JVC 1998 Annual Report Download - page 6

4JVC 1998
essential to the efficient recording, playback and transmission of
moving image data.
The ability to provide content is an important prerequisite for
competitiveness in the development of multimedia businesses. In
new business development, represented by digital broadcasting-
related and DVD businesses, effective utilization of JVC’s strong
software business is expected to provide substantial advantages.
To effectively use these competitive advantages, JVC will selec-
tively distribute management resources and create new business
opportunities in the value-added high-growth market of multimedia-
related businesses.
In Consumer Electronics, our New AV lineup of high-value-
added digital products continued to grow steadily. A hit product
worldwide for its high image and sound quality, portability and
connectivity to other digital equipment, the digital camcorder is
expected to grow as a personal image recording device in the
multimedia era. In addition, in the fall of 1997, our New AV lineup
was strengthened with the announcement of the D-VHS standard
in the United States. D-VHS has attracted attention as a new
standard video format for home use in digital broadcasting.
In Professional Electronics, market share of the Digital-S profes-
sional video system, developed on the VHS format, is dramatically
expanding in broadcasting, as exemplified by its use at Fox
Television in the United States and the British Broadcasting
Corporation (BBC) in the United Kingdom. In third-generation
displays, the image light amplifier (ILA) projector system, which
boasts an overwhelming share of the large-screen market, is
rapidly approaching commercialization as a consumer product
with the development of ILA devices featuring smaller sizes and
lower costs. In addition, latent demand is expected to emerge for
the wireless optical local area network (LAN) system, which offers
significant advantages in building flexible networks in offices.
In Components & Devices business, we are expanding our
scope of operations through outside sales of components based
on the technological breakthroughs that made possible such prod-
ucts as the VHS videocassette recorder and digital camcorder. Our
lineup of strategic products was joined by high-precision build-up
multilayer boards, for which robust demand is forecast, as an
indispensable component of small and lightweight digital equip-
ment in the information and telecommunications-related fields.
In Entertainment, JVC is enhancing its ability to provide content
in entertainment, information and education, based on a strategy
that integrates its hardware business, to establish multimedia as a
third business pillar in addition to its core audio and visual soft-
ware businesses.
In the fall of 1998 in the United States, digital HDTV broadcasts
will be initiated in the four large terrestrial networks and in cable
television (CATV), which is installed in approximately 60% of all
households. JVC possesses such strategic products as the Digital-
S system, Moving Picture Image Coding Experts Group (MPEG)