JVC's Digital A/V plans........................
JVC Sets Digital A/V Strategies
- -July 27, 1998
By Bob Gerson
There's a new JVC in the making in Japan, one committing its future to digital A/V products and a renewed involvement in the worldwide software market, according to president Takeo Shizui, who discussed the changing strategy at a meeting with a collection of international industry journalists in Paris.
JVC has already taken some first steps, with its involvement in digital still cameras and printers, digital camcorders, DVD players and its first D-VHS VCRs. Such new products, Shizui predicted, will represent 50% of JVC's A/V business by the year 2000, against just 16% today.
JVC recently took another major step to the digital future with the announcement of formal specification for the high-definition high-speed (HS) and data-oriented low-speed (LS) modes for future D-VHS VCRs.
D-VHS decks are pure bitstream digital data recorders with no digital-to-analog conversion. Although they can be used for conventional playback of analog VHS and S-VHS cassettes, they must feed through a set-top or built-in TV decoder for playback of digital video recordings on analog TVs.
Where the currently established standard mode provides up to seven hours of recording on the just-developed DF-420 cassettes, the HS mode will supply up to 3.5 hours of high definition.
The LS mode is offers a four-speed option, providing maximum record/play times of 14 hours, 21 hours, 35 hours and 49 hours. The shortest, LS2, mode is capable of recording Video CDs, while the slower LS3, LS5 and LS7 modes are most suitable for data storage.
Shizui told us JVC sees D-VHS as the home digital recording system of the near future. While he feels it is possible that DVD recorders with acceptably long record times will be developed, by then, "we may need no moving media at all" as solid-state memories with vastly increased storage capacities appear.
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