DVD Players vs Video on Demand

The stats show a clear leader on people's Christmas wish lists this year - DVD Players and DVD movies despite the availability of video on demand. These versatile Digital Video Disk (DVD) players are far outselling even the popular new video game consoles. In fact, the top video game consoles have DVD drives built in, so the appeal and versatility of DVD media creates strong consumer demand.

Sales of DVD's and DVD players continue to grow while video tape and video on demand services are lagging. In fact a small minority (7%) of consumers have said they would pay for movies online and about the same amount have high bandwidth connectivity.

DVD is the right technology at the right time.

Video on Demand

Video on Demand, although appearing to be an attractive solution for home entertainment consumers, it has a number of problems that limit its acceptance. Those barriers are:

1. lack of consumer hardware - digital receivers, digital capable TVs
2. limited digital transmission - overuse leads to network congestion
3. high initial cost - digital service packages often cost twice as much and you can't take them with you to the cottage.
4. restrained entertainment content release - producers are afraid of piracy and DVDs have coding which restricts their unrestrained use.

Video on Demand utilizes a high-speed cable or satellite connection. Video downloads of movies often takes 30 minutes or more and you must have the service and the digital decoder and they are pricey. On the other hand, one VOD service provider, divatv has recently reached its one-millionth customer, so there is demand.

Right Now, DVD is the Hot Medium

According to one source DVD sales and rentals has risen 250% in the last two years, jumping from $1.6 billion US in 1999 to $4.1 billion in 2001. Adams Media says that by the end of 2001, the market is projected to double again to $8.5 billion and 12 percent of U.S. homes will have DVD players. 28 million DVD players will be sold worldwide in 2001 with estimates of sales of DVD drives from 60 to 100 million units to be sold in the next two years.

Christmas Sales Growth of DVD Players will be Strong

The coming Christmas season should be an especially good one for sellers of DVD Players since these are number one on many shoppers' gift wish list.

Pioneer's DV-AX10 DVD Player is the ultimate DVD home theatre experience providing pure cinema progressive output and dolby quality sound. This unit offers the maximum in user controlled engineering allowing users to custom shape their DVD movie or audio experience.

With Sony and Pioneer Electronics releasing rewritable DVD players and versatile combo-players that can feed both computers and televisions, the demand for these products will only deepen. They make great gifts too because you can put them in a box and wrap them up.

What is the attraction for consumers? The price of DVD players is dropping quickly and even approaching $200 in US markets. DVD format movies are in huge supply and beginning to push VCR tapes off of retail shelves.

DVD discs themselves are growing in sales as well. From sales of DVD movies to duplication services, the entire industry is ramping up for its top sales year.

The Appeal of DVD Technology

DVD technology has some amazing strengths:

• Storage: 6.7 Gigabytes of digital storage
• High Quality Video
• High Quality Digital Sound (mpeg2/Dolby 5.1- Channel Digital Sound)
• On screen menus for movies
• Movie trailers, outtakes from movies
• Performer's biographies on movies
• Instantaneous rewinding and searching
• DVD discs are same size as CD's and easy to transport
• DVD players can play CDs too.

Not HDTV Capable Yet?

DVD isn't HDTV capable yet. HDTV has about 4 to 5 times the graphic resolution capacity and that's a lot of gigabytes. It will take some time for High Definition Televisions to fully penetrate the at home consumer video market however, and we can't assume bandwidth will be sufficient for Video-On-Demand. It is still ahead of its time.

It's not inconceivable that DVD disks will evolve as well to store ever more vast amounts of data, so HDTV capability is just ahead. Currently, DVDs are mostly single sided disks, which can store up to 6.7 Gigabytes of data or roughly the equivalent of a feature length movie or 100 hours of MP3 quality music. Not bad. The two-sided DVD disks will allow the storage of 14 Gigabytes or two feature length movies. 2 Double sided DVD disks then could conceivably have enough storage to carry a single HDTV compatible movie.

DVD vs Video on Demand

The battle of DVD vs Video on Demand has just begun. An interesting competition between these two consumer video delivery mediums will rage over the next few years. The bandwidth crunch will be with us for some time so the most reasonable assumption is that DVD players and DVD movies will sell strongly for the next several years. Good luck with your search for top video entertainment value.

© 2001 Galaxine Online Gambling Magazine.