DVD group pushes for
common format
By Robert Lemos
01/12/99 03:09:00 PM
Industry group tries to drum up
support for read-compatibility between
DVD formats.
Writeable DVD promises consumers high-quality digital recording
of TV programming and the ability to back up massive amounts of
data.
The problem? Three incompatible formats have confused the market.
On Wednesday, the Optical Storage Technology Association hopes to start on the
path toward ending that confusion.
The industry association announced plans to meet with
29 companies over two days to establish a specification
that will insure that DVD drives can read all three
major writeable digital video disc formats.
"The battle for supremacy in the writeable DVD
standards game has inhibited market growth," said
Felix Nemirovsky, chairman of OSTA's Writeable DVD
subcommittee, in a statement on Monday. As a result,
he said, "some consumers are afraid of backing the
wrong horse."
Small market
Writeable DVD sales this year will be far below those
of DVD-ROM, according to John Freeman, president of
storage hardware watcher Strategic Marketing
Decisions.
The market researcher estimates that writeable DVD sales will reach only
500,000 units in 1999 -- compared with about 30 million DVD-ROM drives
and DVD players sold.
OSTA's spec could increase consumer confidence in the writeable technology. The
initiative would attempt to ratify an extension of the group's current MultiRead
spec, which insures compatibility between CD-Audio, CD-ROM, CD-Recordable,
CD-Rewriteable, DVD-ROM, and DVD-Recordable formats.
The new initiative attempts to bring both DVD-RAM and DVD+RW under that
umbrella.
Too much?
However, the new MultiRead spec may attempt to do too much, warned Alan Bell,
program director for digital media standards at IBM Corp. (NYSE:IBM)
"There needs to be a balance between eliminating consumer confusion and
preventing too much bundling of proprietary technology into one package," he
said. Such overloading could make the spec too expensive for manufacturers to
put into next-generation drives.
Strategic Marketing Decisions' Freeman agrees. "Manufacturers are not
interested in adding 10 or 15 dollars [in cost] to drives that the market wants to
be at $65," he said.
Meltdown potential
Add to that the variety of interests and intellectual property concerns ... and you
have a recipe for meltdown.
"I would give them as much chance as I would the Republicans and Democrats
getting together on an impeachment decision," said Freeman.
OSTA became an international trade association in 1992 and promotes optical
writeable technologies. The first meeting of the OSTA Writeable DVD
Subcommittee will be Wednesday and Thursday in South San Francisco. |
