Introduction

One or two enquiries have been made about the availability of the E.L.M. CASUAL GLAMOUR Video Series in DVD format.

A semi-professinal 'one man band' like myself, with a low-budget operation, will have to wait for an economically priced consumer product before embarking on any form of transfer to this medium.

There is no doubt that DVD picture quality, along with instant access featuring easy to use indexing techniques, perfect stills and slow motion, is the ideal format for viewing most types of moving pictures.

Current Problems

There are, however, a number of problems with introducing DVD as an alternative or progressive means of promoting this video series.

Until the launch of the Philips DVDR1000 (DVD Recorder) in the UK this autumn, the only means of advancing the production of the videos other than on conventional video tape, was by transfer to video-CD. There have been wildly differing claims regarding both the quality and the suitability of such an exercise, particularly with the advent of the superior DVD solution now on the horizon.

Incompatibility

The keyword really seems to be 'compatibility'. There are DVD Players on the market which will not read the video-CDs and the problem of compatibility is the major stumbling block, along with costs, to the use of the Philips' DVD Recorder as a means of producing marketable DVDs.

Philips are using their own discs (at about £20 each) and although they are offering the four choice Speed/Quality Options that are already familiar to users (HQ - 1 hour @ 9.72M bps; SP - 2 hours @ 5.07M bps; LP - 3 hours @ 3.38M bps; EP - 4 hours @ 2.54M bps), it is strongly recommended by experts that any form of video transfer should be limited to the highest quality (one hour) format.

Also, initially the discs used in the DVDR1000 will be re-writable (the 'single-write' DVD disc not being available until later editions of the Philips machine are produced, and then only Philips own version.

History Repeating Itself

Philips are now employing precisely the same strategy with DVD as they did in the seventies with video tape. Their system was the first on the market and the most costly, and was followed by VHS and Betamax and eventually the battle between the latter two for mass consumer approval was won by VHS as the more popular, although Betamax was probably by far the more efficient. The original Philips system disappeared without trace, as Betamax effectively did as well.

If a double-sided DVD disc is introduced, as is more than likely, it will obviously be possible to put double the amount of information onto it - that is, two hours of video footage in High Quality mode.

Conclusion

Costs will inevitably fall eventually (the cheaper 'single-write' CD price has come down from £6 per disc to £1 per disc in two years), but a viable system for efficient marketing does not seem likely for some while yet, possibly two or three years into the future, if not longer.

The best attitude to adopt at the moment appears to be:
'wait and see'.