DVD in Hong Kong. The land of the sub $300 DVD player...............
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DVD - Technology Update
HONG KONG - DVD's success to outpace CD's
Hong Kong makers are touting DVD as the most important optical disk technology since CDs first appeared in 1983. After its arrival last year, DVD has received a lot of support from Hollywood's major movie studios and consumer electronics manufacturers worldwide. By its first anniversary, over 500,000 players and 5 million disks are expected to be sold, compared to just 35,000 CD players sold in 1983.
"DVD will mirror the development of CD technology in many ways, though at a much brisker pace, and output from makers will soon be large," said Anthony Budhrani, sales manager at Wing Cheong Electrical.
SMC Multimedia Products started producing DVD players in March this year. The company's home theater model, the DVD 330, features MPEG-2 digital image compression technology, multi-camera angles and supports up to 32 different language subtitles. This $280 model has a high-resolution 500-scan-line output and is compatible with both single- and dual-layer discs. By the third quarter of 1998, an advanced $320 version, the DVD 530, will hit the market, with Dolby's AC3 decoder for six-channel surround sound.
DVD offers greater capacity, enhanced features
Hong Kong makers are stressing the addition of extra features to their models, such as Karaoke functions. SMC's DVD 330 has multi-feature Karaoke with echo and volume control and supports a soundtrack with up to eight languages.
Current models offer a 500-line resolution on a TV, but makers hope to increase this to 800 lines soon.
Also: "Makers are moving toward double-layer, double sided DVDs, with a capacity of 10G and even 16G. This is perfect for epic-length movies or for storing both wide-screen and pan-and-scan versions on one side of a disc," said SMC's electronic engineer, Raymond Chan.
The potential scrambling rate of DVD can reach 96kHz as compared to 44.1kHz for standard audio CDs but currently this is restricted to 48kHz on released models. Wing Cheong's advanced DVD players combine AC-3 (Dolby Digital) full decoding, Dolby Pro-Logic decoding and Dolby Virtual Surround (Q surround) for theater-quality sound.
Common features on emerging models include elaborate multi-lingual on-screen displays for random access tracking of specific DVD chapters/titles, universal remote controls that allow step-frame, choice of slow motion, 2-, 8- and 30-speed searching and up to four times zoom capabilities, and up to eight alternate audio tracks.
Entertainment industry fuels DVD adoption
As with CDs, the mainstream entertainment industry and Hollywood are the main movers behind DVD. Computer applications that need enormous amounts of data like games will also encourage DVD development. "The interactive multimedia content of computer games has increased so much that multiple-disk CD-ROM games are common now -- they are prime targets for DVD technology," said SMC's Chan.
Title makers are using repurposing technology to reproduce CD-ROM titles as DVD titles. Digitized photo collections, large reference databases, atlases that require as many as nine CDs of storage space, and encyclopedias are seen as ideal candidates for this technology.
Limited titles biggest block to sales
Limited availability of titles has been the biggest roadblock to the uptake of DVD until now. However, software makers have now produced over 1,000 DVD movie and music titles for sale at retail outlets, with the figure expected to double by the end of 1998. With these volumes, prices of DVD titles are falling.
According to Chan: "While a Japan-made title was priced at around $65 last year, DVD titles from Taiwan and China are now available for just $2 to $5. In the United States, Warner Home Video recently finalized a new three-tier pricing plan, offering classic movie titles for just $9.95."
DVD players now CD-backward compatible
Makers claim new-generation DVD players are now backward-compatible, supporting all licensed copies of VCDs and audio CDs. SMC's models support formats like CDI movies, digital audio CD (CDDA), VCDs and even CD-R disks. "However, DVD players have problems running pirated VCDs," said SMC's manager for procurement and trade, Jackey Ho.
Makers cut costs, reduce size
Hong Kong makers are focusing on cutting costs and sizes of drives through the development of advanced software and a reduction of components. Available from Wing Cheong is a portable DVD player with a built-in LCD monitor called Dream Theater, which supports both VCD disks and audio CDs, in addition to new DVD-video disks. In the offing is another mini-size model with enhanced visual clarity through patented "Digital Gamma Correction" and "Digital Super Picture" software. A "color separate" output and a 10-bit image D/A converter improve picture quality.
SMC's R&D focus this year is on developing DVD players using DVD loaders to replace traditional DVD-ROM player lines. This will help slash costs, said Ho, and will enhance control of servo parts as well as reading accuracy.
Makers are also developing dual-lens, single-laser optical pick-up on DVD players. This feature consists of individual lenses optimized for spherical aberration to guarantee superior reproduction of DVDs, VCDs and CDs. This was not possible with dual focus hologram systems found in older DVD players.
Some makers are contemplating introducing blue laser technology to optimize storage capacity through shorter wavelengths.
Wu predicted that sales of DVD-ROM drives would surpass those of CD-ROM drives by the year 2000, and DVD-ROM drives will eventually become standard on all PCs. Meanwhile, DVD-ROM upgrade kits and DVD-equipped PCs from Hong Kong will be on store shelves next year, adding about $700 to $900 to the cost of a base system.
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