Corporates
get the picture with DVD
BY JENNIFER FORSHEW
CORPORATE presentations using Powerpoint and a laptop, with a second person hovering in the background to cue a video, could be a thing of the past.
Access to the more sophisticated interactive technology of DVD (digital versatile discs) has moved a step closer for the corporate world.
Sydney based DVDTECH has opened up the DVD market by creating an interactive DVD-Video format on DVD-R.
It is the first company in Australia to offer commercial DVD-R services in a simple cost efficent format for the entertainment and corporate markets.
"Previously, if you were going to do a corporate presentation, you couldn't really use a DVD-ROM or DVD-Video because the entry price would have been $8000 just to make one" DVDTECH managing director Jeff Sunderland said.
As well as its high volume disc-mastering services, DVDTECH can now deliver two hour, broadcast quality interactive video on one-off discs for corporate presentations.
"We can now take corporates' video assets, their data, their slides - literally, all the stuff they like to carry in their briefcases to show off their products - and put all of it on one disc." Mr Sunderland said.
A copy of a one-off disc will cost $250, creating a simple five-minute video with interactive format, $750, and designing and encoding a video, and creating graphics for a complete presentation, $1500.
"It's broadcast quality video and broadcast quality audio plus all the slides you would traditionally use for Power Point, all controlled by the flick of a button." Mr Sunderland said.
The interactive DVD-Video format on DVD-R gave customers in the entertainment and video industries peace of mind because they could now view a one-off example before it went into mass production.
Southern Star Duplitek has now aligned itself with DVDTECH for all DVD authoring allowing it to provide a full turn key DVD production service in Australia.
DVD-R, the record once version of DVD-ROM, is similar in function to CD-R. It holds 3.95Gb, six times the capacity of a CD-R and data is permanently written to the discs.
Standard DVD-Video players and DVD-ROM drives can read the discs.
DVD technology can be described as like squeezing a PC inside a television set.
To the uninitiated a DVD looks much the same as a CD.
DVD's are relatively unknown in the Australian consumer entertainment market but when DVD-Video players were introduced in the United States, in just six months they sold the equivalent of two years worth of VHS video players.
Some of the major studios such as 20th Century Fox and Paramount are beginning to advertise DVD.
About 50 titles are available on DVD in Australia and DVD-Video players are available for around $1000 from retailers such as Harvey Norman.
"From a retail point of view, I would say this Christmas will really be the first time the general public is going to be aware of it." Mr Sunderland said
He predicted DVD-Video players will become commonplace in households within four years.
"So stand by if you have somebody who commands the remote at home - because with DVD it takes on a fifth element." he said.
