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| Tomorrow has Arrived...... Welcome to CALROG.COM! | Feb. '02 Headlines |
DVD+RW vs. DVD-RW & DVD-RAM: Who Will Win? By C. Rogers, 02.02 Most home electronics users have come to know "DVD" as a household term over the past few years. The DVD format has made it possible to port Hollywood films onto storage media the same size as a CD-ROM disc. In fact, the high-density discs have made it possible for film manufacturers to add "bonus" material to a DVD disc, still with extra room to spare. With multi-gigabyte storage made possible with DVD discs, the public has shown growing interest in the DVD format for data backup. As a side note, if a de-facto standard were to become available for DVD recording today, it is highly unlikely that CD-R/RW media would dwindle from the public-eye. The low-cost, and universal appeal of CD-R/RW media will keep this form of storage alive for the next few years. Nonetheless, there are some emerging contenders for DVD storage today. Represented by the DVD Forum, DVD-RW and DVD-RAM are the love children of today's leading DVD consortium. DVD-RW is a disc format which allows sequential read-and-writing on a 4.7 GB per side (effectively a 9.4 GB maximum). The DVD-RW format can write a disc up to 1,000 times. Filling the other half of the DVD Forum's shoes is the DVD-RAM standard. Also allowing up to 4.7 GB per side, this formats virtually "mimmicks" itself as a PC hard disk. Data can be written up to 100,000 times with this technology. As one would guess, DVD-RAM media is the more expensive option of the DVD Forum's offerings. While the DVD Forum has presented some impressive DVD authoring formats, backwards compatibility with CD-R/RW read-and-writing is minimal, if any support made whatsoever. Scoffing at the DVD Forum's lack of respect "for the past", the DVD+RW Alliance has created a solution to suit the needs of today and tomorrow. As its title denotes, the format created by this alliance is named "DVD+RW". The media available for DVD+RW burners will allow up to 4.7 GB maximum storage space. The DVD+RW Alliance will never exceed this storage limitation, in order to maintain compatibility with all present DVD-ROM drives and consumer players. DVD+RW drives can also read and write CD-R/RW discs. Essentially, all data burned today onto a standard CD-R/RW disc will not become obsolete years from now. The DVD+RW format is recognized by a large number of PC/electronics companies-- a few supporters worth mentioning are Sony, Philips, Dell, and Thomson. As time and technology progresses, a DVD authoring standard will rise. Much similar to the VHS/Beta battles famous in the early 1980's, the technology with a widespread and appealing taste to both the industry & the end-user will emerge victorious. Today, most consumers today find DVD+RW, DVD-RW, and DVD-RAM too expensive for taste. While DVD-recorder prices falling, it is still hard to overlook CD-RW drives selling for as little as $100 (and being coupled with 50¢ media to boot). With time and patience however, either the DVD-Forum or the DVD+RW Alliance will be happy to see their format succeed in the marketplace. |
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