A short history of DVD SoC players

[diogen]

We all were witnesses to the price collapse of regular DVD players a few years back.
I found this Amir's post interesting regarding the sequence of events predating that collapse:

There was incredible price pressure on material cost of DVD players as prices slipped down to $99 and lower. Then folks figured out a way out -- at least temporarily. The solution was to integrate the "front-end" and "back-end" of the DVD player into one SoC and with it, reduce cost substantially. Before this change, a DVD player was like a PC in that there was a drive and then a back-end processor which did the a/v decoding and graphics generation. The silicon for the drive belonged to traditional CE companies who had invested heavily in them including patents and knowhow. US SoC companies kept their focus on back-end only, not realizing that CE companies were creating combo SoCs and overnight, were designed out.

Then there was a frantic search to license the front-end logic and eventually a couple of companies managed to stay in the business and reach the same level of integration. But for a good period, the single chip solution put some of the key Japanese companies ahead of others, and cut out the business from US chip companies.

Reflecting on the current situation in HD, we are in the same boat again. The current "SoC"s are not really system on a chip. They are system on a chip for an IPTV set-top box. But for a HD DVD/BD, the front end electronics is owned by other companies. There will certainly come a time where these will get integrated together to reduce cost. Hopefully the US companies won't make the mistake twice of simply focusing on a/v decoding only

. Thankfully the complexity of the formats allows more of a runway but the time will come one day that they will be swallowed….

Industry Insiders Master Q&A thread IV: ONLY Questions to Insiders - Page 73 - AVS Forum

It looks like we are far from having a "real" SoC HD/BD player.
And US SoC manufacturers probably learned a few lessons from the DVD player history.

The often repeated in NA media explanation "The bastard Chinese DVD player manufacturers don't pay licensing fees" explanation may be a bit biased...

Diogen.