DVD Discman..............................................
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Sony Readies DVD Discman
Sony Electronics Inc. [SNE] plans to ship a portable DVD player called the DVD Discman (model PBD-V30) before year's end. A fall release is likely. The company has yet to determine pricing.
Unlike the $1,299 portable player Panasonic Consumer Electronics Co. will introduce this spring, the Sony model doesn't have an LCD screen. Sony's hardware will be compatible with DVD-Videos, CDs, Video CD and CD-R media. Sony also is scheduled to ship a five-disc DVD carousel (DVP-C600D) with built-in AC-3 decoding in the late summer. (Sony Electronics, 201/930-1000)
And encoders......................................................
Philips Rushes To MPEG-2 Market; Readies Single-Chip Encoder
Philips Semiconductors [PHG] is getting in early on the MPEG-2 encoding market and expects to have volume quantities of a new single-chip design available in September.
But company executives realize the payoff for their engineering efforts may be a long time coming because MPEG-2 revenues will be tied to recordable DVD, a technology unlikely to achieve significant market penetration this year.
Price is another key consideration that will make or break the Philips' silicon effort.
Company officials looking to make a business out of MPEG-2 encoding know their only shot at getting close to the consumer market is to offer peripheral makers a reference with MPEG-2 encoding and decoding they can sell for $500 to $700. And even at that price a product featuring the encoder (model SAA6750H) is more likely to appeal to prosumers. However, such a target is the first step toward building volume and reaching the masses.
Samples of the Philips silicon are available worldwide in limited quantities for $250, and the company expects the encoders to cost $38 in quantities of 100,000 and $35 for quantities of $200,000.
Development of the chip took place in Hamburg, Germany. Michael Kaufmann, Philips' international product marketing manager, is coming to the United States last month for meetings with Philips executives and potential customers to finalize the company's business-development strategy.
The biggest threat to Philips so far is C-Cube Microsystems Inc. [CUBE], which is committed to selling OEMs an MPEG-2 codec for less than $100 in time to bring sub-$300 boards to market this Christmas.
Several major Japanese companies and IBM Corp. [IBM] also are developing single-chip encoders. Philips debuted the chip publicly on March 19 at CeBIT in Hannover, Germany and doesn't expect to demonstrate the silicon at a trade show in the United States until Fall Comdex in November. Despite that schedule, look for the company to make the initial push in the United States.
"I know American companies are more in front with this kind of technology," Kaufmann said.
The company is focusing on storage applications for the technology. Kaufmann acknowledged that a large installed base of recordable DVD drives is necessary to build a market for the encoder, be they DVD-RAM or the DVD+RW format supported by parent company Philips Electronics NV.
DVD-RAM manufacturers Toshiba America Information Systems Inc. [TOSBF] and Hitachi America Ltd. expect to have drives available in volume sometime in the second quarter. (Phillips Semiconductors, 408/991-2646)
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