This article was published in the September 1997 issue of the industry newsletter, the Multimedia Monitor. Copyright 1997, Phillips Business Information, Inc. For more information about the Monitor contact 1-301/424-3338 (Inside U.S. 1/800-777-5006) Fax 301/309-3847. EMAIL [email protected] Appears here by permission.
Change they did, but with delays that often seemed interminable. Many of us will remember Bill Gates saying at one of those Microsoft CD-ROM conferences that we would have a market when there were 1,000,000 computers with CD-ROM drives installed. We waited, and waited, and waited. It seemed like it would never happen, and based on the wreckage of CD-ROM companies strewn along the way, for some it never did. Despite that seemingly (at least at the time) slow start, the world in general did finally benefit from CD-ROM as a technology.
The technical promise of DVD combined with its general industry acceptance have motivated many to make incredible projections of future success. Indeed, things have been different. For example, I remember Mark Heyer ([email protected], Heyertech, Inc. Palo Alto, CA) saying at that first Microsoft CD-ROM Conference, "If this CD-ROM stuff is so hot, where are the Hollywood studios? Where are MTM and Lorimar?" (I am amazed that I remember after all these years the exact studios that he mentioned!) Well, I am sure that today Mark is probably gratified at the confirmed wisdom of that early remark. A few studios got into CD-ROM in some limited ways, but there was nothing to compare to what is happening with DVD. The studios for the most part (and with others supposedly to soon follow) have gotten on the bandwagon.
But this interest and support have been mixed blessings. The studios' involvement has brought excitement for sure, but it has also brought problems. Their views on copy protection and regionalization have been a source of contention with the computer industry. "Been there! Done that!" has prompted serious differences between Hollywood and Silicon Valley. This is disappointing if not surprising, given that computer companies brokered an early agreement between competing DVD factions.
The roller coaster ride of developments, discussions, disagreements, and delays, has made things seem like they were bound to be worse this go around than they were with CD-ROM. Confusion has too often overwhelmed clarity. On the one hand, DVD is supposed to be DVD is supposed to be DVD. On the other, it has become clear that there are discrepancies in implementation between DVD Video and DVD-ROM and even among differing flavors of DVD-ROM itself. Thus, in many ways it has been easy to conclude, "here we go again!"
These difficulties have led to action by a group of industry volunteers now working within the DVD-ROM Initiative of the Software Publishing Association. At this group's recent General Meeting, John Hoy of Toshiba and the DVD Forum used a metaphor from his days as a naval aviator to describe recent developments in the DVD world. "As an industry we were coming in for a carrier landing and we heard a scream over the headphones, 'Foul deck! Foul deck!' Now this does not mean that there is foul language among the sailors on the ship. It means that something serious is in the way of your touchdown and you had better go around. So you slam the throttle forward, aborting the landing." DVD was ready to hit the big time, and then someone said, "Hold it, we got problems here!"
Mark Bunzel (of Price-Waterhouse and who also serves on the board of the SPA) explained how the DVD work that was started under the auspices of the Interactive Multimedia Association's Special Interest Group on DVD had been moved to the SPA after the. IMA went out of business earlier this summer. He pointed out the importance of this work and summarized the state of affairs quite succinctly, explaining that DVD-Video often will not always play on DVD-ROM units. To motivate the need for a solution to the problem, he drew a parallel between what is necessary now for the success of DVD and what happened during the early days of CD-ROM. Using the ISO 9660 standard that had been created to enable cross-platform compatibility for CD-ROM discs as an example, he pointed out that this very important industry standard had already experienced a life span of 10 years. It is his view that standards for DVD will easily enjoy a life expectancy of 6 - 8 years. Justifying the excitement around DVD, he explained that the public is getting jaded on the Web, illustrating his point with the evidence that Silicon valley venture capitalist firms are no longer funding Web content development. "That content today is just not compelling enough," he stated. "The process of self-selection and consolidation is opening opportunities for high-quality content for platforms that have the required bandwidth," he continued. (Managing Director, Price Waterhouse LLP, Entertainment Media & Communications, 6470 Camelia Drive, San Jose, CA 95120, 408/927-6805, Fax: 408/927-6805, e-mail: [email protected])
Peter Biddle, DVD Technical Evangelist for Microsoft, is active in various working groups of the SPA DVD-ROM Initiative. The purpose of his presentation was to lay out a DVD Roadmap for the PC, providing a Microsoft perspective for the Initiative. He stated that his purpose was to look beyond Christmas 1998 (the stated objective for the SPA Initiative) and help determine the right way to go for the longer term. He basically is wondering, "Can we be comfortable 5 years from now?" He feels that it is very important to deal with the legacy issue now, ahead of the game, instead of later when it will be significantly more difficult to address problems.
One important aspect of his presentation was to provide projections to motivate interest in DVD. Stating that 143,000 DVD-Video units had been sold to consumers by the end of July, he went on to predict (perhaps even conservatively he said) that there would be 15 million PCs that are DVD-ROM-capable in the marketplace by the end of 1998. He said for ISVs and IHVs, that now is the time for DVD-ROM, but that 1998 will be the year of DVD-ROM for the consumer. One of the reasons he gave was that the DVD-ROM price has dropped 40% in the last 6 months, with further drops to continue until DVD-ROM will be priced at only a 10% margin over CD-ROM by the end of 1997. He projects that DVD-ROM pre-installs will surpass CD-ROM in 1999, and that by the year 2000, DVD-ROM will replace all CD-ROM units for hardware manufacturers who have previously pre-installed drives. He said that he believes in the digital convergence that everyone talks about, but that for him. the process will be evolutionary rather than revolutionary.
One of several important points he made was that using MCI commands for software development does not protect developers for DVD. He indicated that although Microsoft would not be supporting MCI in Memphis, Microsoft's next generation operating system, the company anticipates that that support would be forthcoming from third party sources. He went on to say that Microsoft will not be providing operating system support for DVD prior to Memphis, but that Memphis and Windows NT 5.0 will support a wide range of DVD functionality. He did say that DirectShow 2.0 would work under Windows 95.
Guiding Microsoft's planning he said are several parameters for DVD systems: sustained uniform 30fps display, no visible artifacts, correct spatial re-sampling (up or down), tight audio/video synchronization, and headroom such that the processor's bandwidth is not totally used up playing the DVD data stream. These specs are listed in Microsoft's "PC 98 System Design Guide" that is available now. He indicated that Microsoft will also be publishing a "DVD Best Practices Document" in the next 6 months, hopefully even sooner. ([email protected])
John Hoy, Toshiba's Director of Strategic Alliances and representative to the DVD-Forum, providing a glance of the activities of the Forum, indicated that the organization was promoting compatibility and assistance (certification) for three DVD Formats: DVD-ROM, DVD-R, and DVD-RAM. He stated that "the DVD Forum supports the efforts of the SPA."
(The Office of the Secretary; DVD Forum; 15th Floor, Toshiba Building, 1-1, Shibaura 1-chome, Minato-ku; Tokyo 105-01, Japan. DVD Forum Book Administrator; Toshiba Corporation'; DVD Products Division; 81-3-5444-9850; Fax: 81-3-5444-9430.)
Gregory Berkin, Content Evangelist from Intel, provided a very interesting overview of the steps that Intel is taking to improve the chances for commercial success of DVD-ROM. The primary focus of his presentation was an overview of the results of Intel's "DVD Test and Compatibility Event" that was held in San Jose. In addition to the Initiative's stated goal for DVD-ROM in general, his statement seemed to add a new element: Intel through its Compatibility Event wanted "to ensure compelling, interactive and compatible DVD solutions for the PC that make the PC the platform of choice for DVD content." [Note: Presenters were questioned a couple of different times and indicated that Apple, as a SPA member, would obviously be free to participate in the Initiative's efforts. No one has as yet been able to locate the person who would be responsible within Apple.] The purpose of the event was to (1) bring PC industry DVD Experts together, (2) test early DVD Software and Hardware, (3) identify compatibility issues, (4) guide the industry to short and long-term DVD solutions, and finally (5) create a DVD match making opportunity.
Berkin reviewed the ground rules of the test, mentioning the need for participants to respect confidentiality. ISVs were scheduled for 30 minute sessions where they could meet with the Intel engineers and test (not debug!) their applications. The results of these tests were then to be summarized and distributed by Intel and the SPA.
According to Berkin, a great deal was learned from the effort in which 173 people participated. The representatives fit following profile: 10 OEM's, 15 IHVs, 40 ISVs, and others, primarily from Intel and Microsoft. The effort is currently tracking 80 DVD ROM titles (100 by year end) and there were 40 tested at the meeting. ISV participants filled out and returned 65 ISV Title Test forms that provided details on how the titles worked. They found that 90% of the titles use MCI commands, of which 50% used Basic MCI with the rest using Extended MCI MPEG-1 commands. Berkin summarized several next steps, among which was the need to have the SPA sponsor TWGs to solidify universal MCI support, in particular the development of an MCI to DirectShow command mapper. [Note: The need to foster future MCI support became an underlying theme of the meeting, with several participants voicing the need to push Microsoft to increase its support.] (Multimedia Evangelist, Home Software; Intel Corporation; Developer Relations Group; RN5-14; 2200 Mission College Blvd.; Santa Clara, CA 95052-8119; 408/765-3049; Fax: 408/765-6470; E-mail: [email protected])
Peter Black of Xïphias spoke of an effort between his company and HiVal to develop a rack for DVD titles (4 x 5) that would be placed in retail stores such as CompUSA throughout the country in time for this year's Christmas buying season. He mentioned that many individuals throughout the industry were following DVD, but the fact that "there has been so much fog around DVD" preventing the stores from making any concrete plans for this year. He mentioned that their proposal was receiving strong support from several of the large retailing chains. Part of the program would involve standardized packaging for the rack and a certain level of testing that would lead to a compatibility chart that would appear on the rack. The rack will contain 20 titles, and any of that space not needed for DVD-ROM titles would be filled with movies and music titles that have been placed on DVD-Video. (8758 Venice Blvd.; Los Angeles, CA 90034; 310/841-2790; Fax: 310/841-2559; AppleLink: D1371)
Bill Fisher, President of QuickSilver, echoed the need to provide a consistent end-user experience for DVD-ROM, stating that consumers had every right to be able to take a disc, plug it in a machine and expect it to play. He mentioned the need to support MCI for a while and discussed the development of a "Validation Test Suite" (17881 Sky Park Circle, Suite H; Irvine, CA 92714; 714/474-2150, Ext 11; E-mail [email protected])
Ralph LaBarge, President and Chief Technical Officer of NB Solutions, spoke of the need to revive the SPA DVD Interactive Media Format Technical Working Group that was formed in November 1997. He said that there are currently 41 members from a variety of DVD hardware, software and title development companies of which approximately 10 members have been active in the discussions so far. A summary of all discussions by the DVD Interactive Media Format TWG can be found on the SPA Web site. Their goals are in the short term to (1) "define a recommended feature set designed to ensure that DVD-Video and DVD-ROM titles will play back properly on DVD-ROM enabled computer systems," and in the longer term (2) "define the requirements for a cross platform, interactive media publishing format(s) (IMF), utilizing DVD optical storage media with a practical and realistic life span of at least five years." (2110 Priest Bridge Drive, Suite 1; Crofton, MD; 21114; 410/721-5725; Fax: 410/721-5726; E-mail: [email protected])
Pam Sansbury of Sansbury & Associates spoke of the packaging issues that the SPA has addressed and indicated that DVD-ROM interests should perhaps look at packaging in terms of the retail forum of the SPA. (3521 Kilpatrick Lane; Lithonia, GA 30058; 770/979-2141; Fax: 770/979-3873; E-mail: [email protected])
Steve Wilkinson of IBM reported on the efforts of the SPA DVD-ROM Compatibility/Performance Group. He said that his group was responsible "Basically to build what Ralph's group is specifying." Their mission statement is to "Recommend/Build a validation process to evaluate the performance and viability of applications developed to run on DVD-ROM enabled systems. This process is to enable the computing industry to build applications that work with consistency across various DVD-ROM-enabled systems." He drew the parallel with the effort that took place for the MPC effort to "perform tests and measure the performance." The individuals he said should be interested in their work would be (1) DVD-ROM System Integrators, (2) DVD-ROM Manufacturers, (3) DVD-ROM Title Developers, (4) DVD-Video Technology Manufacturers, (5) DVD-Audio Technology Manufacturers, and finally (6) Application Development Tool Manufacturers such as Macromedia, Asymmetrix, and IconAuthor. (Executive DVD Producer; IBM Interactive Media; 3200 Windy Hill Road WF2A; Atlanta, GA 30339; 770/835-8464; Fax: 770/835-7249; 800/403-3489; BETVMIC1(CSWILKI); E-mail: [email protected])
Michael Bush is Associate Professor of French and Instructional Science at Brigham Young University and a partner in Alpine Media, a company specializing in multimedia development for education, assessment and foreign language training. Bush may be reached at Alpine Media, Suite G1, 560 South State Street, Orem, Utah, 84058, 801/2264283, email: [email protected]. See other articles he has written on his Web site, Multimedia and Digital Commentary Online.
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