Recordable DVD, nice mention of CUBE as enabler...
dvdinsider.com
DVDspotlight™ Feature Editorial
DVD Recording Becomes a Reality
Those who've been following DVD's development for some time probably know that the capacity to record a DVD has been available for quite some time. There have always been problems with DVD recording though, and for most people, DVD Recording has always just been too far out of reach.
Almost two years ago, Pioneer, as well as a few other manufactures announced DVD recording systems available on the open market. These systems could record MPEG-2 video on a disc that could play in a standard DVD Player. However, several significant problems really limited their availability. First of all, they were just too expensive for most consumers. At over $15,000, it's pretty hard to justify a DVD Player that also records. In addition, with other devices on the market providing similar features to Recordable DVD, like S-VHS, why would anyone want a recordable DVD Player?
Another problem was reliability. Just like early CD Writers, the success rate of produced discs wasn't very high. I remember the first CD Writer I used. A Pinnacle Micro, 1x SCSI based CD Writer costing $1500. Discs were $10 each, and maybe half the discs I made failed. DVD Recorders were also the same way. Expensive discs, and there was no guarantee of a successful recording.
About the same time as the initial release of DVD video recorders, the computer industry also released a recordable DVD format. DVD-RAM was their solution, and it was perfect for the computer industry. A storage device with the capacity of several gigs, and a relatively inexpensive price per meg. However, at the time, the consumer electronics industry couldn't do anything with DVD-RAM. DVD-RAM lacked several key features that would have made it worthy in the consumer electronics market. First and foremost, there was no way to record video and sound onto the optical disc, making it useless to anyone but the computer industry. The other problem was the physical structure of the discs. Early DVD-RAM discs were different from normal DVD discs. They couldn't hold the same amount of information as a standard DVD, and DVD-RAM discs also needed to be placed in caddies, to support the discs. This in turn, led the discs to only be compatible with the drives they were produced on.
Of course, there's also always been the option of going with a professional replication facility. No problem there, except that is costs big bucks that no one except for large companies has. Therefore, the standard consumer was basically ruled out of recording DVDs, until now.
Just recently, there's been some exciting news concerning DVD recording. C-Cube Microsystems, a company that produces many of the chips used in today's DVD players, just announced their latest MPEG-2 processor. Named “DVxcel,” this new chip is the first low-cost ($29 in bulk) processor with the ability to both decode AND encode real-time MPEG-2 video.
This is a key feature the DVR (Digital Video Recorded) market has lacked for quite some time. DV recording systems typically cost hundreds to thousands of dollars due to the multi-processor systems used. However, low cost, single-chip solutions like the DVxcel will result in devices capable or recording digital video and sound at a reasonable price level, most consumers will be able to afford. Instead of several thousand dollars, a DVD recorder would probably only cost a few hundred more than a standard DVD player. Devices like Philip's Tivo, and Replay TV, will also eventually drop in price because those systems will no longer need advanced multi-processor video systems to record and play video.
Future Digital Video Recording Systems aren't very far away either. In fact, we will even begin to see DVD Recorders at a consumer level price this summer. Panasonic Consumer Electronics just announced they'll be marketing their first DVD Video recorder this summer, the VDR-10000. Using new DVD-RAM discs capable of holding 4.7 Gigabytes, the VDR-10000 will be able to record over two hours of DVD quality video on a single disc, and with a lower compression rate, users of the system will be able to obtain up to four hours of digital video. A random access system instantly jumps to any point on the disc being recorded, and like all other CDs and DVDs, you'll be able to jump to any point on the disc during playback. A DVD Recorder also has several advantages over a system like Tivo from Philips. Unlike the Tivo, you virtually get an infinite amount of recording space due to the non-stationary discs. In the Tivo, the storage devices are hard mounted in the system, and unmovable. Therefore, once you use up the space you can't record anything else.
Naturally, the system will also include all of the standard features you'll find on most DVD Players. The only real downfalls of the system are the discs. With recorded material placed on a DVD-RAM disc, the disc will only play in other DVD Recorders or in a computer DVD-RAM drive. Therefore, you couldn't make a copy of your favorite show and bring it to a buddy's house, unless he had the appropriate hardware.
In the future, we can probably look forward to a multitude of new products. Low priced and powerful products lead the way in the digital world, and when one of them succeeds somewhere, you're bound to see more of the same (look at the PDA). The future of Recordable DVD is almost guaranteed to succeed, as it's the next logical step in DVD's evolution. DVD is out to replace the VCR, and the only advantage VHS has had is recording. But with affordable DVD Recording coming, DVD soon will have beat out VHS in every direction.
Steve Daily
steve@dvdinsider.com |
