Creative Survey Makes DVD One Of The Fastest Growing Media

A survey commissioned by Creative Labs suggests that more than a third of the British population will be buying DVD media instead of the VHS format in the future, making it one of the fastest growing media for home entertainment. The survey was carried out in June with 2,000 people. It sought to establish the public's view on the future of home entertainment. More than half of the respondents in the 15-34 age bracket indicated they will be buying DVD instead of VHS in future. Only one in ten people surveyed did not see DVD becoming the most popular medium for watching/listening to recorded media over the next ten years. The results indicate that digital technologies, specifically DVD, are set to dominate home entertainment, overtaking traditional home activities such as watching terrestrial television, VHS videos, listening to music on stereos and radios or reading. Of the general public surveyed (across all age brackets), more than a third believe they will be buying DVD discs instead of VHS videocassettes. Franco de Bonis, European Product Manager at Creative Labs pointed out that the increase in available DVD titles will further advance this trend. ""At the moment there is a good level of title support for DVD, however the number of DVD titles is set to dramatically rise as are gaming titles. This will ensure that the trend towards DVD and away from traditional formats such as VHS and tape will increase."" De Bonis continues, ""There are a number of lifestyle and technological factors that will further advance this trend. Reasons for home PCs being used more for entertainment than business are numerous; today's PCs are of higher quality than ever before; leading- edge graphics and sound cards are able to make PCs into high performance multimedia machines. Title support for DVD and gaming is ever increasing and the Internet has of course had a major impact on home users' PC habits."" Another interesting result that the research has identified is that the majority of home PCs are not situated in home offices - 36 percent in the bedroom, 18 per cent in the living room and a further 20 percent around the house. This illustrates a lifestyle change that makes it more common for people to use their PC as a form of entertainment, not purely as a functional piece of office equipment."" Creative Labs is the market leader in the sale of DVD- ROM upgrade kits and MPEG decoder cards. The reason for commissioning the MORI survey was that Creative needed to understand what the punters were doing with their upgrade kits. Were they really sitting in front of their PCs watching movies? The surprise was to find the substantial numbers who have moved the PC from the computer den into the living room. It seems that the punters are wiser than we think. They are not yet ready to buy a DVD-Video player so they are using the PC as a stepping stone, while standards settle down and prices fall. Connecting your PC to the TV is not difficult if you have a dedicated MPEG decoder card with a TV output port. But that is a transient thing because the next big thing is software decode. The latest kit from Creative is the PC-DVD Blaster 6X, selling at Pounds 99 including VAT. For that you get a super-fast 6X DVD-ROM drive - and all the functionality of a 24-speed CD-ROM drive. This does away with the need for a decoder card and all the attendant hassle by providing WinDVD decoder software. Franco de Bonis argues: ""So far, DVD has been a platform for the enthusiast who demanded a high level of functionality. DVD is now poised to take the mass consumer market by storm. However, the consumer looking at DVD for the first time wants flexibility, ease of use, and a low-entry price point. Options like Dolby Digital (AC-3) sound or TV output can be added later."" De Bonis reckons that this is the last big quarter for hardware decode. 'The future is Soft DVD' he told us. ""You get the decoding for free"". PC-DVD Blaster decodes AC-3 and delivers four-point sound surround. This is just great for the games player who is not so interested in watching movies on his PC. But where are the titles, we hear you ask. De Bonis waxes eloquent on this point. He reckons that PlayStation 2 is the killer app that will release a torrent of PC titles. His logic is faultless and goes something like this. Until now the cost of developing a DVD title for the PC has been daunting and sales indeterminate. In contrast producing for PS2 is almost a guaranteed sale. The cost of porting a PS2 title across to the PC will no longer be insurmountable, thanks to the arrival of DirectShow. Indeed the PS2 API is not fully released and many developers may already be using DirectShow to develop product. Thus DVD on the PC will become the platform of choice for the serious gamer. A TV screen is no match for a good monitor and the PC is galloping ahead all the time, witness the arrival of the GeForce graphics card. In contrast the games console must by necessity be cast in stone for at least four years. This is a compelling argument in favor of the DVD-equipped PC as the platform of choice for the serious gamer. Software decode is clearly the route to go because software decode feeds on whatever resources are present in the PC. Increasingly there will be a blindingly fast graphics card supporting the Pentium III chippery. This will blow the socks off even the PlayStation 2. So where does this leave Creative Labs? Surely the market for upgrade kits is limited as PCs increasingly carry a DVD-ROM drive as standard. Not so, says de Bonis. He reckons that CD-ROM drives will continue to sell in huge numbers into the systems integrator market, as far into the future as 2003. There will still be massive opportunity for selling upgrades to DVD. IM Analysis Barker's Third Law states that 'New media don't replace old media, they complement them'. If Creative Labs are right then the arrival of the PlayStation 2 provides the perfect proof. It will kick- start the nascent DVD-ROM industry into life. The lowered cost of title development is not the only factor. As replicators gear up for PS2 title production the cost of DVD replication will tumble as well. What this proves is that Creative Labs continues to re-invent itself. Most people assumed that there was a limit to its growth, given that audio is now built-in to all PCs and the market for upgrade kits is surely finite. It seems not. The audio upgrade market continues to have legs as Creative pulls fresh goodies out of the bag. Predictions of a difficult sales picture for the quarter proved unfounded. The company had expected to reach sales of only $250 million (Pounds 152.2m) but instead reached $270 million, based on stronger than expected audio sales. This compares to $280 million for the same quarter last year. No one predicted the overwhelming success of MP3 audio. Creative were slow to see the potential but has now jumped on that bandwaggon with its Nomad player to compete with the Diamond Rio. The next big thing is going to be the personal video recorder (PVR). No doubt Creative has something cooking to rival TiVo and Replay. Clearly rumours of Creative's death have been greatly exaggerated. Source: Phillips Publishing, Copyright Phillips Publishing, Inc.