The history of home entertainment formats is littered with products that promised much but were never given the chance to deliver: remember the Betamax video player in the 1980s and the laser disc in the last decade.
Some were squeezed out by more user-friendly competition; others were simply rejected by consumers tired of abandoning the equipment they had already invested in for the latest gadget.
Computer manufacturers call it "upgrade fatigue". Consumers are so content with the hardware they have, they ignore new product launches and remain unconvinced that the "next best thing" offering faster processing times, more storage space, better picture quality and improved sound all in a sleeker, more sophisticated unit will actually make a significant difference to their working lives or leisure time.
But one success story in recent years has been DVD (digital versatile disc). Despite initial sluggish sales, it is now considered to be the most successful format launch in consumer electronics history. Retailers estimate that four times the number of DVD players were sold last year than in 2000 and expect a further 250 per cent growth this year.
Even if you still use Windows 98, a brick-sized mobile phone and the cassette deck of your hi-fi on a regular basis, chances are you will be familiar with the types of "special features" added to DVD movie releases. You may even have noticed DVDs steadily taking over more and more of the shelf space set aside for VHS cassettes at your local rental store.
Although it is now possible to buy DVD music singles, and some music artists like Super Furry Animals and Björk have released enhanced DVD audio albums, the market for DVD has been driven by Hollywood films and box-sets of cult American television programmes. Currently, the most requested DVD pre-order on HMV's website is a widescreen version of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. The second most popular pre-order is a full-screen version of the same film.
According to Mr John Barker, a DVD market analyst who chaired a DVD summit in Dublin last month, the good news is that "the silver spinning disc" enjoyed triple-digit growth in 2001. The bad news is that the success of DVD has so far failed to spread beyond the Hollywood moguls. "The DVD success story is yet to be written in games, education and business. All that is about to change."
One company working to improve acceptance of the format among business professionals is DV4. Not only armchair film fans should be able to jump instantly to different parts of a DVD video, call up subtitles or explore different language versions, the company says. Executives should be able to use those features to present their company to potential clients and investors.
"The CEO of a company addressing shareholders or whoever may have to cope with their Powerpoint presentation crashing or their laptop going into sleep mode," says Mr Liam Ward, DV4 managing director. "With DVD, there is a full-screen, broadcast-quality video that doesn't crash."
It's not the cost of production that is putting the corporate communications world off the format, Mr Ward maintains.
"DVD has come down a lot in price. What we find is that people are paying production companies huge amounts of money to shoot corporate videos on high-quality Beta SP or Digi-Beta formats, but then they're just getting VHS copies back," he says.
DV4 works with television companies such as TG4 and Sky to develop interactive digital television applications - "the part that happens when you press the red button on your remote control" - as well as working with e-learning companies who offer training videos in DVD format.
Unlike other audio formats like MP3, DVD does not necessarily require a PC or "anything that involves hooking up fiddly things to the back of your computer", says Mr Ward, so you don't have to be computer literate.
"DVD can be very convenient for training people who don't use computers all the time in their day-to-day work," he explains. "People are still more comfortable with a television screen and a remote control than they are with a mouse and a computer."
Ms Aileen Corkery, visual arts curator for Temple Bar Properties, uses a DVD player and DVD videos for artists' exhibitions in Meeting House Square in Dublin. "It is less expensive to buy a good DVD player than it is to rent a Beta SP player - they are just too archaic and cumbersome. You can transfer an artist's film to a DVD and still have final edit quality," she says.
This year, the number of home theatre DVD players on the market with five-speaker, surround-sound systems is tipped to be the main growth area, with sales expected to double.
Most people in the consumer electronics industry believe that, despite its breakthrough success, DVD will only fully replace VHS as the standard format for home video when it is both recordable and affordable. However, as recordable DVD retails at just under €2,000 - about 10 times more expensive than a standard DVD player - the desire to upgrade may not yet be strong enough for most consumers.
Meanwhile, as most manufacturers are working to integrate or converge entertainment and information functions into one device, the first DVD players with the ability to connect to the Web were showcased at the Comdex 2001 technology trade show in Las Vegas last November.
But both the ability to record and to download DVDs from the Web could hurt the catalogue sales of DVD videos and albums as well as the rentals market, increasing demand for sophisticated anti-piracy technology to protect copyright held by studios and record companies.
