A special interest in DVD - DVD

Post, Dec, 2002 by Bruce Apar

WEAKNESSES: The danger is that you come out with substandard product -- bad transfer; poor design, no extras -- and if it's the first or second DVD bought by that consumer, his perception is adversely affected. It's hard to tell quality product from the packaging.

OPPORTUNITIES: There's room to push the development side of things and create content specifically for DVD. The format's capabilities make it much closer to production than post. Native content extends characterization of the story, and takes you deeper into the plot rather than overanalyzing what's already there from the movie.

We did a project for MTV's Beavis and Butthead. We interviewed people who made it, such as illustrators and voice talent. What we really wanted to do was take footage of people on the street impersonating characters. That's an example of extending enertainment because people engaged in the program have affinity with it.

THREATS: Further off, current DVD will be replaced by the HD format, which could be upsetting or confusing to the marketplace. People have various forms of video on demand, but Hollywood and the DVD industry have done such a good job of making DVD an ownable format, I don't think consumer will switch. VOD is easier for rental.

With the economy, if we're in a recession right now, DVD must be recession proof Last Christmas, it had less than 20 percent household penetration. This year; it's almost half.

One of things that's always a threat is when people in any industry compete on price instead of quality. I have a printing-business friend fond of saying, "Price, quality or turnaround time -- pick any two." When a market competes on price, it's usually on the wane, it's a commodity. To make product in a compelling way takes time, energy and a lot of things. That's a symptom of very unhealthy post production community. There's big post houses with million-dollar Flame rooms and online editing suites sitting empty all over Manhattan.

Metropolis DVD is a full-service production and post production facility.

BRUCE NAZARIAN

President

Gnome Digital

Burbank

www.gnomedigital.com

STRENGTHS: The remarkable penetration of DVD-Video is its greatest strength. The are more than 100 million DVD-capable devices in the world, available at very low cost, and technologically not intimidating. That means DVD has a huge installed base of players waiting for killer software to be created and sold.

WEAKNESSES: The lack of alternative content is a weakness of the DVD format, but one that will abate as time goes on. We are seeing more and more alternative content being conceived and created, and this bodes well.

OPPORTUNITIES: The opportunities are very much in the content creation area. Finding new niche markets for DVD content and fulfilling that need could provide the making of many new DVD millionaires in the coming years. The rise of desktop DVD authoring provides for training, productivity tools, books and DVDs to instruct new DVD authors.

THREATS: Split standardization, or lack of standards. The DVD R/ RW format war is one indication of the potential of the DVD format to self destruct, simply by creating confusion in the DVD marketplace. This could be Beta vs. VHS redux, although potentially more detrimental.