InfoTech Forecasts DVD Video Recorders in 25 Million Households by 2005
Rewritable DVD home video recorders are projected by InfoTech to more than double annually over the next five years from a modest 134,000 households in 2000 to more than 25 million in 2005. The dominant application for stimulating global market demand with rewritable DVD based systems will be video timeshifting from digital broadcast channels. InfoTech expects secondary applications to emerge for the assembly and playback of personal content captured from digital cameras and camcorders and broadband streaming video and webcasting from Internet channels.
When the products are released in time for the Christmas season, they will be embraced by videophiles eager to record digital video programming on the same system that supports playback of prerecorded theater-quality DVD-Videos. Competition between a wide variety of consumer electronics and media manufacturers is anticipated to drive down worldwide ASPs below $500 well before 2005. Consumer demand stimulated by digital video capture is expected to create sufficient market momentum for a DVD home video recorder to replace the VCR as well as exceed sales of playback-only and fixed disk alternatives over the next eight years.
The InfoTech Forecast for DVD home video recorders includes all versions of rewritable DVD in TV Set-top (non-PC) devices, the majority of which are expected to use single-sided 4.7 GB bare media. The format is expected to achieve 19% penetration of TV households worldwide at the peak of its product life cycle. To put this into context, The InfoTech Forecast predicts that penetration by all VCR formats will peak this year at 41% of TV households. DVD-Video as a playback device will reach its height at 7% of TV households in 2008. The company’s recently published report suggests a next generation DVD format which would take the home video recorder to a new high of more than 50% penetration of households.
InfoTech principal analyst Julie Schwerin observed, “As broadband network connections, smart processors, and high resolution capture and display devices in home entertainment systems begin to achieve significant household penetration, DVD-RAM as the high capacity, removable storehouse consummates the transition to digital home video. The full potential of DVD-RAM in home entertainment systems will be realized when evolution in digital I/O, content security and payment, and scalable compression technologies permits a true cross-platform medium for assembling video, music, and other content from any source for delivery to any smart device.”