Rewritable DVD: A year unchanged
By Stephanie Miles
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
October 20, 1998, 4:00 a.m. PT
Recordable DVD drives could be a big hit with consumers, but a simmering standards battle is jeopardizing widespread acceptance of the technology.
Although industry leaders and analysts have identified latent demand for a high-capacity storage medium that allows consumers to inexpensively record their own DVD disks, a turf war has prevented the technology from coming into the mainstream.
About this time last year, the outlook for quickly establishing a recordable DVD standard looked dim, as almost every week competing factions announced new, proprietary formats. One year later, not much has improved. Only one such format has actually been introduced, and the chances for averting a full-on standards battle are becoming slimmer.
"The formation of the DVD standard was so contentious and so debilitating for the losers that there still is a lot of rancor in the industry," said Julie Schwerin, chairman of InfoTech. "They [the also-rans in the DVD-ROM war] don't perceive that they can work with the companies that succeeded in establishing their technology: Toshiba, Time-Warner, and Matsushita."
The heir apparent to the CD, DVD-ROM (digital versatile disc-read only memory) holds about 4.7GB of data, many times more than the CD's 650MB capacity and enough to store an entire feature-length film. DVD drives are more and more present in higher-end PC systems, and DVD sales will account for $8.1 billion in revenue by 2001, according to estimates from International Data Corporation.
But the availability of rewritable DVD discs that can be erased and re-recorded like VCR tapes is widely seen as the real key to tapping into the consumer market. That is, provided that the numerous proprietary formats for the new storage technology can be streamlined into one or two standard formats made available at consumer price-points.
Rewritable DVD formats
Name Capacity Companies Shipping
DVD-RAM 2.6GB Toshiba, Panasonic, Hitachi Yes
DVD+RW 3GB Sony, Philips, HP No
ASMO 6GB per side Fujitsu, Hitachi, Sharp No
MMVF 5.2GB per side NEC No
Source: Dataquest
About a year ago, four different standards for rewritable DVD emerged, each backed by several major consumer electronics firms and each incompatible with the others. A year later, high-capacity rewritable DVD for the masses is no closer to hitting store shelves, analysts say, although some interim options may be available as soon as early next year.
"If the DVD format is to replace the VCR it must be a rewritable product at a consumer price point," said Schwerin, omniously noting that 15 years passed between the introduction of CDs and the availability of consumer rewritable CD drives.
So far, among the rewritable DVD formats in the running, DVD-RAM and DVD+RW have emerged as the leading contenders. The 2.6GB DVD-RAM offers less capacity than the 3GB DVD+RW format, but in its favor, Toshiba, Panasonic, and Hitachi are already shipping DVD-RAM drives. DVD+RW won't start shipping until next year. Additionally, the next generation of DVD-RAM drives from these manufacturers will also read DVD-ROM drives, which to date has not been possible.
Rival format ASMO (Advanced Storage Magneto-Optical) has a storage capacity of 6GB per side, much more than DVD-RAM, but no ASMO products have been announced yet, according to Mary Bourdon, a Dataquest analyst. Fujitsu is the leading proponent of the ASMO format, which is also supported by Sony, Philips, Hitachi, and Sharp.
MMVF (Multi-Media Video File), another format not yet available, is designed to offer 5.2GB capacity per side. Developed by NEC, MMVF is not expected to target the consumer market, Bourdon said.
While coming to an industry-wide consensus about an emerging technology is generally a lengthy and contentious process, progress has been especially difficult with recorable DVD, largely because of the scars from the last battle, Schwerin and others observed. "There's bad feelings on all sides, and yet the stakes are really big," Schwerin said.
DVD players are predicted to sell more than 1.2 million units worldwide in 1998, a 140% increase over 1997, according to InfoTech. "It depends on how much the companies want to risk trying to succeed."
Progress is further hampered by the fact that the company that establishes the standard typically reaps the largest reward. "Generally speaking, once you're out to market with a good working drive that's accepted it has a better chance of dominating," said Bourdon.
Both Schwerin and Bourdon agree that these types of standards issues are fairly typical in the early stages of any new technology, and will probably not do much to hinder later, widespread adoption of rewritable DVD.
"This happens in [other markets] as far as formats competing for attention," said Bourdon. "In the storage market Iomega is trying to become the predominant reigning supreme product. Zip wants to replace all the floppy drives and we don't see that happening, just like I don't see anyone reigning supreme in rewritable DVD market."
Most consumers are not yet even aware of the competing formats, Schwerin noted. "Consumers aren't paying attention," she said. "They're still trying to get over how Divx is different from DVD."
news.com |
