Tuesday, November 6, 2001

Rewriteable DVD player not mainstream
By Tamara Chuang
Knight Ridder Tribune

If you still haven’t figured out how to set the clock on your VCR, you’re not ready.

If you’ve fallen in love with DVDs and have been eyeing those new-fangled DVD recorders that let you digitally record TV shows, edit them on screen, transfer home movies from camcorder to disk and act like a Tivo — you’re still probably not ready.

And if you have a couple of grand to spare, are a videophile with a penchant for being first and don’t care that you may have to upgrade in a year, you probably already have one.

A DVD player that can record and re-record, that is.

The first rewritable DVD player came out last fall from Panasonic. Pioneer Electronics releases its version Nov. 15.

But while the technology has been out for more than a year — rewritable DVD drives first targeted computer users — it doesn’t seem ready for prime time. Manufacturers continue to flip-flop on features.

Prices, while down nearly 75 percent from last year, are still in the $1,000-to-$2,000 range. And the market is so tiny that the Consumer Electronics Association hasn’t started tracking sales.

“When you add recording features to the DVD, it does add interest and will be more compelling,” said Sean Wargo, an analyst from the association. “But we’re not looking at much more mainstream pricing until fourth quarter of next year. ... By then, they should be considerably under $1,000. Maybe even closer to $400 to $500.”

Oh yes. Then there’s the confusing format war with three incompatible rewritable DVD players vying to be the next VHS (as opposed to Betamax). Panasonic is the main proponent of DVD RAM. Pioneer prefers the DVD-RW. And Phillips is supporting the DVD+RW.

The good thing about waiting is that sometimes dilemmas take care of themselves.

Take Panasonic, for example. It was the first to release a rewritable player last fall. Retailer Eagle Products of Santa Ana, Calif., was proud to carry the $3,999 device. But the store ended up selling only a couple.

“We tried to sell the Panasonic player but they were too expensive,” said Rob Pigneri, the store’s general manager. Pigneri also blames the cost of the blank disks, which currently sell for $25 to $45 per disk.

“Why spend that much when you can go buy the movie on DVD for a little bit more?” Pigneri said. “I remember when VCRs first came out. They were $999 and the tapes were $10. But still, the movies were $89.99 so there was more incentive to buy a VCR and make your own recordings,” he said.

Panasonic’s first recorder wasn’t a big seller, admits Jeff Samuels, a Panasonic spokesman. “It was really for the people who wanted new technology and we wanted to be first,” he said.

The company made some revisions and then introduced the DMR E20 last month. A major change was added compatibility with DVD-R, which allows users to record on a disk once. The DVD-R format is backed by competitor Pioneer and works with many existing DVD players.

“We were and still are big proponents for the DVD RAM market,” Samuels said. “But the downside to it was that DVD RAM could only be played on DVD RAM players. So if I had this machine that I just paid $4,000 for and transferred all my videos to it, I couldn’t play (the videos) on a regular DVD player.”

Ultimately, said Wargo, with the CEA, the three formats will coexist under a global standard because that’s what consumers will demand.

“Nobody benefits from a million different standards,” he said. “Manufacturers don’t want to hassle consumers.”

But until then, for those with cash to spare, rewritable DVD players offer something the VCR never will. Manufacturers are adding features, such as IEEE 1394 (Firewire), to transfer home videos from camcorder to DVD disk faster than you can watch the video.

The storage capacity ranges from 4.7 GB for most discs; double-sided DVD RAM offers about 9.4 GB of space - or about 9.4 hours of high-quality video. And once on disc, DVDs pretty much last a lifetime.

Videophiles may not have bitten last year, but with prices dropping and compatibility issues getting resolved, sales are starting to pick up, said Tom Campbell, corporate director of Ken Crane’s Home Entertainment Inc., a high-end electronics retailer based in Torrance, Calif.

“Consumers are embracing it. Sales are above expectations,” said Campbell, who broke down last month and bought one for himself. “With any consumer electronic, we find that the more companies that come out with a product, the more universal the product becomes and the more successful the product will be. We’re already advertising the Pioneer product.”