| When Matsushita Electric Industrial (Panasonic) releases its 4.7GB DVD-RAM recordable DVD drive this summer, called the DMR-E10, it will contain the new Content Protection for Recordable Media (CPRM) copy-protection scheme. This will be the first time this scheme has ever been used in a DVD recorder. CPRM allows digital content providers the ability to specify whether content can be copied freely or one time only or not even at all. It works by picking up the signal, detecting the scheme used and scrambling the content if necessary. The CPRM format was developed by the ?4C? group of companies including Matsushita, IBM, Intel and Toshiba in an attempt to ease nervous fears of content providers - most notably Hollywood studios.
Matsushita's DVD-RAM recorder...
The DMR-E10 Matsushita DVD-RAM drive will support three recording modes including XP (10 megabits/second - one hour), SP (5Mb/sec - two hours), and LP (2.5Mb/sec - four hours) although only an MPEG-1 software-based encoder will be bundled with the drive (the MPEG-2 hardware encoder won't be ready till August).
A high-end model of the drive will include playback features including progressive scan and a Dolby Digital 5.1 decoder. It?s expected to hit Japan in late June and the US market this summer with a price tag around $2,300.
The disk used by Matsushita, dubbed the DY-HB47, will be cartridge bound like the previous generation 2.6GB DVD-RAM drive although the price will be lower at about $25 per piece of media. Audio is encoded into Dolby digital two-channel stereo by an in-house developed chip. Matsushita Electric will increase disk production from 6 million disks per month to 14 million disks per month by the end of the year.
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