I wonder if Cube and Samsung's announcement caught these Co.'s off guard. This smells like a feeble attempt at covering up a lack of technology :-)
Matsushita Electric Develops DVD Video Recorder to Replace VTRs
Tokyo, Oct. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., the world's largest consumer electronics company, said it's developed a machine it hopes will eventually replace conventional video tape recorders.
Osaka-based Matsushita has developed a digital versatile disc video recorder based on DVD recording and storage technology for movies, music and data. Matsushita and other Japanese consumer electronics makers such as Toshiba Corp., Pioneer Corp. and Hitachi Ltd. are betting DVDs -- enhanced compact discs with greater storage capacities and clearer reproduction -- will succeed the conventional video tape.
Unlike current DVD players which don't have a recording function, Matsushita's new DVD device will enable users to locate the beginning of a program, re-record and connect it to computers and other equipment for editing. Matsushita plans to put the recorders on sale next year, though issues of copyright protection need to be resolved before DVD can go on sale and begin to replace video tape.
Matsushita's DVD recorder, and other machines under development from Pioneer, Toshiba and Hitachi, are ``potentially of tremendous importance,' said Alan Bell, an analyst at Schroders Japan Ltd. ``Here we have something readily made commercial, the kind of DVD recorder everybody's been looking for, but without agreement on copyright protection, this can't go forward.'
Makers of DVD hardware, which need to avoid the danger of a class-action suit for aiding piracy, are waiting until the Motion Pictures Experts Group, an industry standard-setting body, determines standards to ensure copyright protection for DVD-RAM before they put DVD recorders on sale.
Matsushita's DVD recorder, which it's exhibiting at the Japan Electronics Show this week in Chiba prefecture, east of Tokyo, conforms to a set of standards for DVD-RAM recently agreed by the DVD forum, an industry body membership of which is open to any company engaging in DVD research.
Matsushita, Pioneer, Toshiba, Hitachi and Sony Corp. are all members of the DVD forum.
Matsushita, which sells its goods under the Panasonic brand, hasn't fixed a price for the new product yet, said company spokesman Yoshihiro Kitadeya.
Matsushita shares rose 30 yen, or 1.42 percent, to 2,145.
Oct/06/1999 5:33
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