Maxell DVD-RAM Media Offers 1-Hour Capacity
By Staff -- TWICE, 9/1/2003
Fair Lawn, N.J. — One of the newest media products from Maxell is the DVD-RAM Camcorder Video Disc. This disc, with an 8 cm diameter, comes in a protective caddie and has a total capacity of one hour of MPEG2 video or 10,000 JPEG stills.
In developing DVD-RAM camcorder discs, at a suggested $19.99 retail, Maxell said it pioneered several manufacturing processes to maximize capacity and reliability. The company also closely considered trends in the trade.
"Retailers are facing a very exciting, yet challenging, fall [and] Christmas selling season in both DVD hardware and in DVD media," said Maxell executive VP Don Patrican. "With DVD, the volume potential is virtually limitless, but the uncertainty retailers face is the timing of the sales explosion.
"As they do their planning, retailers have no year-to-date sell-through history to help guide their purchasing decisions, but they know that consumers have embraced the quality and performance of DVD as evidenced by a 45 percent household penetration of DVD players. We all recognize that recordable DVD products will be the hottest items in the industry."
With the hardware side of DVD becoming easier for consumers to navigate, retailers' purchasing decisions are becoming more complex. "But, as challenging as the decision-making process will be in the coming months," said Patrican, "retailers will be able to choose from a wide variety of hardware. This will be at a wide range of attractive prices that will stimulate already-intrigued consumers to take the next step and buy a DVD recorder or drive."
Patrican said the company is seeing 40 percent to 44 percent of blank DVD media sales are in the +R format, with an equal percentage of sales in the -R format. Both +RW and -RW are accounting for 6 percent to 10 percent each in sales, with RAM format media selling at about a 5 percent rate. "These numbers have been very consistent over time and should hold, at least in the near term," he said.
"The digital migration in the video category from VHS to DVD format will truly have a positive impact on both consumers and retailers in the back half of 2003," said Peter Brinkman, Maxell marketing VP. "There really has been pent-up demand for a digital complement to VHS that we expect will fuel rapid growth in recordable DVD."
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