DualDisc Playability Issues Go Unaddressed at IRMA Conference

Although Trickett in his IRMA talk didn’t broach the playability issues raised by CE makers, he later told us while he couldn’t speak for other DualDisc labels, his own company conducts stringent quality control testing on all its DualDisc releases. That includes electrical and mechanical measurements of the DualDiscs by an independent lab, as well as in-house evaluation on a test-bed of about 350 disc players, he said. Compatibility with that hardware has exceeded 95% to date, Trickett said. He conceded the CE makers were in their right to express concern, but that he felt some of the consumer alerts were shrill. Trickett confirmed the DualDisc labels met with a group of CE makers last Fri. in N.Y.C. to address their concerns (CED Dec 3 p3), but said he couldn’t discuss the meeting owing to non- disclosure agreements.

As for DualDisc’s early successes with the consuming public, Trickett told IRMA more than 350,000 of the DVD/CD hybrids were sold to consumers since their Oct. 26 U.S. launch, with most of the 70 titles shipped so far containing DVD-Audio on their DVD side. Noting the very high marks given the DualDisc concept in market tests among consumers last Feb., Trickett told the IRMA conference that DualDisc “has been out on the street now for roughly a month,” and preliminary data collected from customers “bears up those market tests very, very closely.”

More than 750,000 DualDiscs were shipped to retail within the first 2 weeks of the launch, said Trickett, who also is chmn. of the DVD-Audio Council. DualDiscs backers expected “scanned sales” to exceed 350,000 launch-to-date in the latest point-of-sale data, due this week, he said. “Let’s put this in perspective. That, in one month, is more than the total that DVD-Audio sold in its entire existence.” Although the DVD-Audio format was announced as early as 1999, momentum for software shipments didn’t pick up until mid-2001.

Various DualDisc labels “are working together as one to establish the brand,” Trickett said. “This has not happened in this industry for a long time.” Looking at DVD-Audio or SACD, “one could make the argument that the level of content was not high enough to build support for a mass-market consumer introduction. That’s not the case here.” There now are more than 70 DualDisc titles available from major and independent labels, and releases through the first quarter of next year “will ramp up significantly,” he said. In the earliest stage of launch, DualDiscs outsold DVD/CD combo packages by a 9:1 ratio when placed in the same bin at retail, Trickett said. “Early data shows the consumer wants the product.”

DualDisc’s legacy will be that it will do for music what DVD did for movies, Trickett said. In the effort to establish it as a “brand,” a requirement for DualDisc licensees is that if there’s music on the DVD side, it must be “at least” a full album, he said. Additionally, at least one version of the full album must use lossless compression, such as DVD-Audio’s Meridian Lossless Packing, or, linear PCM, Trickett told us. Under DualDisc rules, licensees have the option of including a version with so-called lossy compression, such as Dolby Digital or DTS, which yield multichannel surround in DVD players lacking DVD-Audio decoding.

“Essentially what DualDisc does is it takes DVD-Audio and makes it backward-compatible,” Trickett told IRMA. “One of the issues of DVD-Audio -- what I consider to be a phenomenal music product -- is it was not backward- compatible. You couldn’t play it everywhere. What we found was, just being able to play it in every DVD player was just not quite enough.” Among other added-value features contemplated for DualDisc are Dolby Headphone virtual surround, and, the inclusion of compressed audio files such as MP3 or Windows Media Audio that customers can transfer to portable players, Trickett told the conference.

As to what party or parties are responsible for licensing the technical parameters for DualDisc, Trickett told us he didn’t know but believed the RIAA was responsible. RIAA told us a somewhat different version, that it is involved with licensing the DualDisc trademark and logo, but not the technical specs, (CED Dec 6 p3). Replicators now making DualDiscs include Cinram, Deluxe and Technicolor.

Trickett’s tally of 350,000 DualDiscs “scanned sold” seemed at odds with a statement by Warner Music Group CEO Edgar Bronfman Mon. that his company had received an RIAA “gold” certification for its DualDisc Still Not Getting Any… by Simple Plan (CED Dec 7 p7). RIAA gold certification is based on shipments of 500,000 to retail - - not sell-through to consumers -- which is tallied by SoundScan. Meanwhile, the SoundScan sell-through figures don’t account for all channels where music is sold, whereas the RIAA’s certification tracks all shipments. Confusing matters further, no indication of “gold” status for the Simple Plan DualDisc appeared in the latest Billboard magazine charts. That’s not uncommon, said a WMG spokeswoman who recently worked for the RIAA. The title was only certified recently and there’s sometimes a lag in the information reaching the charts, she told us.

IRMA Conference Notebook

A lingering uncertainty about Blu-ray replication is whether the specs will make hard coats mandatory, Dominick Dalla Verde senior dir. of pre-production at Cinram, told the conference. If so, the production chain probably will need to a “pre-cleaning stage” to prevent the introduction of dust or other contaminants in that last lacquering phase, he said. “It’s the last coat in the process and you want to make sure you don’t lose a disc at that stage,” he said. For molding HD DVDs, Cinram is using the same equipment it uses for regular DVDs, with “minor modifications, Dalla Verde said. For Blu- ray, “molding in a sense is a simpler process” in that the disc is based on a 1.1 mm thick substrate vs. HD DVD’s 0.6 mm thick halves, he said. Moreover, “indifference in the optical properties isn’t a problem because the laser does not pass through the substrate,” he said. However, cycle times are longer because the thicker substrate needs more time to cool, he said, “although you can also use a 2nd molding machine to get around that as well.” HD DVD’s space layer thickness is about 50% tighter than DVD, and Cinram is currently meeting such tolerances, he said. As for Blu-ray, the cover layer’s thickness is specified at 100 microns, with a tolerance of plus or minus 2 microns -- although word is, the spec will be revised shortly to allow tolerances of plus or minus 3 microns because of improvement in the pickup heads, he said. However, with help of the Blu-ray developers, Cinram was able to achieve results “well within” the 2 micron tolerance, “which is good news,” Dalla Verde said. Cinram has produced over a million HD DVDs and achieved cycle times of 3.5 sec. and yields of 96.8% on single-layer HD DVD discs, with dual-layer cycle times of 4 sec. and yields of 94.5%, he said. Yield data refers to inspection yields off the production line, and doesn’t include putting discs in players and assessing “real error rates,” which won’t be possible until a commercial HD DVD player becomes available, he said. Cinram has produced far fewer Blu-ray discs in pilot production but recently has reduced cycle times there significantly, to 6 sec. from 10 sec., with the Blu-ray developers’ help, he said.

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Sony months ago set cycle times of 4 sec. and yields of 90% as goals for Blu-ray’s late 2005 launch, said Ed Gehrich, dir. of engineering at Sony DADC. Having achieved cycle times of 4 sec., it has revised the goal at launch to 3.5 sec., he said: “We've got some time to work on this.” With significant improvements in the Blu-ray cover layer process, yields have reached “the low 80s,” and Sony is “very, very confident” of achieving the 90% target at launch next year, he said.

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There’s significant “market turmoil” in DTV, marked by severe price erosion and “hypercompetition,” Bharath Rajagopalan, gen. mgr. of product mktg., at TCL-Thomson Electronics, told the conference. Yet pricing of an HDTV set still hasn’t reached the “sweet spot” for mass market affordability, Rajagopalan said. “It’s not all about low price -- it’s all about the right price, and we're not yet there today,” he said. Over 80% of the TV set industry’s volume is done in product priced under $1,000, he said. With U.S. median household income at about $46,000, “these consumers cannot afford product at $2,000 or even $1,000,” he said. Content “is the key” to driving HDTV demand, and in turn, lower pricing through higher volumes, Rajagopalan said. “Having shrink-wrapped content is even more important,” he said. Packaged HD content will be “vital” to achieving “critical mass” in HDTV set sales, he said.