Pioneer Electronic Corp, Tokyo is to acquire DiscoVision Associates, the remains of the failed optical disk drive applications venture that was established as a joint venture by IBM, MCA Corp and Pioneer. The surviving business, for which Pioneer will pay $200m, licenses the portfolio of 1,400 optical disk patents that were developed by the joint venture before it folded. And pursuing its efforts in the optical disk business, Pioneer has come out with the DE-U5000, the first disk subsystem designed to use both write-once and erasable 5.25 optical disks. Shipments start in December with volume production starting in April 1990. Prices for the DE-U5000S version, which will be marketed to end users, range from $2,860 to $3,410 and there is also an OEM version. And Pioneer has also joined forces with Kokusai Denshin Denwa Co to develop the world’s first erasable video disk recorder capable of recording 30 minutes of video on one side of the disk. The systemm uses an analogue recording technique to increase the capacity, and although quality is lower than for digital recording, this is minimised by improvements to the disk surface. The recorder should be ready in a year or so and will initially cost about $20,000 disks will be around $1,000 apiece. The pair have filed 18 patents on it.
