A Bottleneck in Merging of High-Tech : Technology: The computer and consumer electronics industries approach products such as CDs differently.
It’s almost an article of faith in the electronics world these days that two largely separate industries--computers and consumer electronics--are rapidly becoming one.
Computer vendors are cutting prices and pushing their products through mass-market retailers, while consumer electronics companies are incorporating more computer-like technologies into their products all the time. At the Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago last week, Apple Computer officials previewed a new class of products that they say will erase the boundaries between the industries once and for all.
Yet a look at the very different ways that the industries are pursuing one key technology--the compact disk--illustrates how far apart they remain.
On the consumer electronics side, Nintendo and Sega are pushing compact disk systems specifically designed to play games and priced at $200-$300. But personal computer companies are aiming at an entirely different market, hoping to make compact disks standard equipment on computers selling for $2,000 and up. Meanwhile, the company that developed the CD, Philips N. V., is stuck in the middle with a home entertainment and education system that costs $800 to $1,000.
Philips believes that a common approach to CD technology is on the way. Yet the evidence suggests that for the near term, consumers who want to take full advantage of the technology will have to buy different machines for video games, for computer programs and for the “edutainment” software designed for hybrid machines such as Philips’ Compact Disk Interactive, or CDI system.
Ironically, the proliferation of incompatible approaches to CDs--which can store far more information than traditional computer storage systems--is accelerating just as several long-standing technical hurdles are being overcome. As CDs have become commonplace in the music industry, engineers have been working to develop disks to store computer data as well as video images.
The data part wasn’t too hard, and the computer format known as CD-ROM has been around for years. Video, however, has proven extremely difficult.
Philips broke new ground at the CES trade show by demonstrating a CD that played a full-motion, full-screen video clip of a James Bond movie. The crucial components are special video compression chips developed by a Silicon Valley company called C-Cube Microsystems, and Philips will soon begin selling an optional cartridge that will bring video capabilities to its CDI system. Eventually, Philips may even distribute CD movies, though the disks’ 74-minute capacity could pose some problems.
But video game companies are going their own way in developing CD-based game machines with video capabilities. Sega’s CD system, already on sale in Japan, offers limited video in a portion of the display screen. More sophisticated video applications, such as full-screen, full-motion action, would be too costly and probably unnecessary for game systems, says Douglas Glen, head of multimedia at Sega of America.
“Each machine is designed with certain trade-offs,” he notes. “In gaming, the use of video is over-promised. That’s not why people play games.” He says he’d be happy to use the C-Cube video technology if the chips cost $5 rather than $50. (A chip that sells for $50 will generally add about $200 to the final cost of a system.)
Nintendo, meanwhile, plans to offer full-motion video when it rolls out its CD system next year. Nintendo plans to customize an advanced format standard known as CD-ROM XA for game-playing applications, but the system won’t work with other manufacturers’ equipment.
And that customization is crucial to Nintendo’s goal of bringing out a system that costs just $200. “We don’t have to conform to a standard or have (agreement) from a million organizations,” says Russell Braun, Nintendo’s engineering manager. Nintendo says it hopes to have its product ready in January. But few expect the company to meet that target, and many are skeptical that full video is possible in such a low-cost machine.
In the computer industry, meanwhile, sales of CD-ROM drives have been hampered by lack of agreement over an industry standard. Last year, Microsoft and Tandy led an industry group promoting a standardized “multimedia” PC that would include a CD-ROM drive and advanced sound capabilities and be targeted at the home computer market.
But the so-called MPC effort has been slow to take off. More than a year after the initiative was launched, Tandy has not even begun promoting MPC machines at its Radio Shack stores. Philips, an early supporter of the MPC effort, has pulled out of the American PC business entirely, and companies such as Irvine-based AST Research have not joined the MPC group even though they sell similar machines.
Another major difficulty is that International Business Machines is going its own way in multimedia. IBM’s systems are more sophisticated than required by the MPC standard, and some of them include a video compression technology from Intel Corp. known as DVI. But DVI is incompatible with the Philips/C-Cube video technology. Apple Computer also has its own strategy for the “multimedia” Macintosh, which is incompatible with other PCs.
But the computer multimedia machines do have one thing in common: They cost at least $2,000, and thus are a tough sell for non-business uses.
Despite these problems, there is no doubt that the sale of CD-ROM drives is growing dramatically. By some estimates, some 60,000 CD-ROM drives for PCs are sold every month. Sega and Nintendo, however, hope to be selling millions of CD units per year. For now, though, the consumer electronics industry remains dedicated to inexpensive, high-volume, special-purpose products, while computer makers are selling expensive, high-powered, general-purpose machines. There may be a middle ground, but no one has yet found it.
