DVD is a "happening"............................................
ijumpstart.com
JOHN BARKER WRITES
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We make no apologies for concentrating on DVD in this issue, because this month has seen a number of epoch-making events in the DVD arena. But next issue we will return to a more balanced focus. Watch out for a special report from our esteemed columnist Jack Kenny on the faltering progress in educational IT.
A new beginning?
My trip to San Jose and the DVD-ROM event left me with little doubt that DVD is going to happen. The presence of Microsoft, Intel, IBM and Compaq lent credence to the view that this is not another false alarm, not another Video CD or CD-i. DVD will happen because everyone wants it to happen; because it delivers a perceived benefit both to the consumer and to the industry.
Last week's announcement of the launch of DVD-Video in the UK revealed unqualified and widespread support from the hardware and software vendors as well as the retail channels. Inside Multimedia intends to do its bit with a DVD Celebration event at BAFTA on 21 October, supported by the UK Launch Committee. Why is IM apparently abandoning its normally objective and independent view of the world? Because we believe that DVD marks the start of a new era.
DVD-Video expands our industry by taking market share from video cassette and video on demand. But that is only the tip of a very large iceberg. DVD-ROM opens up whole new vistas in electronic publishing, allowing multimedia content on large databases that were previously limited to boring old text. Who could ever have imagined eight gigabytes of freely-searchable information on one side of a single disc?
OK, we get very irritated by the copy protection measures foisted on us by Hollywood. But think how attractive it becomes if we can produce titles which are likely to be sold for coin of the realm, rather than pirated in a few hours by some back-room Bulgarian replicator. The sophistication of the DVD-ROM replication process alone is a deterrent to the pirate. DVD has arrived in the nick of time, just as worthwhile multimedia titles were starting to escape the confines of a single disc. The replacement of five CD-ROMs by one DVD-ROM is more than just a welcome convenience for the user; it is also a lot cheaper to produce.
Let us hope that the coming of DVD is the excuse we need to escape the ever-bigger 'airware' boxes which clog the retail shelves. If the retailer can be persuaded to move to the slimline DVD package we could, at a stroke, get five times as much retail space to sell our wares. The excuse is that bigger means better. I wonder. Is a Porsche inferior to an American gas-guzzler because it is smaller? The marketing guys need to establish a new metaphor. Maybe we should make the package size irrelevant by using the technology to sell the goods. A three-minute demo using a point-of-sale kiosk is the obvious solution. DVD in isolation would be a welcome innovation in itself, given the increased capacity, the quality video and the enhanced audio which it brings to the party.
But the triple whammy is the simultaneous arrival of blistering 3D graphics and universal Internet access on millions of PCs worldwide. That means the interactive multimedia designer has a totally enriched new reference platform to play with. The coming of Windows 98 spells Soft DVD, cheap encoding and authoring tools and the arrival of DVD-i (interactive DVD).
Is this not an exciting prospect? Who knows, even the badly-scarred venture capitalists may soon be tempted back into this industry. |
