The state of DVD...............................
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...I'm filing this story from Los Angeles, a stone's throw from Hollywood, and from where I'm sitting the news on DVD-Video is distinctly upbeat. Yesterday I met up with Emiel Petrone, head of the DVD Video Group, based here in LA. Emiel was extremely bullish about DVD and backed his arguments with some fairly impressive statistics. He cites a tremendous upsurge in post-Christmas sales. In January and February sales exceeded 40,000 units per month. The DVD Video Group is now projecting that over 1m players will be sold this year in the US.
It also predicts a further 800 titles will be released this year, bringing the total to 1600 titles.
So the situation in the States looks rosy, but will the same euphoria be experienced when DVD-Video launches in Europe? Petrone is, if anything, even more bullish about European prospects. He believes that the European launch will be the most successful, supported by many more titles, because everyone has learnt from the mistakes made in Japan and the US.....
...The arrival of Divx means that DVD-Video is now in the business of not only competing with cable, satellite and video rental - it is now competing with itself! The European launch of DVD-Video is likely to avoid the mistakes of the past. By October we will know if the US success will be repeated, but doubts remain. In the end it will inevitably supersede clunky old analogue videocassettes - but this could take as long as ten years. It may have early success in countries that lack a high-installed base of VCRs, a decent television service, and access to video-on-demand.
Unlike DVD-ROM, DVD-Video is surrounded by a thicket of security, ands this is a definite turn-off. Most Hollywood titles will have to be region-locked for Europe. Thus titles purchased internationally will probably not play on European DVD-Video players. This will severely limit the number of titles available to a European audience. Many may choose to use their PC and connect this to their TV to play American titles.
But DVD-Video is more than just American films. There are also many specialist areas where it will succeed, some of them the same niches that CD-i succeeded in. Home education and training, in-store promotion and training, kiosks, porn, music video and sport are all areas that spring to mind. Publishers should remember that regional encoding is not mandatory: Hollywood foisted it on the industry for its own reasons. Thus DVD-Video titles can have a world market.
DVD-ROM
There may be reservations about DVD-Video but all the speakers at the NAB conference were of one voice in their enthusiasm for DVD-ROM. However, it is important to differentiate between DVD-ROM drives and DVD-ROM titles. There was no doubt that DVD-ROM is going to replace the CD-ROM drive. By the end of the year few of us will want to purchase a PC that doesn't have a DVD-ROM drive in it (and that includes portables). The same clarity does not apply to the presence of CD-ROM titles. The problem is that the installed base will be tiny compared with that of CD-ROM drives. That is why the OEM argument is inexorable in the early days, and why publishers like Dorling Kindersley are concentrating their efforts on bundling deals in the early stages (IM 164).
Publishers contemplating a DVD-ROM title will venture into this market only when there is a sizeable user base, unless they are in a specialist niche, such as training or kiosks, where the delivery platform can be ordained. So how long will it be before the market is big enough to warrant a major publishing investment?
First we need to differentiate between mere DVD-ROM titles and DVD-ROM titles that contain MPEG-2 material. The former merely demand that a DVD-ROM drive be present on the host machine. The latter require the presence of an MPEG-2 decoder, either in software or hardware.
DVD-ROM itself is nothing more that just a larger bit bucket. Anything that you can put on a CD-ROM you can dump onto a DVD-ROM (ISO 9660 is supported, as well as the newer UDF file system). The big difference is that a title that existed as five discs can now be crammed onto one. Another benefit is that by definition you have a delivery platform that is at least the equivalent of an 8x CD-ROM drive.
Thus DVD-ROM, unlike its DVD-Video sibling, has nothing to do with MPEG-2. Some people don't know that. They only think of DVD-ROM as the PC equivalent of DVD-Video, and that implies MPEG-2 video streams. MPEG-1 bitstreams can be easily decoded, in software or hardware, on most PCs. But with MPEG-2 the situation is more complex.
Consider the size of the problem. MPEG-1 defines a bitstream for compressed video and audio to fit a data rate of 1.5 Mbit/s. MPEG-2 has a data rate of between 3 and 10 Mbit/s using variable bit rate encoding. That is a vast difference, and it puts considerable strain on today's PC.
The ideal solution would be to decode the MPEG-2 in software, sometimes utilising the motion assist elements in the latest graphics cards. Sadly this is only possible on the latest breed of Pentium II PCs, ideally equipped with Intel's new AGP graphics port. Windows 98, when it arrives, will fully support MPEG-2 decode in software but at the moment it is not a serious option for most people.
The alternative is to use a dedicated hardware decoder, using for example the C-Cube chipset, either built-in or as a multimedia upgrade. The upgrade market is in its infancy but is going to be vast.
Creative upgrade
First to market has been Creative. It has nearly got it right, second time around, with its PC-DVD Encore Dxr2 upgrade kit. This consists of a DVD-ROM drive that complements or replaces the existing CD-ROM drive, plus a PCI-based MPEG-2 decode card and the necessary cabling. IM tested the kit last week. We wouldn't say installation was easy, but once the problems were overcome the result was worth it. Flawless full screen, full motion video, with Dolby Digital sound surround (if you have all the speakers). All this and the equivalent of a 20x CD-ROM drive and a Video-CD player as well.
In our view Creative is on a winner. The best indicator is the widespread unofficial support offered in the Usenet news groups on the Internet. Just type 'DVD' in the news group finder and look at the number of references to the Dxr2. Indication at the moment is that Creative could become the de facto standard, just as it was when the Sound Blaster board entered the market all those years ago. |
