You've probably heard all the hoopla about recordable- and rewritable-disc technology and perhaps about the many format proposals out there. But now, with the introduction of low-cost recorders to the market, DVD-R (and potentially DVD-RW) has stepped forward, making DVD a more cost-effective and desirable delivery medium.

As associate editor Bryant Frazer reports, computer manufacturers such as Apple and Compaq have been making some exciting announcements about their plans for DVD strategies that include combining DVD-R hardware along with video-editing and DVD-authoring tools. When you add to that the expected reduction of DVD-R media costs to around $10 per disc and drives offered at about one-fifth of their original prices, you have the ingredients for an explosion of the DVD format.-Patricia L. Casey

Following a crash in the price of DVD burners, companies such as Apple and Compaq Computer are ready to put an almost ridiculous amount of video power in the hands of consumers for the very first time. That means dedicated living-room videographers will get to take their shot at basic DVD design, but it also will let pros install low-end authoring systems or DVD-burning stations at what feel like bargain-basement prices. With Apple shipping DVD-R in its high-end Power Mac G4s, and Compaq offering the technology on the Windows/Intel side, 2001 may well be remembered as the year that changed everything for DVD.

Beginning this month, Pioneer's DVR-103 drive sells for $995; blank DVD-R media is available for as little as $10 a disc. To put that in perspective, consider the brief history of recordable DVD. Pioneer introduced the industry's first DVD-R drive in 1998. It could only record 3.9 GB of data on a disc, compared to the 4.7 GB held by a replicated DVD. The drive cost an alarming $17,000 and was snapped up by DVD producers who hailed it as a godsend. After all, burning $50 DVD-Rs for testing purposes may seem expensive, but producers found it to be a lot cheaper than ordering repeated runs of check discs from replicators.

In 1999, Pioneer earned more hosannas by increasing the capacity of DVD-R to a full 4.7 GB-though the lower-capacity version remained popular because of compatibility issues-and by slashing the price of a drive dramatically to $5,400. As more producers purchased the less-expensive drives, blank-media prices creeped downward. Off-brand 3.9 GB DVD-Rs have dipped as low as less than $10 at West Coast consumer electronics retailers, although the higher-capacity variety still sells in the $25-to-$30 range.

DVD-R Goes Consumer
Late last year, Pioneer expanded its business model, announcing a new drive aimed squarely at the consumer market. The DVR-103 can write 4.7 GB DVD-Rs (at 2X speeds), as well as CD-R and CD-RW. Once the DVD Forum, a standards-setting body consisting of various companies involved in DVD technology, finishes discussing DVD-RW, the rewritable version of DVD-R, the drive's firmware will be upgradeable to support that format. Like all DVD drives, it reads both CD-ROM and DVD-ROM. Obviously, its $995 price point makes it the most attractive DVD-R drive yet, and bundling deals with various OEM partners will reduce further its effective cost to end users.

Assuming that the dramatic reduction in the price of hardware, along with the push into the consumer space, will drive a strong increase in demand, the price of blank discs should also drop. Many observers expect DVD-R media to sell eventually at only a minor premium over CD-R media, because the two manufacturing processes are so similar.

As this issue went to press, Pioneer had announced two major bundling deals that placed DVD-R in high-end Mac and Windows/Intel machines; this is the first time any U.S. consumer-PC manufacturer has included a complete DVD-authoring system in the box. On the eve of the Consumer Electronics Show in January, Compaq Computer unveiled its MyMovieSTUDIO Presario 7000 PC, which ships with an IEEE-1394 connection, a full version of Pinnacle Systems' Studio DV editing software, Sonic Solutions' DVDit! authoring software, and a DVD-R drive. Starting at $2,400, the DVD-R-equipped Pentium 4 PCs will be offered only through Compaq's "Built For You" program, which offers PCs built to order via in-store kiosks or the company's Web site.

Retail models, which include video-editing software but, oddly, neither DVD-R nor the Pentium 4 chip, will ship to stores in March. Compaq said DVD-R will be included on "Built For You" models with AMD and Pentium III processors at a later date but didn't indicate whether it would arrive in retail configurations. The strategy lets Compaq hedge its bets, establishing a relationship with DVD-R technology providers and testing enthusiasm for the technology without committing to an actual retail launch.

Apple Dives in Head-First
Exciting as that news was, it was immediately overshadowed less than a week later by Apple's surprise announcement of its own DVD-R strategy at Macworld in San Francisco. With typical marketing elan, Steve Jobs conducted a boffo demonstration of iDVD, a new drag-and-drop DVD-authoring application developed by the engineering team that Apple acquired from Astarte last year. High-end Power Mac G4 models (starting at $3,499) that bundle iDVD along with Pioneer's DVD-R drive were scheduled to be ready for shipment by late February or early March. The drives will not be an option on less expensive units, Apple says, because demand is expected to outstrip supply. Furthermore, Apple plans to sell blank 4.7 GB DVD-R discs in packs of five for $50, or $10 per disc-another significant break for DVD producers.

Apple also announced DVD Studio Pro ($999), the DVD-authoring counterpart to Final Cut Pro, a more full-featured system that producers can use for more complex projects.

If Compaq was first out of the gate, it was Apple that really got the technical community buzzing with its sudden commitment to DVD-R, despite the company's much smaller share of the PC market. (Apple previously had included DVD-RAM, an incompatible rewritable system, on its high-end G4 configurations.) As far as consumers are concerned, the time required to encode an MPEG-2 file remains a significant obstacle to quick-and-easy DVD creation. Eventually, however, faster processors should make MPEG-2 rendering faster than real-time.

Video producers now have two basic options: They can purchase a complete PC workstation with the basic software pre-loaded, or they can purchase the drive a la carte and install it in an existing production suite. The headache for producers who already have DVD-burning equipment is that the discs used by Pioneer's new drive are not compatible with the previous generations of hardware, and vice versa.

Two Different Kinds of Discs
To understand exactly what's going on with the two different types of DVD-R media, a more esoteric history lesson is in order. The DVD Forum put the writing on the wall early in 2000 when it split the DVD-R format into two separate categories-one for authoring, and the other for "general" usage. It was generally understood that the DVD-R Authoring spec would apply in the professional realm, while the DVD-R General spec would be implemented in consumer video recorders. But with demand expected to drive the prices of general-purpose drives and media far below what's feasible in the professional market, producers are likely to embrace the less expensive equipment.

What are the differences? The General specification uses a different laser wavelength for recording and beefs up copy protection by modifying the blank discs so that decryption keys for encrypted DVD-Video titles can't be recorded as part of a bit-for-bit copy. General-purpose discs also cannot be used as masters by replication facilities, meaning that the recent trend toward delivery of titles on DVD-R, rather than on DLT, will likely taper off as facilities adopt the cheaper drives and media. However, both types of disc will play in standard DVD hardware, and both of them have the full 4.7 GB capacity of a single-layer DVD. (Research is under way on dual-layer recordable DVD, but no plans have been announced to bring such a product to market.)

Pioneer has stressed that it will continue to support its previous DVD-R drive, including blank DVD-R Authoring media, as long as customers demand it. But the company expects producers to migrate from that unit, and has no plans to offer a new DVD burner specifically for professional users. Despite its current DVD-R dominance, Pioneer won't have a corner on this market for long. Other manufacturers could announce plans for a similar drive at any moment. Additionally, rival recordable and rewritable DVD formats are coming up fast, although neither DVD-RAM nor DVD+RW has been used as extensively by DVD content creators as the ubiquitous DVD-R (see sidebar). Assuming DVD recorders eventually become a viable consumer product, what will the implications be for the professional producer? It may be inevitable that some potential clients will decide to buy a new PC or video recorder and try their hand at designing an interactive DVD title. However, there still will be quantitative and qualitative differences. For one thing, consumer MPEG-2 encoders are unlikely to match the results available at the professional level. Even more important, the talented video producer has the intangible benefit of expertise and good taste where graphic design and interactivity are concerned. Cheap DVD-recordable may bring video production to the masses, but it won't diminish the need for the skills of a pro.