Maybe BT/AB did some reading? Digital Video arrives..............
detnews.com
Digital video comes into its own
By Wayne Bledsoe / Scripps Howard News Service
Imagine having one machine that replaces your CD player, your VHS tape deck, your audio cassette deck, and your video game player. Digital video disc (DVD) has the potential to do just that -- and it's living up to part of it.
"The idea is that it's not a replacement for the other products," insists Amy Jo Donner, director of the DVD Video Group, which promotes the format. "The idea is 'Here is a better product."'
Introduced in early 1997, DVD has had one of the most successful product launches of any consumer electronics device. More than 500,000 players have been sold, and the 1998 Christmas selling season has just begun. Nearly 2,000 movie or video titles are available on the format.
"Since June, the market has just exploded," says Steven Jean, who is in charge of marketing DVD video for Philips Consumer Electronics. "All the major movie studios have fallen in line (and are releasing movies in the format). I don't think anyone anticipated that would happen so soon."
Prices for the stripped-down players have dropped to as low as $299. However, players with many of the bells and whistles consumers will want cost twice that.
A DVD disc looks nearly the same as a standard CD. It's the same size and is read by the same technique: a digital code is stored on foil inside a polymer disc and read by a laser. However, DVD differs from CD in that it utilizes new data-compression technology, and information is stored on more than one level on the foil.
The breakthrough expands the amount of information that can be stored on the disc severalfold.
For instance, discs can contain different versions of a film. Already there are discs on the market that contain both letterboxed and pan-and-scan versions of the same film. Soundtracks can be presented in various languages and include alternate commentary by the filmmakers.
And (though it's up to a filmmaker's discretion), one DVD could contain several versions of the same film. For instance, both the theatrical cut and the director's cut of "Blade Runner" could be presented on the same disc, or one DVD could contain different endings shot for a film -- for example all three endings considered for "Apocalypse Now."
DVD movies can even be encoded so that a viewer can choose different viewing angles for a scene.
There's no question that DVD is a better format for viewing films than VHS tape. On DVD, colors are brighter and lines are more distinct. In fact, the picture is twice as good. VHS delivers 240 lines of resolution. DVD delivers 480 lines of resolution. The picture has a slight edge (55 lines) over 12-inch LaserDisc, which until now offered the best video picture and sound, and some LD discs had many of the same DVD options -- alternate soundtracks, various subtitles, commentary, etc.
Yet, the DVD seems to have already rung the death knell for LaserDisc (LD).
"Tower Records has said that they've sold more DVDs in the past 18 months than all the LaserDiscs they've sold over the past 10 years," says Amy Jo Donner, director of the DVD video group.
In addition, nearly all major manufacturers have stopped making new LD machines, although some DVD players will also play LaserDisc.
Then again, current DVD players suffer from the same disability as LD in that they do not record.
How far off recordable DVD is may be open to discussion.
Sony, Pioneer and Toshiba all have data-only DVD sets on the market (albeit with a price tag of $700 to $17,000), but no company has a home machine that records video. And no single recording format has even been decided on.
Lisa Fasold, staff director of the Consumer Electronics Manufacturers Association, predicts that recordable video DVD decks are approximately two years off.
"The technology is ready," says Fasold. "It just comes down to copyright problems."
Other observers are less optimistic.
Like audio CD, the problem is that DVD is a little too perfect. Movies studios don't want the public being able to make countless perfect copies of movies. With recordable CDs (which only recently became available) a copy can be made from an original, but a copy cannot be made from a copy.
Fasold insists, though, that most VCR owners rarely use their machines to tape, and DVD buyers haven't shown much interest in a recording feature.
The other DVD feature that is yet to be utilized is audio-only DVD, which could eventually replace standard CD.
A current audio CD can contain approximately 80 minutes of audio information. A DVD could hold up to six hours of standard audio information -- or, better still, audio discs could utilize several channels so albums could be presented in Surroundsound, just like a movie.
"The sky's the limit, it just depends on what the audio producer wants to do," says Robert Pleyer, assistant marketing manager for video at Sharp Electronics.
And, although DVD drives are in 8- to 12-million computers at present, and the drives are expected to be the standard on computers by the year 2000, there's been little movement in utilizing the format for new computer software.
Even the standard features on DVD for your television are just beginning to be utilized. The feature, which allows a viewer to choose different viewing angles in a scene, requires that a director make the footage shot by more than one movie camera available on the DVD disc.
To date, the only DVD discs that offer the feature originate from the X-rated market.
Yet maverick consumer electronics pundit Lancelot Braithwaite, a technical editor at Video magazine, says DVD is worth investing in.
"We're talking about $300," says Braithwaite. "That's about the price of going to 30 movies in a year."
Braithwaite says people ask if DVD will be the one electronic that won't be obsolete in a few years.
"Is it THE ONE?" says Braithwaite. "No."
He points out that the advent of High Definition TV (which will provide a picture three times better than DVD) will require modifications to existing DVD hardware and software.
While digital TV transmissions are already in test markets, manufacturers have said that HDTV on DVD is two years off.
"When you've been in the business this long and they say 'two years' you tend to think 'Is that six or 10 years?"' says Braithwaite.
Still, Braithwaite doesn't foresee a new format replacing DVD until the day we'll be able to order a movie by computer and download it from the Internet or a telephone wire. Even then, the data might be stored on a recordable DVD.
"Is it going to be here tomorrow? No. But 10 to 15 years from now that's the way we're going to get movies. You could wait, but that's 10 to 15 years of not seeing movies."
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