Online dvd rental software

Major motion picture studios and electronics manufacturers are counting on the winter gift-giving season to propel DVD-Video products into the mainstream. The industry's optimism about the future of DVD is fueled by the technology's impressive first-year sales, which far outpaced the debuts of both the compact disc and videocassette.

According to the Consumer Electronics Manufacturers Association (CEMA), DVD player sales to U.S. dealers exceeded 437,000 units in 1997--12 times the number of CD players sold in their first year and twice the VCRs distributed in that product's first two years. Consumers purchased 340,000 of those DVD players last year and began shopping for DVD movies in stores and online. Sales may have been strong, but there are still millions of Americans to whom DVD remains virtually unknown, and many of these potential customers appear to place a high priority on home entertainment. CEMA reports that more than 15 percent of U.S. households have installed home theater systems, for which DVD is a format far superior to VHS.

Based on this successful debut, cinema production companies are stepping up their investment in the burgeoning technology this summer in preparation for the busiest selling season--September through December. Most film studios have formed alliances with DVD manufacturers and joined the DVD Video Group, a 40-member organization that seeks to promote the technology across product lines.

"It's been a constant struggle to create awareness, but I have confidence DVD is here to stay," says the group's president, Emiel N. Petrone. "DVD delivers exactly what it promises." In addition to featuring wide-screen viewing, DVD offers viewers high-resolution pictures, theater-style audio, multilanguage programming, and CD-like durability.

Many traditional "first-buy" customers are shopping for their DVD titles online. VideoServe.com, a popular Internet video site, started the first online showcase devoted to DVD products in January, and the company reports that DVD is already accounting for 11 percent of the site's sales. Petrone says these initial customers are also purchasing primarily the higher-end hardware units. Many of the more basic DVD players, competitively priced around $399, are still on the shelves.

Petrone says DVD Video Group members are attempting to lure average customers by switching their focus from retail sales to the rental market. Video stores are seen as the key to bringing DVD into the mass market by allowing consumers to sample the technology without buying, says Petrone, also a Philips executive vice president. Philips and Polygram were the first to team up to hit the rental stores, he says. They were followed by Toshiba and Ingram, and most recently the Time Warner Entertainment Company. All the major studios now have DVD divisions and the number of movie titles has gone from 800 in 1997 to 1,200 this year.

Time Warner recently launched a nationwide rental program after test-marketing in five cities in the spring. Warner's program teams the video division with several hardware manufacturers to provide starter kits for rental stores containing between two and eight DVD players, and 40 to 100 movies titles, depending on how much each store owner is willing to invest in the new format. Time Warner predicts DVD will be in a million homes by early 1999. Gail Becker, a Warner Home Video representative, says, "It may not be a household name yet, but the growth in DVD has shown that this is becoming a mass market product."

RELATED ARTICLE: Optibase, Nimbus, Technicolor, SPA Sponsor DVD PRO

Online Inc. has announced the joint sponsors for the DVD PRO Conference & Exhibition, to be held in Santa Barbara, California, on August 31 and September 1, 1998.

Optibase, a developer of MPEG digital video systems, is the corporate sponsor for the event. The company has combined its expertise in Windows NT and MPEG encoding technology to create DVD Fab!, its all-in-one system for DVD title creation. Nimbus Manufacturing Inc., a leading independent manufacturer of optical discs, and Technicolor Inc., a leading manufacturer of video and optical media, are DVD PRO's associate sponsors. The association sponsor is the Software Publishers Association (SPA), the principal worldwide trade association of the software industry.

DVD PRO is the largest conference and exhibition featuring the latest developments in DVD technology, creativity, and business development. Pre-conference events and seminars will be held on Sunday, August 30. Postconference events will be held on Wednesday, September 2, and will include a tour of the Technicolor Inc. flagship plant, located in Camarillo, California.

A current conference program and exhibiting and registration information can be found online at http://www.onlineinc.com/dvdpro.

RELATED ARTICLE: dvd forum

DVD Forum Steering Committee Adds Seven New Members

The DVD Forum has increased the membership of its Steering Committee from 10 companies to 17. The new members are IBM Corporation, Industry Technology Research Institute of Taiwan, Intel Corporation, LG Electronics Inc., NEC Corporation, Samsung Electronics Company Ltd., and Sharp Corporation. The committee decided to appoint the new members in response to the growing membership of the DVD Forum (which now has more than 160 member companies) and to reflect the Forum's aim to be an open organization. The Steering Committee serves as the executive council of the DVD Forum, and approves all decisions relating to its fundamental structure or policy. The other members of the Steering Committee are Hitachi Ltd., Matsushita Electric Industrial Company Ltd., Mitsubishi Electric Corporation, Philips Electronics N.V., Pioneer Electronic Corporation, Sony Corporation, THOMSON Multimedia, Time Warner Inc., Toshiba Corporation, and Victor Company of Japan Ltd. (JVC).