DVD-RAM Drives Announced by Hitachi and Matsushita

Some of the advantages of DVD-RAM touted at Hitachi's press conference in Tokyo were DVD-RAM's low storage cost per byte, and its stability as a mass-storage medium. For PC-related products, Hitachi predicts that DVD-RAM will eventually replace floppy, ZIP, PD, and MO disks as the preferred storage medium, while DVD-ROM will likewise supplant CD-ROM. For "content" creation, meanwhile, DVD is particularly suited to storing multimedia data, such as large MPEG (video) files and images. Hitachi foresees DVD use becoming especially widespread in the content and PC-related sectors, which could each account for an estimated one-quarter of total DVD sales.

Hitachi expects the home appliance sector to account for another one-quarter of DVD sales, with the remaining quarter being scattered among other DVD applications. Hitachi is targeting a JPY 1 trillion share of the future DVD market, which the company estimates will be worth JPY 5 to JPY 7 trillion within five years.

Matsushita, at its press conference, was more reserved in expressing DVD-RAM's future market potential, stressing its use in business applications. When asked about DVD-RAM use in the home, a Matsushita spokesman suggested that a home-use DVD-RAM recorder will probably not replace VCRs and videotapes because of the large cost difference.

Besides DVD-RAM, both the Matsushita and Hitachi drives can read DVD-ROM (2X), DVD-Video, DVD-R, CD, CD-R, and CD-RW discs. The Matsushita drive can also read CD-ROM (20X), Video-CD, Photo-CD, and PD (650MB) discs, while Hitachi's drives (internal and external versions) can read CD-ROM (8X) and CD-Extra discs.

The Hitachi DVD-RAM drive, which is backward-compatible with current CD formats, utilizes two lasers: one for DVD (a 650-nm beam) and one for CD (a 780-nm beam). Matsushita, on the other hand, was able to produce a slim (8.5-mm) DVD-RAM mechanism for its drive by using just one red laser with a lens switching mechanism. This single-laser, slim drive uses a compressed lateral beam optical prism and a beam shaping prism. An optional integrated unit with a 780-nm beam for reading CD-R signals can also be installed in the drive.

Two notable properties of DVD-RAM technology, as agreed upon by the DVD Forum, are "one beam overwrite technology" and the "wobbled land/groove system."

In the case of CD-RW recording, a laser beam first wipes out the old information and then records the new. With DVD technology, however, erasure and overwriting occur simultaneously. This direct write-over is made possible by varying the power of the laser - using a low-power beam for erasing and a higher power beam for recording.

The "wobbled land/groove system "(see diagram below)," which records information in the concentric grooves and land (the raised areas between grooves) of a disc, makes DVD-RAM a more reliable and high-density mass-storage medium. Each track of the disc is divided into sectors, and address information is embedded in a pit at the start of each sector where it will not deteriorate through repeated overwriting of the land/groove (user data field) area. The "wobbling" (physical wavelike shape) of the land/groove tracks also contains a timing signal for recording and playback, which can be confirmed in real-time. This technology makes possible a simpler and less costly disc inspection process, and enables DVD-RAM to realize a 2.6GB per side capacity.

A single DVD-RAM thus has a capacity about equal to that of today's midrange hard disks, but is also a portable, removable storage medium. One issue for the future is how DVD-RAM will affect the use of hard disk drives: Will removable DVD-RAM be used as a supplemental storage medium, or might they come to replace fixed hard disk drives?

Scheduled for sample shipment in late June and July, Hitachi's internal PC DVD-RAM drives (the GF-1000 with ATOP interface, and the GF-1050 with SCSI interface) will be priced at about JPY 100,000 each. Hitachi's external PC DVD-RAM drive (the GF-1055 with SCSI interface) will be about JPY 120,000. The data transfer rate for these DVD-RAM drives is 1.38MB per second (about twice as fast as DVD-ROM/R), and average access time is 200 milliseconds (about the same as DVD-ROM). This isequivalent to the speed of an 8X CD-ROM drive. The DVD-RAM discs to be produced by Hitachi Maxell are estimated to cost about JPY 10,000 each initially, although the eventual price target is JPY 5,000.

As of press time, Matsushita had not yet set a price for the units that it hopes to market by year-end. When pressed, a Matsushita spokesman estimated that at the outset the drive might be priced between JPY 50,000 and JPY 100,000, while a single-sided DVD-RAM disc, with about four times the capacity of a PD disk, would probably be about four times as expensive. This places both Matsushita's DVD-RAM drive and discs roughly within the same price range as those of Hitachi.

Hitachi, Toshiba Tie Up for High-speed Networking

"By working with Toshiba, Hitachi expects to provide a highly competitive set of networking products to this fast-expanding market," says Masao Kato, general manager of Hitachi's office systems division.

Kaoru Kubo, general manager of Toshiba's computer and network product division, concurs. "We believe our router technology, combined with Hitachi's advanced switch technology, will bring a highly competitive solution to the market."

Hitachi's AN1000 series supports the ATM Forum specifications (P-NNI, UNI4.0, and ABR), and offers a 20-Gbps switching capacity. Toshiba's cell switch router features cut-through packet transfer for flexible network layer switching, using topology- and flow-driven methods.

Toll-free Software Anti-piracy Hotline Opened

The business software alliance (bsa), a nonprofit world- wide organization, has started an "Eliminate Illegal Copy" reward campaign in Japan. As part of this campaign, the BSA has set up a toll-free public hotline to take reports of suspected illegal software use. The BSA is offering a reward of JPY 30,000 to those who provide a lead that results in successful resolution of a software piracy civil claim, and will pay JPY 300,000 to those who will testify in court regarding their knowledge of software piracy.

Through the campaign, the BSA intends to gather information about the violation of software copyrights, including illegal copying, unauthorized sales of software, and illegal installation of programs by dealers and resellers. The BSA says that it may refer its hotline piracy reports to the Association of Copyright for Computer Software (ACCS), a Tokyo-based nonprofit organization, for further investigation and possible criminal prosecution.

The BSA, together with the Software Publishers Association (SPA), recently conducted a survey on global software piracy. According to the survey, the rate of software piracy in Japan in 1996 dropped to 41%, which is a relatively low level in the world. The damage to the country's computer software industry, however, was $1.2 billion (second only to the US worldwide) due to the size of the Japanese market. For comparison, the software piracy ratio of the US for 1996 was 27%, and the damage to the US software industry was $2.4 billion.

The BSA had previously conducted a JPY 10,000 reward campaign in Japan for software copyright protection in 1994. It hopes that the tripled reward of the current campaign will enhance public awareness of the issue in Japan.

BSA worldwide members are Adobe Systems, Apple Computer, Autodesk, Bentley Systems, Lotus Development, Microsoft, Novell, The Santa Cruz Operation, and Symantec. In Japan, Justsystem is an active participant in BSA activities. The toll-free BSA hotline for reporting suspected cases of software piracy is 0120-79-1451.

Japan's FY96 PC Shipments Down

The growth of japan's pc shipments slowed in fiscal 1996 from the remarkable growth witnessed in fiscal 1995. Portable PCs continued to show a steady growth, however, according to a survey conducted by the Japan Electronic Industry Development Association (JEIDA).

Although new products featuring the MMX chip and DVD-ROM functions were introduced late last year, they failed to attract many new buyers, and Japan's PC market in FY1996 remained lackluster. Domestic PC shipments in FY1996 grew by just 26% from the previous fiscal year, when the Windows 95 boom fueled a 70% growth. In FY1996, domestic PC shipments reached 7.19 million units and JPY 1.75 trillion in sales. Portable PCs accounted for over one-third of units shipped (2.55 million), a 52% year-on-year growth.

In FY1996, Japan's PC exports totaled 1.4 million units, valued at JPY 336 billion, up by 21% and 42%, respectively.

According to JEIDA, the corporate segment remains dominant in Japan's PC market, accounting for about 60% of shipments. "We expect that demand in the corporate market will continue to grow, particularly for portable PCs," says a spokesman of JEIDA. "Portable PCs seem to be suitable for Japan's office environment. While the penetration ratio of portable PCs in the world market is about 20%, in Japan it will be much higher."

For fiscal 1997, JEIDA forecasts that Japan's domestic PC shipments will reach 8.8 million units, valued at JPY 2.55 trillion, up by 22% and 17%, respectively. Shipments of portable PCs should reach 3.2 million units, about 37% of the total. JEIDA anticipates that export shipments of PCs will decrease to 1.2 million units, a drop of 18%.

Online Business Info Agreement Reached

In april, fujitsu announced that it has reached an agreement with MAID plc, a UK-based online supplier of business information, to sell and support MAID's Profound information service. Under the agreement, Profound will be distributed via InfoWeb (Fujitsu's Internet service provider) and NIFTY-Serve (Fujitsu's online information service), which have a combined base of over 2.5 million users.

Marketing and servicing of the Profound information service will be handled by G-Search, a Fujitsu subsidiary and the largest database distributor in Japan. Fujitsu, MAID plc, and G-Search will work together to research and develop an information service targeting individual users.

The new service is likely to be a Japanese-language service providing market briefing reports from major Japanese companies, with illustrations and graphics, as well as a customized clipping service for news, company information, and overseas stock portfolios. Profound is a comprehensive, user-friendly online business information resource with over 100,000 reports on industries, companies, and the economy, 20 million news articles, and 4.5 million company financial profiles.

Profound's proprietary indexing and search system, called Infosort, allows multiple sources to be combined and searched simultaneously. Recently, MAID plc signed an agreement with AltaVista Internet Software to integrate its InfoSort data engine with the AltaVista Search technology.

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