MovieCDs Trying to Carve New Niche for Viewing Films

On the eve of the DVD--a digital videodisc, expected in the spring, that promises better picture and sound quality than videocassettes and laserdiscs--a company in Phoenix is trying to carve out yet another niche in the market.

This week, Sirius Publishing released its first MovieCDs, compact discs of feature films and other full-length productions. A PC user with a moderately high-powered computer, a soundcard and a double-speed CD-ROM (relatively standard equipment these days) can view these discs without any additional hardware or software. Sirius plans to market its movies for Macs in about six months.

About 50 titles have been released in the format to stores nationwide, including “The Player,” “Dumb and Dumber,” “Seven,” “Menace II Society” and “The Mask,” as well as concert videos from the Grateful Dead and “Saturday Night Live” “Best of” specials. Most range in price from $9.95 to $19.95. Five hundred new titles are targeted for release, starting in April.

Like VHS video recordings, MovieCDs can be fast-forwarded, rewound, shown in slow motion or paused. An additional feature allows a viewer to move to any point in the film. MovieCD images can--but needn’t--fill the screen: The image can be reduced to a quarter of the screen’s size in order to, say, do word processing and watch something simultaneously.

Such multi-tasking, however, can result in choppy movement in the MovieCD picture. Indeed, though MovieCDs are fairly good in terms of smooth image flow, and color as well, the images still look somewhat blocky compared to images on videocassettes.

Also, most films take up two MovieCDs, requiring viewers to change discs partway though.

Market analyst Rob Agee doesn’t believe that MovieCDs are the future of the computer-film industry.

Especially in comparison to DVD, MovieCD is the “lowest common denominator solution for putting video on your CD. I think that some people will appreciate the novelty of it, but eventually I don’t think it’s going to be a barn-burning technology,” says Agee, who works for Cowles/Simba, an independent market research company that recently published a report on DVDs.

He notes, however, that “the one thing the MovieCD has going for it” is the large number of CD-ROM drives already in use.

Michael Weiss, senior vice president of marketing for Sirius, also points out that DVDs require the purchase of outside hardware while his discs require a home computer and little else. “It’s razors and blades,” Weiss says. In the past, “there were not enough razors to support having blades. Here the razors are in place. We’re just providing the blades.”

Although DVD discs most likely will be priced at less than $30, competitively with MovieCDs, the hardware needed to show them will cost between $500 and $1,000.

But Weiss doesn’t see the MovieCD as replacing other technologies. He sees it as complementary. “We think the MovieCD will be used in areas where you don’t have access to television,” such as college dorm rooms, car backseats or plane cabins. “We don’t expect someone to say, ‘I have a VHS of “The Mask” and a MovieCD of “The Mask,” which one do I want to buy?’ That’s not going to happen.”