Subject: FWD: info430_2.html
From: [email-masked] (Steve Bowie)
To: Multiple recipients of list <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 17 Dec 1995 20:40:23 -0500

This forward is of interest to anyone involved in video/animation, I think.
Further, the good news is that MicroSoft will be finally able to release that
15 gig word processor for the Pentium Mega Pro running Windows 99 ;)

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Good sense breaks out in digital revolution
  __________________________________________________________________________

      (c) 1995 Copyright Nando.net
      (c) 1995 Scripps Howard

   (Dec 16, 1995 - 00:00 EST) -- In Tokyo and Osaka, the most powerful
   names in the computing and entertainment industries are putting the
   final touches to a digital revolution.

   It will come on what looks like an ordinary compact disc but is in
   fact capable of storing four hours of broadcast-quality movie. It will
   turn your computer into a video recorder or your television into a
   powerful multimedia computer.

   Unusually, the industry is in harmony about the shape of the disc and
   the way it will encode digital bits.

   Its begetters hope to publish a technical standard for the technology
   -- high-density CD -- before Christmas 1996. If all goes well, the
   disc will be on the market late next year.

   Agreement on the format represents an unusual outbreak of good sense
   in an industry famous for bombarding consumers with gizmos incapable
   of talking to each other. Jonathan Baldachin, head of studio and
   technical resources at multimedia company First Information Group,
   says, "They have learned the lessons of VHS and Betamax."

   The high-definition CD agreement is particularly significant because
   it embraces the separate worlds of video and computing. Both are
   plagued with discs of different physical sizes which encode
   information in different ways.

   While the hi-fi industry, led by Philips and Sony, agreed on a common
   format for audio CDs, computer firms rushed ahead with competing rules
   for theirs.

   Nick Thomas, of Philips, says, "The CD-Rom is a bastard in the true
   sense of the word."

   High-density CD almost went the same way. The idea was first proposed
   by Philips. Then a consortium of Toshiba and Time/Warner backed a
   rival format. They wanted a disc which could contain a Hollywood
   movie. The industry braced itself for a clash of discs on the scale of
   the war between the rival video formats, VHS and Betamax.

   But then, over the summer, the camps agreed to standardize. They
   settled on an 8-centimeter disc containing up to 18 gigabytes
   (thousand million bytes) of data.

   Today's CDs contain 650 megabytes. At a pinch they can carry about an
   hour of sound and vision, but it's a painful pinch: picture quality is
   poor. High-density discs using the same compression would carry upward
   of 27 hours of material.

   In practice, the extra capacity of high-density discs will be used to
   carry at most about four hours of broadcast-quality sound and vision.

   High-density CD will squeeze two layers of tracks of digital bits on
   to each side of a disc. The upper layer will run from the center of
   the disc to the rim, like audio CDs; the second layer from the rim to
   the center, as it does on a vinyl LP. Switching between the two is
   just a matter of refocusing the laser. Consumers will have a choice of
   disc capacity, ranging from single-sided with two layers to
   double-sided.

   The manufacturers have also agreed on upward compatibility: the new
   drives will be able to read today's CD-Roms and audio discs.
   Recordable high-density discs will appear from 1997, although at first
   the price will probably be formidable.

   Despite the fact that the impetus comes from the movie industry, the
   new discs will first appear in PCs, Thomas says. Look out for new
   generations of interactive 3D games and video encyclopedias. Software
   firms are already pushing at the boundaries of what will fit on a CD.

   By the end of 1996, four out of five PCs sold will have CD-Rom drives.
   Software is increasingly distributed on CD.

   Baldachin says high-density CD will be fast enough to compete with
   online services such as video on demand. "It will extend the life of
   CD for audio-visual entertainment beyond the end of the century." He
   is also looking forward to much more exciting video and graphics.

   Further in the future, if and when the price comes down, CD recorders
   will replace the VCR and hi-fi, leading to the long-awaited merger
   between computer and home entertainment equipment.

   The consumer electronics industry is keen to replace VHS tape as a
   medium for distributing video. Video tapes are bulky, deteriorate
   physically, and do not allow interaction.

   Putting video on digital disc also opens the way for new gimmicks such
   as multilingual subtitles as a take-it-or-leave-it extra.

   More cynically, the consumer electronics business is anxious to find a
   new "killer" gizmo. Most people who want a hi-fi or a VCR have one by
   now.

   Thomas says no one today can predict the eventual outcome. "It's like
   asking someone watching the Wright brothers to predict the jumbo jet."

   The future beyond CD is already predictable: data will be stored on
   capacious silicon chips. But even the famously optimistic Japanese
   electronics giants say such chips are at least five years away. The
   CD, once dismissed as an icon of the 1980s, should still be around in
   2010.

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