DVD recorders are beginning to drive the market for non-PC DVD hardware, a trend that keeps the overall global DVD hardware market on the rise. The DVD recorder market (not including units connected to PCs) doubled in size in 2004 and will grow by 87% in 2005, according to Research and Markets. In 2004, Japanese DVD player shipments declined, while DVD recorder sales grew by over 100%.

The report, "DVD Players, Recorders, and the Next Generation," provides forecasts for unit shipments, average selling prices, and revenues by region for DVD playback and recording devices that connect to TV sets, not PCs. It includes a look at emerging DVD player features, DVD recorder combinations, and new DVD technologies including those from silicon providers like Ali, Cirrus Logic, ESS Technology, LSI Logic, MediaTek, NEC, Philips, Sigma Designs, STMicroelectronics, Sunplus, and Zoran.

The report contains 5-year forecasts for worldwide DVD players by region, DVD recorders by region, DVD players by type, DVD recorders with hard drives, DVD recorders with DTV tuners, next-generation DVD players and recorders, DVD player bill of materials (BOMs), and DVD recorder BOMs. Data from a Web survey regarding U.S. consumers' interest in DVD recorders is also presented.

Findings from the report include the following:
• Worldwide DVD recorder unit shipments will grow from 9.4 million in 2004 to 67.7 million in 2009.
• Digital TV tuners will be added to DVD recorders in increasing numbers in Japan, Europe, and North America. The FCC DTV tuner mandate will require a DTV tuner in each DVD recorder shipped in the U.S. after July 1, 2007.
• Three manufacturers are shipping next-generation Blu-ray recorders in Japan, while the first HD-DVD players will be available in the second half of 2005 along with about 90 movie titles. In-Stat expects shipments of next-generation blue laser recorders and players will reach 4 million in 2008, not including video game consoles.

The frame-difference analysis features of MPressionist Pro HD make possible a reliable and scientific approach to DVD picture quality, according to Digigami. In addition to "per-pixel difference/delta" analysis, the comparative features of version 3 also include side-by-side split monitor analysis for comparing the actual moving picture.

Not only can users compare the source material with a compressed version, they can also bring up two different compressed movies and perform a subjective left/right comparison by watching the versions in sync. Such a feature is useful for determining if compressing a movie with a reduced bitrate has significantly impacted picture quality.

Users can also compare movies compressed with different codecs (such as HD-DVD H.264 and MPEG-2). Again, for DVD authoring professionals attempting to make informed production decisions (for instance, whether to replicate DVD-5 or a dual-layer format), the new tools in MPressionist provide feedback to help them make good decisions.

MPressionist Pro HD can help users meet the expectations of consumers whose notion of quality has been shaped by Hollywood feature films, many of which make low demands (24fps) on the DVD compression standard. By comparision, 30fps interlaced camcorder footage is much more difficult to shoehorn into the DVD specification. This key technical point alone provides a production challenge to independent producers. By integrating MPressionist into your production planning, the independent is granted the edge afforded by multi-pass interactive MPEG encoding, which the major studios have been using since the inception of the DVD as a consumer format.