DVD playback - Buyers Guide

Emedia Professional, Nov, 1999

Pioneer Ships First 10X DVD-ROM

Pioneer New Media Technologies, Inc. has announced the availability of the industry's first 13X max DVD-ROM drive, the DVD-114/104S. The new drive is compatible with single- and dual-layer DVD, DVD-R, CD-ROM, and CD-R media. The DVD-114/104S offers random seek times of less than 90ms and access times of under 100ms for DVD-ROM. Current versions of the drive feature an ATAPI interface, and Ultra SCSI drives will be available by the end of the year. Pioneer's slot-in disc mechanism features a chucking system for safer disc loading and unloading, a 512KB buffer, and audio output. The DVD-114/104S sells for an estimated street price of $125.

(Pioneer New Media Technologies Inc., 2265 East 220th Street, Long Beach, CA 90810; 800/444-6784, 310/952-2111: Fax 310/952-2990; http://www.pioneerusa.com)

Panasonic Introduces Progressive Scan DVD Player

Panasonic Consumer Electronics Company has announced its first progressive scan DVD player, the DVD-H1000. According to Rusty Osterstock, assistant general manager of Panasonic's DVD division, "progressive scanning, one of the properties of digital television, makes it possible to deliver a theater-like experience." Unlike interlaced scanning (the NTSC standard, which projects alternating frames of 262.5 lines of picture information every 1/60th of a second), progressive scanning transmits 525 horizontal lines (480 of which are displayed) in the same amount of lines. The DVD-H1000 can handle both progressive scan and interlaced output. By converting film source signals to 480p output, the progressive video processor chip reproduces recorded information in a format that is closer to the original. The DVD-H1000 also offers a 10-bit, 4:4:4 signal processor, which converts the recorded luminance color difference and also unsamples the color signal data. To achieve maximum audo performance, the player incorporates a 96kHz/24-bit DAC, newly developed electrolytic capacitors, copper film capacitors, and an R-core toroidal transformer. The DVD-H1000 is available at a manufacturer's suggested retail price of $2,999.95.

(Panasonic Consumer Electronics Company, One Panasonic Way, Secaucus, NJ 07094; 201/348-7000; Fax 201/348-7016; http://www.mei.co.jp)

Sharp Announces DVD Player

Sharp Corporation has introduced a new full-sized DVD player, the DV-750U, to round out its 13VD offering. The DV-750U features Sharp's Digital Gamma Correction furction, Digital Super Picture with Enhanced Noise Reduction, Dolby Digital decoding (AC-3), and Dolby Virtual Surround (QSound). The DV-750U also offers a Color Separate Video Output, which separates the video output signal into three color components to provide greater color accuracy and definition. The player supports eight languages and subtitles in 32 languages. The DV-750U has an estimated retail price of $499.

(Sharp Corporation, Sharp Plaza, Mahwah, NJ 07430; 201/529-9428; Fax 201/529-8919)

Pioneer Selling DVD Player Components

Pioneer New Media Technologies, Inc. has started selling core components for DVD players, including optical pickups and changers, to other consumer electronics manufacturers. The move is aimed at shortening the time needed to recover research and development spending on these products. Pioneer has announced plans to ship some 50,000 optical pickups a month and 10,000 to 20,000 CD and DVD changers a month by next spring.

(Pioneer New Media Technologies Inc., 2265 East 220th Street, Long Beach, CA 90810; 800/444-6784, 310/952-2111; Fax 310/952-2990; http://www.pioneerusa.com)

Philips Plans to Launch DVD Recorders in Mid-2000

Philips is the first to announce plans to launch DVD video recorders, with release scheduled for mid-year 2000. Philips has announced its DVD+RW video format-based DVD recording device, while different segments of the industry are promoting several other formats which include Pioneer's DVD-RW and Matsusita/Hitachi/Toshiba's DVD-RAM, as well as NEC's Multimedia Video File (MMVF). Philips emphasizes the advantage of the already-flourishing pre-recorded DVD-Video market, which allows its drive to offer DVD playback as well as home-recording capability. The Philips DVD+RW drive is capable of performing on-the-fly transcoding from a DV format to an MPEG-2-based format. Currently, demo models of the Philips DVD Recorder use a Philips-designed MPEG-2 codec and separate transcodlng chip, but the company has not ruled out off-the-shelf components for the final commercial product. Philips plans to launch the DVD+RW drive next year in the U.S. and Europe, at a price comparable to that of firstgeneration high-end DVD players, which have sold for $700-$1,000. DVD+RW blank media cost is expected to be about that of CD-RW media ($8-$10),

(Philips Electronics, 3200 North First Street, San Jose, CA 95134; 408/570-5844; Fax 408/570-5757; http://www.philips.com)

Sigma Designs Launches Next-Generation REALmagic Decoder

Sigma Designs, Inc. has announced its latest REALmagic decoder, which marks its entry into consumer applications. The REALmagic EM8400 integrates Sigma's proprietary 80 MIPS (Millions of Instructions Per Second) RISC core, content scrambling system (CSS copy protection), DVD/MPEG-2 decoding, AC-3 decoding, TV encoding, and hardware program stream demux in a single chip. The EM8400 is the first MPEG-2 decoder to up-convert DVD-Video to progressive HDTV format, allowing Sigma to market it as a solution for consumer home theater DVD players, streaming video client applications, and Web DVD set-top boxes, The EM8400 is expected to be available in 1,000-piece quantities at $39 per piece.