Personal Video Will Drive Recordable DVD and Home PC Sales

At the recent Independent Software Vendors (ISV) meeting hosted bythe Recordable DVD Council (RDVDC), attendees learned that camcorderhousehold penetration, the driving force for consumer recordable DVDsales, is approaching 40 percent.*

To emphasize the key reasons DVD video recording is becomingmainstream, members of the RDVDC demonstrated the smooth transfer ofvideo from a camcorder to a personal computer equipped with arecordable DVD drive. After showing how even a first-time user can edita video, the compatibility of the recorded video was illustrated byplaying it back on a range of DVD drives and players.

RDVDC chairman Bon-Guk Koo, senior corporate advisor and formerexecutive vice president of Samsung Electronics, predicted that theconsumer interest in personal video publishing will drive increasedsales of home PCs with higher processing power during the next twoyears.

"The new generation of DVD Forum-compliant combination DVD drives,low-cost write-once DVD media and easy-to-use video production softwareis creating a rapidly expanding consumer market," Koo commented."People want to preserve their aging home video collection on DVDmedia. They want to create personalized family and business movies thatare as good as those they see on the big screen. Forum-standard drivesthat have both write-once, play-anywhere and rewritable capabilitiesare now available for less than $400 and the price for two-hour DVD-Rmedia has dropped significantly. All of the components are availableand affordable."

Wolfgang Schlichting, research manager for IDC's Optical RemovableStorage Program, reinforced Koo's message by presenting highlights fromIDC's recently completed consumer and storage market research studies.The IDC report projected that, while in 2003 ten percent of homecomputers will incorporate recordable DVD drives, by 2006 more than 35percent of the systems sold will be video publishing-enabled.

These systems, as well as the growing array of external recordableDVD drives will stimulate an increase from more than 3 millionrecordable DVD drives shipped this year to nearly 50 million in2006.

Schlichting pointed out that PC manufacturers such as Apple, Sony,and Compaq are driving DVD recording into the mainstream. He added thatbecause many people will choose to upgrade existing systems rather thanbuy new high-performance PCs, there are significant aftermarket salesopportunities for external recordable DVD drive providers.

"The high-end home PC segment will lead the DVD burner adoption,"Schlichting said. "The DVD burner market will benefit from the home PCrecovery and the need for new features," he added.

"While home video editing and DVD recording show the highestinterest level for DVD recorders, IDC's recently completed end-usersurvey indicates that there is also consumer demand for DVD recordersthat people can use to timeshift and archive TV shows," Schlichtingnoted.

For more information on IDC's report, "2002-2006 Optical/RemovableStorage Report, US DVD-Recording Usage Study and Optical/RemovableMedia Forecast & Analysis," contact Cheryl Toffel, 800-343-4952,extension 2489 or ctoffell@idc.com. For more information on IDC'sresearch, visit http://www.idc.com.

* According to NPDTechworld, a provider of consumer electronics andmarket information, sales of digital camcorders experienced a 9.4%increase compared to the same January, February, March period in 2001.In the first quarter of 2001, 202,000 digital camcorders were sold. Inthe first quarter of this year, sales increased to 215,000 digitalcamcorders.