The 32nd RWPPI General Meeting was held on August 3rd, at the head office of Pioneer Corporation. As of this month, we welcome "Wealth Fair Investment Ltd. of the Wing Li Group" - the optical disc storage manufacturer in Hong Kong as a new member, to total 68 RWPPI member companies to date.

The meeting started with the speech by Mr. Koki Aizawa, the Representative of RWPPI. For this summer as well, one may expect active life in the DVD market, especially when paying attention to the late sales increases in DVD camcorders. "Please note that recent DVD products have realized recording of high quality images even at low bit rates. Favorable reviews are made on easier operability, and DVD camcorders as a new application to expand as a great product can be felt." With these trends, high expectations in the market can be seen were his comments. Furthermore, even for the DVD camcorder market, he pointed out the fact that the DVD-RW / DVD-R optical storage discs take up a large share of the market, more than ever before to increase expectations for growth.

After the Representative's speech, the report by the RWPPI Secretariat was made regarding discussions held by the sub media and hardware working groups earlier on the same day, on the "Request for continued supply of DVD-RW ver. 1.1 discs." With the progressing developments in the DVD-RW media, the hardware and media manufacturers are shifting their production based on the "Ver1.2" recordable media, where there are still over 4 million DVD recorders shipped worldwide that can only use the "Ver1.1" based DVD-RW recordable discs. Under such kind of circumstances, there are end-users saying that they are "unable to obtain Ver1.1 discs." RWPPI took up this problem and requested to the media manufacturers to continue making Ver1.1 discs, and to have both hardware and media manufacturers to request retail/wholesale stores to continue ordering for these discs in stock to meet the end-users needs from now and the coming future.

Next, the update trend information regarding the European Copyright Levy System on recordable media was reported by Ms. Aoki of Pioneer, followed by the latest progress report of the Round Robin Tests organized by RWPPI and made by the chairman, Mr. Utsumi of Pioneer.
Ms. Aoki of Pioneer	Mr. Utsumi of Pioneer
Ms. Aoki explained about the past year changes in the Levy Rates and trends in all of Europe. Mr. Utsumi focused his Round Robin Test report on the "Test A1 Report" results, with an introduction of the new test subject matters to tackle for this fiscal year as "Stage5." The "Test A1" report was also made in the June General Round Robin Test Meeting, however, efforts were made beyond the scope of the regular Working Groups to acquire satisfying quality checks related to "4x・6x DVD-RW Compatibility Verification." Moreover, the road map of "Stage5" was presented, where "testing is scheduled for completion between Sept. to Oct., and expectations for the result report at our General Meeting early next year" was reported by Mr. Utsumi.

Next, the introduction of new products by the RWPPI member companies was made. Mr. Tamitani of NEC Electronics Corporation was the first to present his introduction of the LSI System for the DVD Recorder. Two devices were developed and released this July, offering advanced solutions for "High Quality" and "Promotional" type DVD Recorders. For High Quality, the "EMMA2RH" has the great merit for High Vision・Analog broadcast recording of 3 programs simultaneously, while the Promotional type "EMMA2R-FE" can reduce the circuit board area and parts numbers to 60% of conventional models by converging the drive and back end functions of the DVD Drives. Mr. Tamitani said that by applying these NEC Electronics original technology completed products, the manufacturers using it would no doubt be able to apply enhancement for their product development.

Mr. Tamitani of NEC Electronics Corporation

In continuation, Mr. Yamada of Sonic Solutions then introduced the new DVD/CD writing application software product with an explanation and demonstration as the first developed product between the collaboration of Roxio and Sonic. The characteristic of the product was the "all-in-one" concept with a full application menu, compatible with Dual Layer DVD-R media, and superior operability in user interface were introduced. Aspiration "to acquire larger share for the domestic writing software market" was mentioned by Mr. Yamada.

Mr. Yamada of Sonic Solutions

In succession, Mr. Takahide Kiuchi, the active Senior Economist of Nomura Securities Financial & Economic Research Center made the special lecture on the topic: "Revaluation of the Chinese Yuan and the Japanese Economy -Personal Consumption following the end of Deflation.-
In Mr. Kiuchi's lecture, he centered his key topic in world economics regarding the "Revaluation of the Chinese Yuan" much discussed nowadays. He explained the economic trends of China and the U.S., and how it closely affects the situation of the Japanese economy's foundation, and labor market forecast with originality.
His forecast was that the Japanese economy is nearing the end of deflation and the time for change where the younger age population will shift to increase consumer spending. Simultaneously, he explained that increase in "Personal Consumption" would trigger business in Japan again, together with insight on the changes of "Sellable Products" with data information. Mr. Kiuchi said that this change in consumption trend will greatly affect the expansion of digital electronics • audio, and provided an analysis of the business activities of each industry-related company on a macro point of view. As the last item on the agenda for the meeting, Mr. Kiuchi's lecture was taken with high interest, and greatly applauded by the attendees, to safely end the meeting.

Mr. Takahide Kiuchi The active Senior Economist of Nomura Securities Financial & Economic Research Center

Reference: Presented by Ongen Publishing Co., Ltd. - Phile-web Editorial Department.
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"Getting off well this summer with DVD camcorders: RWPPI holds its 32nd General Meeting"
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