really the only area HD DVD has a significant price advantage.

Isn't it interesting though that Warner's HD DVD of '300' is priced higher than the BD?