Source:
https://scmp.com/article/155685/electronics-giants-ready-dvd-format

Electronics giants ready DVD format

A consortium of consumer electronics companies last week unveiled a licensing strategy for the digital video disc (DVD) format, which will enable movies, video clips, interactive applications and large amounts of data to be encoded on the new compact disc.

It is estimated more than 10 million computers around the world are already capable of reading MPEG-1 (Motion Picture Experts Group), the technology on which the new CD is to be based.

JVC, Panasonic, Philips and Sony united last year to develop the new DVD or Video CD format, preventing a repeat of the debacle in the 1980s when Sony's technologically superior Beta standard for video cassette recording was swamped by the VHS standard, although consumers had little idea which camp would triumph.

The new technology will mean more data can be held on a single CD than before.

The DVD discs have smaller pits, use tracks that are closer together and are accessed with a shorter-wavelength red laser. This means they are capable of holding up to 4.7 gigabytes of data, seven times the present capacity. A dual-layered disc can hold up to 12 times the information of a single-sided CD.

A single-layer DVD can hold a two-hour-and-13-minute film and use Dolby AC-3 discrete 5.1-channel digital sound. It also has room for three different languages for the soundtrack.

For single-sided, dual-layered discs, the films can be as long as four hours.

The same technology will also be seen in CD-ROM technology, or DVD-ROM, as it will be called. The capacity will have 8.5 gigabytes on one side.

Sony claims they will not only hold more data, they will also be able to be accessed at greater speeds.

However, users need not fear their old CD-ROMs will be useless. The new DVD-ROM drives are capable of reading the old discs. Dwayne Serjeant, the Multimedia Director at DBZ, a local multimedia design company, said: 'It's an interesting new technology. A lot of people have said it is great but nobody is doing anything with it yet. It took MPEG a while to get established so I think the same will happen here.' Mr Serjeant said that it is often the world of pornography that gets things moving. MPEG films for PCs are dominated by a lot of pornographic titles in much the same way that pornography dominated the video world 15 years ago. 'Apart from Category III films, there is little else,' he said.

The same fate may well await DVD and DVD-ROM until there is a greater acceptance of the new technology. Mr Serjeant said it was just a matter of time before that happened.