They have been taunting the average consumer for a time now. Such a lot of space! Such quality of reproduction! But, alas, such a price, too!
Rewriteable DVD drives will still burn a bigger hole in your pocket than CD-RW devices. However, they are not prohibitively expensive any more.
DVD drives do have a lot going for them. There are more and more DVD software titles. A single DVD disc can store upwards of 4GB of data, which compares extremely favourably with CD`s 700MB. It can be argued that DVD makes the most convincing use of all that power sitting on desktops everywhere, at home and at the office.
On the down side, DVD discs and drives are not yet standardized. That means that you may record a disc on a friend`s DVD burner, only to find out that your player will not read it.
With some manufacturers going DVD-R/RW way and some the DVD+R/RW way, the stage seemed set for utter confusion.
Fortunately, this is less of a problem today than it used to be several months ago. The makers have obviously thought things through and came up with DVD drives that support both DVD-R/RW and DVD+R/RW. Pioneer does it, Sony does it, and so do many others.
Single-format drives will probably be available for half a year more, and are usually cheaper than multi-format ones.
Discs burned on any of the three recognized DVD formats can be read on most DVD-ROM drives and stand-alone DVD players. The notable exception is DVD-RAM, which is not as interchangeable as the DVD-R/RW and DVD+R/RW formats.
DVD-RAM is the oldest rewritable DVD format. DVD-RAM discs are usually available in 4.7GB or 9GB. Large capacity and longevity (it can withstand more than 100 000 re-writes) make this format an excellent choice for frequent data backups. However, few DVD-ROM drives and DVD players can read DVD-RAM media.
DVD-R/RW format is compatible with most existing drives, though much depends on the manufacturer. DVD-RW discs can be re-written 1 000 times. At 2X, drives of this format are slower than DVD+RW ones.
As befits the newest entrant, DVD+RW drives are faster than DVD-RW. They also let you format a new disc while data is being burned, which is great for saving time.
Frontier Electronics offers Pioneer and Sony multiple formats DVD drives, as well as a range of DVD media.
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