DVD ñ An Attention Grabber At IRMA Conference

DVD received a lot of attention during the International Recording Media Association (IRMA) 1999 Technology & Manufacturing Conference held earlier this month in Scottsdale, Arizona. Members of the organization, many representing the magnetic media side of the recording industry, have been monitoring DVD's worldwide growth, anticipating the moment when DVD outpaces VHS as the preferred home video distribution medium. ""We predict that 172 million DVD-Video units will be replicated [worldwide] in 1999,"" said Richard Kelly, President of Stamford, Connecticut- based research firm Cambridge Associates. The number is expected to reach 370 million units by the end of 2000. VHS duplicated units, on the other hand, are projected to reach 1.77 billion by year-end, a slight decrease from 1.79 billion units in 1998, with a continued decline to 1.6 billion units projected for 2000. According to Kelly, the initial impact on VHS will come from increased viewing of digital TV and not so much DVD - at least not yet. Kelly further anticipates that growth of DVD-ROM replicated units, while currently slow - reaching 5 million units by year-end - should grow to 30 million units in 2000. Much of this growth is expected to come from demand for Sony PlayStation 2 game titles on DVD-ROM, not computer software distribution. Near-video-on-demand, time shifting and pay-per-view played major roles in conference discussions, as did Internet delivery of streamed media. In that light, a significant question is what role optical media, and specifically rewritable optical media, will play in the future. Andy Parsons, speaking for Pioneer New Media Technologies, emphasized the need for compatibility across DVD media, players and drives. ""Hardware should play the entire DVD specification range,"" he said. Regarding the media, Parsons added that physical layer compatibility is not all that counts. ""The applications layer is just as important."" Reinforcing Parsons' comments, Hitachi America's Werner Glinka called for a ubiquitous DVD media. DVD-RAM drives and media have been shipping for over a year, he said, noting that some DVD-ROM drives are already capable of reading DVD-RAM. Indicating a change in marketing focus in the -RAM camp, Glinka emphasized the potential uses of -RAM in a multimedia world. Such features as Universal Disc Format (UDF), which provides cross-platform compatibility on Macintosh and PC, among others, make DVD-RAM a contender in the production environment. However, competition among the DVD groups and optical media in general wasn't the only concern for media companies at the conference. Magnetic media is vying for a place in home video recording, making attendees wonder if next-generation set-top boxes might offer a magnetic solution at a lower unit price before high-density optical technology using blue lasers can make it to the consumer market. Magneto-optical as well as several high capacity linear and digital data tape storage technologies were proposed. Source: Phillips Publishing DVD Report, Copyright Phillips Publishing, Inc.