DVD catches on in NZ

By GRAHAM REID

Want to be buoyed up by infectious business confidence? Then talk to anyone involved in the New Zealand bull market of DVD hardware and software, in other words, people selling you the player or the discs you shove inside it.

Three years ago, when this entertainment system was in its infancy, there were fewer than 4000 players in the country. By the start of this year that figure had ballooned to around 50,000. In the year to date almost 20,000 more have been plugged in.

By year's end around 100,000 homes will have a DVD player and some distributors can't keep up with demand. And that figure doesn't include people who've bought computers or PlayStation 2 units which also come with players.

Why have we grabbed at this technology, and why so much faster than we did with CD players?

Last answer first: CD players were initially expensive and too many retailers saw them as an opportunity to sell you a whole new stereo system, although people could have plugged a CD player into their stereos and there was no need to replace the whole shooting works. So we took to CDs cautiously.

We were also feeling burned by the rapid changes in technologies and recalled the VHS v Beta wars, where one video delivery system competed with another. There was also the redundancy of eight-track cartridges - and whatever happened to the mini-disc?

People were wary of investing in a new system when others had proven so quickly surpassed.

But long experience now with CDs has softened us up. The DVD player is so similar to a CD player it doesn't threaten technophobes. DVDs also look like CDs and indeed your hardware - which functions like your CD player - will helpfully play your Phil Collins' discs. In that, DVD players are "backwards compatible", in case you're interested in jargon.

The players are also relatively cheap and entry-point inducements are being struck. One company is offering a player and "10 flicks for nix" for $799.

That's a player, five free movies and video store vouchers for free hire of five more. They can't keep up with the demand. And demand for players and discs is growing rapidly.

Take music DVDs, for example. Sony Music say this time last year they would have brought in no more than 100 copies of the new Pearl Jam DVD. They've just brought in 1000, and they are rocketing out.

Warner Music NZ this week had only four new CDs on its release schedule (one being an Eagles best of package), but six DVDs (which included live concerts by Paul McCartney, Ziggy Marley and Willie Nelson). The company expects steady increases in DVD releases and some months will be selling more DVDs than CDs.

Record shops are replacing VHS display space with DVDs (which are smaller and less clumsy) and Video Ezy stores have doubled, and in many cases tripled, their DVD market in the past year.

Discs are cheap in comparison with CDs. Many sell around the $40 mark and already some shops stock secondhand discs at around $20. As with CDs, the DVD is pretty hard to damage so a preloved disc is likely to be of good quality.

The quality of visual image and sound on DVD is the chief selling point. The most common analogy between videotape and DVD is the difference between cassette tape (all but defunct as a music medium) with CD. Which is no comparison at all.

There are also all the added features many DVDs offer. Once you've watched Gladiator you can skip to extra footage, something about its special effects, interviews, and a documentary about gladiators in Ancient Rome. It's like getting something for nothing.

Crucially, most DVD players now are multizone players. Where previously players made for New Zealand (zone four) wouldn't play a disc made for the United States (zone one), now all but a few have been modified before point-of-sale and are multizone.

Dividing the world into separate zones was the result of early collusion between the hardware developers and movie studio bosses who didn't want DVD films on the market at the same time as the movie was still running in theatres. But what has happened is a faster turn-around of film on to DVD as studio bosses have recognised the lucrative and growing home entertainment market.

So, want to see a smiling face? Walk into a store which sells plug-in stuff and ask about a DVD player. If they don't smile it might only be because they're out of stock, or run off their feet.