Since the time Sony's market leading Walkman cassette player was taken over with CD and later MP3 players, they have failed to lead the market no matter what they offered when it came to portable digital music. Well, at least Sony should be happy that they currently lead the US camcorder market with 50% market share.
Since the introduction of the DVD camcorder where consumers can play these discs in a standard DVD player without conversion, soaring sales of DVD camcorders has made it the fastest growing camcorder format ever, bringing the DVD camcorder market to a 22% market share or double that of this time last year. Sony also leads the DVD camcorder market with a 85% market share.
|
According to the latest market research from NPD Intellect, the DVD format now accounts for 22 percent of the camcorder market, double a year ago. And Sony DVD Handycam® camcorders represent a whopping 85 percent of this unit total here in the U.S. Sony also leads the total U.S. camcorder industry with nearly 50 percent market share for all camcorder sales. "People have responded to how easy it is to record and share memories on DVD," said Linda Vuolo, director for camcorders at Sony Electronics. "By offering well-designed and feature-rich Handycam models, we've taken the lead in the sales of DVD camcorders and have helped to create a whole new market." "IDC believes that over the next five years, more than two-billion gigabytes of family stories and funny moments will be recorded, shared and stored on DVD, all thanks to innovative and easy to use products like Sony DVD Handycam camcorders," said Chris Chute, IDC's camcorder analyst. Starting at about $600, the DVD Handycam camcorder line includes five models, delivering such features as Dolby® Digital 5.1 channel surround recording, DVD+RW/-RW/-R compatibility, and touch-panel displays. |
While DVD camcorders may make it just as straight forward to make live motion video recordings as it is to archive them, these camcorders do have several drawbacks over DV tape: DV captures a much higher quality than with DVD for the same play mode, particularly when filming a fast motion source. At present, DVD camcorders cost a lot more than DV camcorders for similar features. For this price, one could easily purchase a higher spec DV camcorder and a standalone DVD recorder together for the similar price, not to mention gaining the advantage of being able to use higher capacity cheaper 12cm recordable DVDs at a small cost of time transferring the recordings.
Source: Sony - News & Information
