PHILIPS TAKING DVD+RW RECORDING TO MASS MARKET

First Magnavox recordable DVD product will be standalone MDV630R deck that makes 2nd-quarter debut at $499, said Andrew Mintz, gen. mgr., Magnavox AV business. He told us DVD+R/RW recorder would target “new mass customer” through Magnavox’s distribution base of mass merchandisers and national retailers. Since late 2001 launch, DVD+R/RW decks have been marketed only under Philips brand, with distribution primarily through “upmarket” and “regional selling floors” such as Good Guys and Tweeter, said Mike Lang, gen. mgr-AV and home entertainment.

Mainstay of Philips line over much of last year has been DVDR985 recorder, which first retailed for $999 and lately has been promoted as low as $599 after instant and mail-in rebates (CED Feb 20 p5). Deck will be phased out as new models enter pipeline in April-May, Lang told us. Those were announced at CES and include standalone DVDR80 ($799 MSRP) and DVDR75 ($699 MSRP); DVD+R/RW recording comes to home theater system in fall with LX900R bundle ($1,299 MSRP). New recorders have IEEE-1394 input for MiniDV digital camcorder. They also exploit DVD+R/RW extended recording mode to store 6 or 8 hours of programming on blank DVD, with no loss of resolution compared with 4-hour EP mode. Flagship DVDR80 has 8 hours recording, complemented by Gemstar programming guide for advanced and extended time- shifting.

Magnavox DVD+R/RW products will be differentiated from Philips line, Mintz told us. For example, forthcoming MDV630R won’t have progressive scan output and, instead of front-panel IEEE-1394 jack, Magnavox deck will have analog S-video input on rear panel for dubbing camcorder footage to blank DVDs. Mintz wouldn’t identify retailers that would carry Magnavox deck, except to describe them as “national” accounts. Among those now handling Magnavox products are Circuit City (DVD players, TV), Sears (TV), and Wal-Mart (TVCR combos). Mintz told us floor merchandising strategies for Marantz deck were in works and probably would include kiosks and other in-store support. He said relevant retailers were committed to supporting product: “We're not just putting a box on a shelf.”

To some extent, Philips has been hiding its own light under bushel with low-key DVD+R/RW rollout in U.S. compared with Panasonic’s all-out national blitz and aggressive pricing for DVD-R/RAM format it championed. That’s not case in Europe, where native-son Philips has been market pace-setter with brace of DVD+R/RW decks at various price points. Until now, debate had been polite between rival camps on merits of respective products -- but no more. Breaking unspoken industry agreement not to undermine consumer confidence in concept of recordable DVD by publicly trashing rival formats, Panasonic this week (Feb 17-18) staged series of carefully prepared DVD-RAM demonstrations in London that directly attacked Philips’ DVD+RW format.

Seminars ostensibly were to introduce LF-D521 Multi PC Burner, or DVD Burner II, which can record on DVD-RAM, DVD-R or DVD-RW as well as CD-R and CD-RW. But Zen Inada, asst. mgr. of Panasonic’s Osaka-based Panasonic’s storage device team, used opportunity to say DVD-RAM was “[the] core of consumer DVD recording” and showed extensive charts criticizing how DVD+RW handled disc defects. He and Nobuyuki Ogawa, application software mgr. in Osaka, lined up DVD Burner II and Panasonic’s DMR-E30 consumer recorder against DVD+RW PC burner and Philips’ DVDR880 consumer DVD+RW recorder to run series of demonstrations that showed what advanced editing functions DVD-RAM could offer and DVD+RW couldn’t.

Visiting Japanese seemed seriously upset by way DVD+RW camp drew attention to DVD-RAM recording’s lack of backward compatibility with DVD-Video players. “There is perfect compatibility between a PC drive and Panasonic DVD recorder, I find it frustrating when the DVD+RW people say RAM does not have compatibility,” Inada said. It was apparent that DVD+RW and DVD- RAM proponents were defining term “compatibility” differently. DVD+RW proponents consistently have used term to mean ability to take recorded blank from DVD recorder and play it back on DVD player. Panasonic now is using same term to mean that disc can be freely moved between consumer recorder and PC burner, for advanced editing.

Overall thrust of Panasonic’s case was that because DVD-RAM discs could cope with 100,000 erase and rewrite cycles, optical blank disc could be used like PC hard disc. Panasonic executives dismissed reminder that people already could use PC’s hard disc to edit video, or buy hard disc PVR for TV recording and pausing live TV.

One of Panasonic’s demonstrations showed how PC could be used to drag-and-drop data (such as a JPEG picture file) to DVD- RAM video recording previously made on consumer deck, but DVD+RW format PC burners couldn’t add data to video recording made on DVD+RW consumer deck. Another demonstration showed that when new video sequences were inserted into middle of existing DVD+RW recording, later sequences were lost -- just as VHS recording was overwritten when new recording was started half way through tape. In comparison, DVD+RAM behaves like hard disc, finding free space to slot in new recording instead of overwriting existing video. Although it’s debatable how many users will want to mix video and data, Panasonic executives said they believed increasing number of users would want to embellish what they had recorded. And, when confronted with fact that DVD-RAM recording with video inserts added on PC wouldn’t play in most DVD-Video players, Panasonic argued that PC could be used to copy edit DVD-RAM disc to PC’s hard disc, then burn it to write-once DVD-R that should be compatible with most DVD players.

Hearing afterward about Panasonic’s comparison of formats, Philips executives came back swinging. “DVD RAM recordings can only be played back in specially designed DVD-RAM PC drives and players, which are a minority of the 150 million DVD-ROM and video players,” said Frank Simonis, mktg. dir for DVD+RW. “Consumers expect the recorded disc to be compatible, and the DVD+RW format allows consumers to play their recorded disc on the vast majority of DVD-Video and DVD-ROM drives -- regardless of brand -- without having to compromise on the full functionality and benefits that DVD+RW offers.”

Simonis challenged Panasonic’s use of “compatibility” term: “As usual, the RAM people leave out an essential qualification. They should be saying that there is perfect compatibility between a RAM-enabled PC drive and Panasonic DVD recorder and that they find it frustrating -- but true -- when the DVD+RW people say RAM does not have compatibility” with legacy DVD players. As for contention that DVD+RW format lacks interchangeability between PC platform and CE platform, Philips spokeswoman said users could record on consumer deck and edit disc’s content (such as menu structure and text) on PC “while maintaining disc’s compatibility with a normal DVD player. DVD+R/+RW is the only format that allows you to do this.” She said Philips would be demonstrating cross-platform interchangeability at Lisbon news conference next week in preparation for March CeBIT show in Hannover, Germany.

As for comparative marketing of DVD-RAM in Europe so far, Inada said Panasonic planned “big promotion” in spring for new DMR-E50, to be priced at same ?450 (about $600) as Philips deck. As in U.S., DMR-E50 is similar to current DMR-E30 and has been “designed to bring the cost down,” Inada said for example that deck had no IEEE-1394 input for MiniDV camcorders. He told us Panasonic envisaged street price of new deck would be around $299 eventually.