American Cinematographer - June 1995 - 89

Point, Counterpoint: DVD Formats Proposed
Disc

system will likely supercede videocassettes.

by Frank Beacham
Digital Video Disc (DVD) - the
likely successor to the VHS vid¬
the next home
movie format - is on a fast track
eocassette

as

to the

marketplace even though
incompatible versions of the
format still threaten a marketing

At least for now, both

Sony/Philips and Toshiba/Time
Warner vow publicly to take their
incompatible formats to market
next year. If that happens, a new

president of technical operations
at Warner Brothers. "What

we

trying to do is be realistic
about the aspect ratio of the TV
are

sets that exist in the marketplace
and try to provide something that
plays in proper proportion. The
issue here is to adapt to available
screen sizes and
shapes and to lay

An alliance of nine of the
world's top consumer electron¬

video format war
reminiscent of the Betamax ver¬
sus VHS battle in the Seventies -
could be in the offing.
The alliance format is

ics, software and entertainment

being backed by Toshiba Corp.,

borders." Cookson said issues of

companies have proposed a new
dual-sided five-inch digital video
disc (DVD) format with enough
storage capacity to hold two fulllength feature films. That new
disc format, created by Toshiba
and Time Warner, is incompat¬
ible with a single-sided five-inch
high-density multimedia CD
configuration proposed last De¬
cember by Sony and Philips.

Time Warner, Inc., Matsushita
Electric Industrial Co. Ltd.,

scalability to other display sizes

two

war.

came

The alliance's format be¬
the instant front-runner as

industry standard after Sony
study its
specifications in an attempt to
agree on a single DVD format.
Then Sony did a quick turn¬
an

announced it would

around and announced it will not

support the competing format.

"Sony believes the
Philips/Sony specifications pro¬
vide the best option for optical
media for the coming multimedia
era," said Nobuyuki Idei, then
managing director of Sony Corp.
Soon after that statement
was

released, Idei

was

named

Sony's new president. In his first
interview with reporters after his
promotion, Idei backed away
from a potential format war, say¬
ing that Sony and its competitors

consumer

-

Thomson Consumer Electronics

SA, Hitachi, Ltd., Pioneer Elec¬
tronic

Corp., Zenith Electronics
Corp., MCA, Inc. and MGM/UA.
Additional support for the for¬
mat was announced by Victor Co.
of Japan (JVC), Mitsubishi Elec¬
tric Corp., Nippon Columbia Co.
Ltd. (Denon) and Turner Home
Entertainment.

a

picture with appropriate black

.

.

."Think of it instead

very powerful and costefficient storage device."
a

-

Gerald M. Levin,
Time Warner's chairman and CEO

might be addressed in a second
generation of the format that is

sembles a conventional music
CD. Each side can store up to five

scheduled for introduction in
1998.
A 135-minute disc pro¬
vides a minimum of three lan¬

gigabytes of data, a capacity 15
times greater than available on a

guage channels and four subtitle
channels and has the ability to

standard CD. The double-sided
disc is formed by back-to-back

carry as many as eight languages
and 32 subtitles. This allows pro¬
ducers to put multiple language

The alliance disc

re¬

bonding of two 0.6mm-thick fiveinch discs. The bonding process
is similar to that

now

used to

manufacture the current genera¬
tion of video laserdiscs.
The alliance format uses
variable MPEG-2 digital image

compression technology. The
system allows a peak data trans¬
fer rate of 10 megabits per second
and can sustain an average trans¬
fer rate of 4.94 megabits per sec¬
ond for the full 135 minutes on
each side.
The DVD format dis¬

as

versions

on one

disc, thus reduc¬

ing mastering and inventory
costs and making it easier to en¬
ter a large number of markets si¬
multaneously. Consumers will be
able to choose either a dubbed,
subtitled or original language
version of a film. Other features
include Dolby AC-3 (5.1 channel)
surround audio, parental lock out

capability, and current audio CD
playback compatibility
The alliance format has

should reach "a common solu¬
tion" that won't confuse or slow
the growth of the new DVD mar¬
ket. However, he said, no nego¬
tiations on a compromise have

not what the cinematographers
would like to see," said Christo¬

been scheduled.

pher J. Cookson, senior vice

very

June 1995

American

capabilities beyond viewing

plays film in 4:3, 16:9 and stan¬

video movies. It

dard letterbox formats. "This is

computer-related applications
both as a server supplying digital

can

be used in

transmission networks and

as a

large-capacity ROM that

Cinematographer

91
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