February 22, 1996 8:15 p.m.
By Margaret Kane
Several major computer vendors plan to incorporate DVD technology into their systems by the fourth quarter, fueling expectations that the technology could drive PC sales this Christmas.
DVD was the darling of the Consumer Electronics Show in January, and industry executives such as Intel Corp. CEO Andy Grove have since singled it out as one of the key technologies that will drive demand for PCs in the next couple of years.
Speaking at a Dataquest Inc. conference earlier this week, Grove noted that DVD will offer eight times the storage capacity and two times the data transfer rate of CD ROM technology.
The new disks, which had been called Digital Video Disk but now are known by the acronym, can hold up to 4 gigabytes of information and can produce video quality that surpasses laser disk quality.
Toshiba America Inc. will be shipping DVD ROM components to vendors by the fourth quarter, a spokesperson for the company said.
IBM will be including DVD in its top-line Aptiva computers in the fourth quarter, and will expand down the line during 1997, according to a source at the company.
"As things roll out in 1997 it will definitely be found in a wider base, on more and more of the Aptiva models," the source said. It remains unclear which company will manufacture the products for IBM, or how the machines would be priced.
One company that will be manufacturing components is Toshiba America Information Systems Inc. Disk Products Division, in Irvine, Calif. The firm's DVD ROMs will be shipped in several configurations, including a stand-alone drive that vendors can integrate into systems. The source would not discuss pricing.
"It will be available to people who want to buy it, whether those people are OEMs or end users," said a source at Toshiba who requested anonymity.
Toshiba had already announced two home electronic versions of DVD designed to work with a television in lieu of a VCR. Those products, the SD-3006 and the SD-1006, will ship in the third quarter, and will be retail-priced at $699 and $599, respectively.
Matsushita Electric Corp. of America, in Secaucus, N.J., also plans to ship a home electronic version of DVD by the end of the year, although the company would not release model details or pricing information.
The home electronic version will be able to hold 133 minutes of video on one disc and will reproduce 720 pixels in a horizontal line.
DVD ROM requires MPEG-2 for compression. As a video product, one disk can hold eight separate sound tracks. The Toshiba home version allows users to alternate between traditional movie imaging, with black bands on the TV screen's top and bottom, and Pan & Scan, which clips the image to fill the screen.
Both the home version and the DVD ROM version are backwards-compatible with CDs, the Toshiba spokesperson said.
Compaq Computer Corp., Apple Computer Inc., and IBM all previewed DVD ROM computers at the January Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
"We demonstrated this on a Presario. What we're trying to do in that time frame is express publicly our support for the technology. We really think that's going to be the new standard for optical digital storage," said Compaq spokesman John Sweney. He would not discuss products shipments.
Some executives believe DVD could provide a catalyst for fourth-quarter sales in much the same way that CD ROM generated a wave of demand during the 1994 holiday selling season.
Although PC vendors generally enjoyed a strong fourth quarter in 1995, analysts said that in the absence of any major technical innovations, sales of consumer systems is in danger of flattening out.
But DVD's arrival could radically rework the equation.
"The beauty of DVD is that not only is it going to be for the PC but it's also going to be for the consumer electronics market," said an executive at Digital Equipment Corp. "Toshiba can make a zillion of these things and drive the price down."
That, at least, is the hope.
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JF