Get ready for recordable DVD
Your guide to the next format war!
by Greg Tarr
NEW YORK, February 1, 1999 -- Along with all the hype and hollering at the recent Consumer Electronics Show over HDTV, interactive television and DVD vs. Divx sales, a number of manufacturers began to quietly rattle their sabers in preparation for the industry's next digital format war -- DVD video recording. If you thought you'd be able to record "The Sopranos" on a blank DVD any time soon, think again!
Most of the developers of the three primary rewritable DVD-for-PC data storage formats -- DVD-RAM, DVD+RW and DVD-RW -- announced plans to stretch those formats to produce the first DVD home recorders and camcorders. (Not heard from at the show was NEC, which has also proposed its own DVD data storage format).
Depending on which company was talking, this Holy Grail of home recording technologies is now anywhere from one to five years away. A catalyst for all the activity was the fact that a DVD Forum committee is beginning its review of recording formats, offering hope that one day a single system will prevail and avert another VHS vs. Beta fiasco.
Despite some rather bold timeline announcements at CES, none of these promising systems is likely to materialize until a digital copy-protection system is ratified, and rest assured that Hollywood will try to stretch that process out as far as possible.
One of the boldest plans for recordable DVD was presented by Pioneer, which demonstrated a prototype home recorder using its DVD-RW format. Pioneer USA president Takafumi Asano said he is hopeful that the DVD Forum will resolve format and copyright issues by the end of the year, and that Pioneer can introduce a DVD-RW deck six months later.
This aggressive stance was somewhat unexpected, because Pioneer's DVD-RW format was originally positioned as a very expensive data-storage application for businesses -- not living rooms.
One obvious strike against the DVD-RW format is the fact that discs made on these machines won't be playable on current-generation DVD players. Pioneer, however, assures that future DVD players can easily be made to accept the new disc format.
Additionally, Pioneer said DVD-RW would more easily permit the production of players compatible with a wide range of optical disc formats, including DVD-Video, DVD-RW, DVD-Audio, and CD-RW discs.
Pioneer's technology allows recordings of up to 1.5 hours on a single 4.7 GB disc in standard-play mode at full DVD resolution. Pioneer said it would offer an SP mode permitting at least two-hour recording segments before the product is ready for consumers.
Regarding copy protection, Chris Walker, a Pioneer spokesman, said: "The prototype machine we showed at CES did not have digital inputs for audio and video. You have the versatility of DVD, but the video quality would be slightly superior to S-video in lines of resolution, but with a much higher signal-to-noise ratio. This might not be the way we go to market, but I think Hollywood would have an easier time accepting a product that did not have digital recording inputs."
A resurgent Philips is also offering bold recordable DVD delivery plans. The company proclaimed its intention to turn its DVD+RW data archival format into a DVD audio/video recorder sometime next year. Like Pioneer, Philips and Sony originally introduced the system for PC data storage applications, and initially said that it was not yet suitable for a/v recording.
At CES, Adri Baan, Philips Consumer Electronics chairman, made it clear that his company's position had changed when he said Philips could have a high-end consumer-targeted DVD+RW home recorder as early as next year. The company said it enhanced the DVD+RW storage format with breakthrough complementary technologies that make it well suited to real-time video recording of off-air programming, home videos and other non-copyrighted content.
Originally, Philips representatives stated that the 3GB capacity of DVD+RW discs would not be sufficient for effective a/v recording applications. The notion of extending disc densities was thought to require development of blue laser technology.
Instead, Philips has enhanced the DVD+RW format through the development of several new technologies, including a optical disc with as much as 4.7GB capacity -- the same capacity found on one layer of a current preformatted DVD videodisc. Using the technology in tandem with new affordable real-time MPEG 2 encoding chips available from "several sources," a variable bit rate encoding system, and a "lossless linking" on-the-fly DVD+RW formatting process, prototype recorders can now produce DVD-to-VHS video quality ranges at 2- to 4-hour recording lengths. Recordings will also be compatible with current DVD players and DVD-ROM drives.
"For a long time the industry thought it was not possible to do a real-time encoding and write process," explained Franz Van Houten, Philips digital entertainment group senior VP. "Real-time MPEG 2 encoders are here today, and our lossless linking technology now allows on-the-fly formatting and writing of the disc."
This lossless linking system, he said, manages rapid changes in the bit rate that cannot be handled in the drive, by adding a little bit of memory in the drive unit. Information bursts from the encoder are cached to the added memory chip and channeled into a steady stream as it is written onto the disc.
[Wow, use a buffer, that must have been hard to figure out...]
The blue laser technology once thought necessary is no longer essential, although Van Houten said Philips continues to follow that area with great interest. For now, he said, blue laser has been ruled out by Philips because recordings would not be backward compatible with current DVD equipment.
The advantage of Philips' approach, he said, is that the disc used "is not a new standard -- it is basically the same DVD Video standard in use today. Essentially, all we have done is add a red record button to the front of a DVD player."
Further, Van Houten said DVD+RW is superior to DVD-RAM and DVD-RW because it offers "the same form factor (no caddy) for media, the same capacity as current DVD video discs, and full compatibility with existing hardware. Today's DVD player sales are doing very well, and that is only to our advantage."
While Philips will seek the support of other manufacturers in using the DVD+RW format for DVD recording devices, Baan said his company is prepared to go it alone if necessary. Philips will actively seek a dialog with the content industry about copyright protection.
"We want to make sure that people are comfortable that our product will not encourage piracy of prerecorded DVD video titles, and at the same time we know that consumers are interested in recording their camcorder videos onto a disc, because it is a more durable format," said Van Houten. "The solution will have to ensure that the product can satisfy both worlds."
Never one to follow the crowd, Sony so far has not announced DVD home recorder plans. Although it joined Philips in announcing support for the DVD+RW format for PC storage applications -- and both companies are expected to market DVD+RW drives later this year -- Sony may have its eyes fixed on its own technologies for a/v recording applications.
In 1997, Sony announced the development of a high-capacity optical disc that could be used in the future for home video recording. Additionally, the company said it has developed a high-capacity, optical disc recorder that can store 12GB on a single-sided 5-inch disc using a blue-green laser technology and 10GB using more conventional red laser technology.
Sony Electronics President Teruaki Aoki reportedly said at CES that Sony is skeptical of using the DVD+RW format for video recording, adding that he believes a minimum disc capacity of 8 GB is probably necessary for effective recording applications.
Hitachi took select CES visitors behind closed doors to demonstrate prototypes of a DVD home recorder and camcorder. Both are based on the 4.7 GB DVD-RAM format that is also supported by Panasonic for a/v recording applications. The home recorder uses a 5-inch disc capable of storing up to two hours of MPEG 2-compressed video per side. The palm-size camcorder uses a smaller 3-inch disc that is capable of recording for about one hour.
In a style reminiscent of the VHS and VHS-C videotape formats, the DVD-RAM home recorder incorporates a tray that conforms to both disc sizes. As with Pioneer's DVD-RW format, Hitachi said DVD-RAM discs will not play on current-generation DVD players and disc drives, but future players can be designed to accept the new format. Additionally, the 3-inch camcorder disc may require some form of disc caddy to protect it against damage in handling.
The denser pit alignments and disc reflectivity apparently are less resistant to handling mishaps than current DVDs. Dual-sided DVD-RAM data storage discs now marketed by Hitachi and Panasonic also use caddies to protect critical data from possible damage. The 3-inch disc caddy could be hinged to allow the removal of the bare disc for playback in a DVD player, Hitachi engineers said.
Gary Bennett, Hitachi Home Electronics sales executive VP, said the DVD-RAM home recorder would be ready for consumers in 18-24 months. The camcorder would follow some time after that. Martin Weinstein, Hitachi senior product manager, said that the company has developed a CODEC for a single-chip on-the-fly MPEG 2 encoder that is small and cheap enough for a palm-size consumer camcorder. However, the first-generation model would undoubtedly debut at the high-end of the market. Hitachi declined to estimate a price.
One notch in DVD-RAM's favor is that DVD-RAM drives are currently available to PC manufacturers today from Panasonic, Hitachi and others, and continue to build acceptance within the PC community.
Similarly, Panasonic announced it is developing a DVD-RAM-based camcorder that uses a 3-inch disc, and at CES showed a concept DVD recorder and camcorder at its booth. Stan Hametz, Panasonic a/v product marketing general manager, originally announced possible market introductions within five years, but later amended that to three years.
Beyond a home recording deck and camcorder, Panasonic has its DVD-RAM sights trained on DVD-RAM jukeboxes for home media servers that will be the hub of in-home digital networks.
At last year's Japan Electronics Show, the company demonstrated such a device that employed a large hard drive to cache most frequently accessed content for immediate playback, while archiving the rest of the recording on DVD-RAM discs stored in a 50-disc changer/server.
Although each of the DVD recording technologies shown at CES hint at a world of exciting new products and applications just around the corner, it's clear that getting industry consensus on a single format -- not to mention a digital copy protection scheme - will not be easily won.
Oh, well -- here we go again.
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