NLE meets DVD. (viewpoint DV).(Industry Overview)

If you're not already creating interactive DVDs, the chances are good that you soon will be. According to a recent report from Jon Peddie Research, the market for DVD technology is exploding. The study speculates that in 2006, the total market for all types of DVD systems (players, recorders, set tops, PCs, and the like) will exceed 420 million units, representing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 31 percent. For DVD recorders alone, that growth rate will be an astonishing 271 percent. Furthermore, the media production for DVDs will exceed 1.6 billion discs in 2006, a CAGR of 159 percent. "DVD has enjoyed the most rapid rise of any consumer electronics technology ever introduced," the report concludes.

With numbers like that, it's easy to understand why desktop nonlinear editing (NLE) system vendors Adobe Systems and Pinnacle are eager to get into the DVD business. Whether driven by a desire to create corporate marketing and training titles, demo reels, independent films, or advertising campaigns, video and content creation professionals of all stripes are going to be looking to add DVD authoring to their skill sets.

In fact, Adobe's own research indicates that more than 50 percent of Premiere customers expect to buy a DVD recorder this year. The company further estimates that the DVD authoring market will grow by a CAGR of 391 percent.

Until now, the DVD authoring market has largely been dominated by Sonic Solutions, which offers a full range of DVD authoring tools--from its high-end Scenarist product, which is used heavily by the Hollywood film community, to its consumer-level MyDVD program, which is bundled with many of today's third-party DVD burners. In the middle of its product range sit ReelDVD and DVD Producer, two authoring programs that have proved to be popular with desktop video and computer graphics professionals.

At NAB 2003 in April, both Adobe and Pinnacle made it clear they wanted a piece of the DVD authoring action with the announcement of tool sets that would be tightly integrated with their video editing software. Interestingly, while both Adobe and Pinnacle are clearly of one mind in terms of seeing a market need for an integrated NLE/DVD product, they've adopted different approaches for meeting that need.

Adobe's Approach

Adobe's entry into the market comes in the form of Encore DVD, a stand-alone application that is integrated with the Adobe product line. According to product manager Giles Baker, such an integrated product is an important addition to the market because of the close relationship that already exists between the authoring process and the content creation process.