Just over the Horizon

        A glimpse into the future by Richard Hewison

You never know where you are with a PC. Just when you thought
you've bought a top of the range model, you learn of the next
stage in the development of the PC range.

There are a number of advances just around the corner. To begin
with, forget the arguments about whether IDE or SCSI architecture
is best. The new kid on the block is FireWire. This 'universal
connection standard' will be used with printers, modems and disk
drives as well as digital video (cameras and recorders). It will
deliver data throughput of 50Mb/Sec, although it already has stiff
competition from the promised SCSI 3 standard (80Mb/Sec).

Don't think your shiny new ten or twelve speed CD-ROM drive is
future proof, because it isn't. Technology has done about all it
can with the conventional CD-ROM drives and CDs. DVD is the
future, not only for CD-ROM but also for the Laserdisc industry.
DVD is an acronym for Digital Versatile Disc (although it started
life as Digital Video Disc). Toshiba have already advertised the
first DVD-ROM internal drive for the PC market, and the first DVD
players are now on sale in Japan from Panasonic.

So what is DVD? Well, a DVD-5 disc will look like a standard CD on
the surface (no pun intended) - 120mm in diameter and 1.2mm thick.
However, this is where the similarity ends. The pits that scatter
the laser beam are much smaller on a DVD-5 disc than on a standard
CD. The laser beam therefore has to be more tightly focused than
before - at a shorter wavelength of 650 and 635 nanometers. The
result is an impressive 4.7Gb of storage on one DVD-5 disc.
However, DVD-5 is just phase one of the development. DVD-9 will be
an 8.5Gb single-sided dual layered disc. DVD-10 will offer 9.4Gb
on a dual-sided single layered disc, whilst DVD-18 will have a
massive 17Gb storage capacity thanks to its dual-sided, dual
layered disc.

Using MPEG2 compression, the introductory DVD-5 format can store
133 minutes of near Laserdisc quality video. This will be played
back at 3.5Mbits/sec, with a Stereo Surround Sound soundtrack,
although the format used for the European DVD movies will be
different from the AC3 system in the US. Europe will get 'Musicam'
- a sound format which is also to be used in Digital TV
transmissions from terrestrial and satellite TV channels in the
future. This will deliver five separate channels for left, centre,
right, left-rear and right-rear, along with a sub-woofer channel.
Up to eight different sound track languages are also possible,
along with 32 different sets of sub-titles. The only technical
details yet to be agreed are related to regional coding and copy
control. The major movie studios don't want US DVD movies to work
on UK DVD players for obvious reasons - quite often the delay
between a movie's release in the US and in the UK means that it
can be released on LD in the US at the same time it's still
playing in UK cinemas!

The holy grail for sometime has been to fit LD or near LD quality
movies on a standard sized CD. Interim formats like VideoCD and
CD-I have managed to fit films onto two CDs using the original
MPEG compression, but the quality has never been anywhere near LD
(and isn't that good compared to standard VHS tapes either). For
PC users, it's debatable what difference this will make to
software. At first, it will mean games that now come on seven CDs
(like Sierra's "Phantasmagoria") will be released on just one
DVD-ROM disc. As with the debut of standard CD-ROMs, the new
format will be used for 'shovelware' for the first year or two
until publishers work out how to get the best out of the medium.

DVD-ROM drives will be backwardly compatible with today's audio
CDs and CD-ROMs (CD-DA, CD-ROM) as well as other formats like XA,
CD-I, and CD-Plus, so you won't have to junk your collection of
CDs just yet. However, the 640Mb storage on a CD will soon feel
titchy compared to DVD-5! DVD is also to spawn a sub-format known
as DVD-RAM, giving a PC a re-usable optical disk much like a
floppy, but with a capacity of 2.6Gb!

It'll be interesting to see what the console manufacturers do with
DVD - Sony have been involved with the development of the format
for a few years, so it won't be much of a surprise if they build
DVD into the successor to the PlayStation console. With Gbs to
play with on one disc, and an increase in internal RAM unavoidable
- who knows what these machines will be capable of in the future?

On the processor front, the Intel MMX chip is (allegedly) the next
big thing.  This has been designed with multi-media firmly in
mind. Whether they have designed it to work hand in hand with
MPEG2 and DVD is unknown. It wouldn't surprise me if they haven't!
Programmers are currently waiting to attend MMX training sessions
with Intel. Finally the PC market looks likely to shed the
backwardly compatible road which has seen the PC become the
dominant beast that it is. In comparison, the Apple Macintosh
range have never even pretended to be backwardly compatible with
earlier models or even upgradable. This may also happen to the PC
market sooner than you think.

So there you have it. In a few years time we will probably begin
to see PCs advertised as MMX, FireWire and DVD-ROM ready. How
much the 'early adopters' will have to pay for this ground
breaking technology is anyone's guess. I still shudder when I
think how I paid over œ400 for a double-speed CD-ROM drive just
three years ago when you can now buy a ten speed for just œ75 plus
VAT!! The good money is on a price of œ300 or above for a DVD-5
compatible DVD-ROM drive. Personally, I think I'll wait until PAL
DVD movies are available before making any decisions. Industry
insiders reckon movies will cost around œ16 when they hit the
market. If software companies can still get away with charging
œ45+ for CD-ROM games now, who knows how much they might charge
for DVD games? We'll know fairly soon - Tsunami have announced
that "Silent Steel" will be out on DVD-ROM next year...










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