HAMBURG (dpa) – They don’t look like much, those small silver discs. One can hardly distinguish them from their predecessors, the CD and the CD-ROM, at least by appearance.
Yet with an impressive 4.7 gigabyte (GB) of storage capacity, DVDs can at this point hold up to eight hours of film footage without a problem. Still, DVDs haven’t had a chance to take a victory lap as yet, largely because of discord among their producers, who have been unable to come to agreement on a single, unified standard format.
As of right now, not every disc can be played by every player or or PC with a DVD drive. DVD-ROM, DVD-R, DVD-RW, or DVD-RAM each march to their own tune, and do plenty to confuse users along the way. But seven leading firms have now formed an alliance in hopes of putting an end to DVD confusion.
The companies want to work together in order to establish a future unified standard, named DVD-RW, that will apply to the production of storage media, content, and DVD playback devices. The abbreviation RW stands for Rewritable.
The alliance – among computer and electronics giants Hewlett Packard, Philips, Sony, Mitsubishi, Ricoh, Thomas Multimedia, and Yamaha – wants to offer devices and media that will encourage users to view DVD as a universal storage media.
So far, more than 19 independent software and device makers have announced their support for the DVD-RW standard. And this autumn the Dutch electronics firm Philips is bringing its first DVD video recorder onto the market. The red record button of the “DVDR 1000” should in the future make it possible to burn entire TV programmes or personal camcorder footage at the press of a button.
The first presentations of DVD-RW at the CeBIT computer fair in Hannover, Germany, last March were a big hit with the public, says Klaus Petri of alliance member Philips. The electronics firm is going on the assumption that the DVD-RW digital recording technology will develop into the standard format for the consumer field.
The format is, according to the alliance, the only one being discussed to this point that will guarantee compatibility with DVD- ROM drives in computers. Any audio or data recording would play without incident from a home PC.
The technology was developed jointly by the leading hardware and media producers, thus ensuring a focus on the interests of end users as well as PC and CD-ROM/DVD-ROM drive producers, content producers, and software developers. Pioneer Electronics of Willich, Germany, is also working on the future of the DVD.
The company, which calls itself the world leader in development and production of DVD technology, had a new DVD-R/RW burner of its own along for the CeBIT fair in Hannover. The alliance members, however, see a number of disadvantages with this competing format.
Because of the way they record data, the Pioneer DVD-RWs are difficult to use and cannot always be read, criticizes Clemens Schuette of the Japanese electronics giant Sony. That said, the format has the advantage of being the direct successor of the CD-RW format, which has been a tremendous success.
“Still, the alliance represents around 70 to 80 per cent of the current market share,” says Petri. Proponents of other DVD formats will have a hard time breaking through. DVD playing devices have conquered an enormous public acceptance hurdle at breakneck speed in the brief three-and-a-half years since their introduction.
According to the literature of the DVD industry association of Stuttgart, Germany, more than 850,000 DVD players for PCs were sold in the year 2000, a growth of 300 per cent. By the end of 2001, the union believes, another 1.6 million units will be sold, with a total household share of around 8.5 per cent.
