DVD at Comdex........................................
techweb.com
June 09, 1997, Issue: 957
Section: News
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Comdex buzz: DVD-enabled PCs set to ship
By Alexander Wolfe
Atlanta - Despite recent talk of a delayed takeoff for DVD-equipped PCs, both computer and higher-priced, standalone consumer DVD drives were the main buzz at an otherwise lackluster Spring Comdex here last week. Indeed, news emerged that several big DVD-related announcements are expected over the next few weeks, indicating that digital-video-disk technology is finally poised to hit the market in a big way.
Among the developments:
- Several unnamed "first-tier" computer OEMs will announce plans later this month to ship DVD-enabled PCs, according to sources at Chromatic Research Inc. (Sunnyvale, Calif.). The machines will use Chromatic's Mpact media processor as a decoding device, the company said. The first PCs could hit the market as early as July.
- Hitachi Ltd. will use PC Expo in New York next week as the venue to detail an aggressive strategy for DVD-ROM drives and to take the technology to the next level with what it claims is the first rewritable DVD-RAM drive. The unit lets computer users record 2.6 Gbytes of data.
- Hoping to build interest in DVD as a consumer playback technology, Polygram Video is releasing a raft of popular movies on DVD this month, including "Dead Man Walking," "Fargo" and "Four Weddings and a Funeral." In addition, competitor Time-Warner is also upping its output with releases of "Tin Cup" and "Disclosure."
- Aiming to jump-start the sales of consumer DVD players, Philips Consumer Electronics later this month will launch a video-store rental program that lets consumers try out a machine at home for $20.
- After several years' delay, the music industry is finally signing on to the DVD standard. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) said last week it expects to have a spec for a DVD music disk nailed down by year's end.
Taken collectively, the announcements constitute a marked turnabout for a technology that only weeks ago seemed to be mired in controversy surrounding the Content Scrambling System (CSS) copy-protection technology (see May 26, page 1). (Chromatic has a CSS license and is supporting the feature in its Mpact chip.)
Reports from the show floor suggest that DVD leaders like Pioneer, Hitachi and Toshiba seem intent on recouping the millions they've spent developing the technology by aggressively marketing drives to OEMs who are gearing up for volume purchases.
Now playing
More important, consumers looking for something new on the PC horizon seem eager and willing to embrace DVD. At last week's Comdex, crowds elbowed their way into the tiny Sigma Designs booth where the company played DVD movies on four monitors to showcase its decoder card.
"From what we're seeing, PC OEMs are ready to run with DVD," said Yogesh Khare, marketing manager at Sigma Designs Inc. (Fremont, Calif.), which introduced a DVD decoder card at the conference.
"They [OEMs] were waiting for software to come out," said Khare. "Previously, there were only about 50 titles available. But now the titles are starting to hit and they're pretty reasonably priced-about $20."
By pointing to Hollywood movies as the spark spurring interest in DVD-equipped PCs, Khare highlighted one of the big paradoxes of the DVD world: the demarcation between consumer and PC players has blurred.
Originally, DVD proponents were betting that the 4.7-Gbyte data-storage capacity of the disk would make it an immediate hit with games developers. However, games programmers are grappling with problems of their own-notably, the difficult transition to Microsoft's DirectX application-programming interfaces-and have largely stuck with CD-ROMs. One of the few DVD offerings around is Silent Steel, a submarine-war game made by a company called Tsunami.
For their part, consumer-electronics marketeers concerned by the higher price of the standalone DVD players are hoping the buzz created by the PC community will get customers in their doors. Standalone players begin at $550 minimum, against $300 to $400 for the computer drives.
Clearly, price remains a major concern on the PC front. Sigma said it's seeing lots of interest from OEMs in its bundled solution, which consists of the new decoder card and a Pioneer or Toshiba DVD-ROM drive, for $499. But there's intense pressure to shave costs. "We're already seeing OEMs asking for price cuts," said Khare. "They want to pay less than $100 for the decoder cards and less than $200 for the drives."
According to Chromatic executives, several major PC OEMs will use the E3 multimedia conference in Atlanta later this month to announce plans to ship DVD-equipped PCs that use Mpact as the decoder solution for DVD playback with CSS copy protection. Chromatic declined to name the OEMs, but hinted that they number some of the industry's top players, potentially including Compaq Computer Corp. The Mpact chip will be incorporated via add-in cards, such as those currently available from STB in Richardson, Texas and from Taiwan-based vendor E4.
Because the PCs are slated to ship as soon as July, the news is expected to greatly speed the deployment of DVD. The announcements could also give a big boost to Chromatic in its bid to make Mpact the media processor of choice in its competition with Philips's Trimedia processor.
An even bigger Mpact endorsement appears to be coming from the motherboard community. At Comdex, Proside (San Jose, Calif.), the American sales arm of Tokyo-based parent company Proside Corp., unveiled its PRS-M55TM36X Pentium MMX motherboard, which includes an on-board Mpact chip. And sources said that several other Taiwanese vendors came to last week's Computex show in Taipei planning to show Pentium motherboards equipped with Mpact.
However, one sticking point in the rush to Mpact could come from the software side. Reports are surfacing that the Mediaware 2.0 software from Chromatic, which enables Mpact to handle DVD decoding, is still being tweaked. At Comdex, Proside was demonstrating a board running a beta release of the software, though a final version is expected soon.
While DVD appears on the verge of a big breakthrough in the PC world, things are less certain in the consumer-electronics arena. One key missing participant that could give a big boost to the DVD consumer push is the recording industry. Buoyed by chart-topping sales in 1994 and 1995 from rap artists and from mainstream acts such as Alanis Morissette, record companies decided to stick with CDs as their primary format. In addition, technical concerns that DVD sound quality was tailored to Hollywood movies caused the recording industry to opt out.
Another look
However, a major sales slump in 1996 and a bleak outlook for the remainder of this year has apparently prompted the RIAA to take another look. A move to new format could galvanize sales, as when CDs moved to replace long-playing vinyl records in 1984.
The RIAA said it will conduct listening tests on the proposed systems this summer and expects to have a draft specification for a DVD music disk by this December. The disks themselves should reach the market in about two years, the RIAA said in a statement.
Hitachi, too, is looking ahead to future technologies. The Tokyo company will use PC Expo to showcase its next-generation DVD-RAM rewritable technology, which can record a total of 5.2 Gbytes of data on two sides of a disk (see May 5, page 56)
Hitachi demonstrated the drive at Comdex last week, running on a PC equipped with Windows 95. Like all drive makers, Hitachi uses decoder technology to connect its DVD units to current-generation PCs. That's necessary because Windows 95 does not incorporate native DVD drivers. Hitachi said the drives will begin shipping June 20.
Memphis, the upcoming successor to Windows 95, is slated to include native DVD support from Microsoft.
Copyright r 1997 CMP Media Inc. |
