Blu-ray Gets a Standard

It's not every day that you get to write something like "the Blu-ray Disc standard has been standardized," but as it turns out today is one of those days.

Earlier this week a consortium of consumer electronics companies including Sony, Philips and Panasonic announced plans to establish a streamlined licensing process for new Blu-ray devices in an effort to, and here's that word again, "standardize" the licensing process. As a bonus, the new approach should also be cheaper and easier for companies to navigate, theoretically increasing the Blu-ray presence on the market and helping to cut down on costs.

For those that are interested, the new licenses will cost $9.50 for a Blu-ray player, $14 for a BD recorder and just 11 cents for a read-only Blu-ray disc. Licensees also won't have to approach Blu-ray, DVD and CD rights holders individually and pay separate royalties, potentially cutting royalty costs by up to 40 percent.

So why does this matter to the CE market? Because, as dry and boring as licensing issues can be, this move is just another indication of Blu-ray's shift into the mainstream. No longer is the high-def standard an outlier in the home entertainment space; it's now officially part of the CD/DVD ecosystem.

That's doesn't necessarily mean it will survive the competition from HD VOD (I'm guessing that it won't) but at least now we know where CE is placing its bets. Expect to see a lot more Blu-ray at much lower price points in the very near future.