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Combined DVD Burners Coming Soon
MonMotha writes "Sony recently announced plans to make a DVD burner capable of supporting both the - (DVD-R and DVD-RW) as well as the + (DVD+RW and DVD+R) standards for burnable DVD media. This move could spur the adoption of DVD burners, which have been poor sellers so far, partly due to the lack of a single standard for writable and rewritable media. The drive will not support the older DVD-RAM due to it's plastic casing."
You know, this really *isn't* good for DVD recording ....
....
:)
I can't wait for the day we standardize. Don't really care which wins the "war", but it needs to be one or the other.
Nobody is going to look at the label on a 50-pack in the store to see if it's a DVD-R or DVD+R. DVD recording won't take off till Bill the Accountant can walk into CompUSA and ask for a pack of DVD discs to put his stuff on without having to worry about brands and standards and all that jazz....
We just need to pick one and let the other one die off
Of course, I'd +prefer+ it to be DVD-R, just 'cuz my Apple SuperDrive^W^WPioneer DVR-A03 is a DVD-R.
I used to work retail, and I can tell you the number one reason why these things aren't being readily adopted: piracy, or rather lack thereof.
/.ers just said, "yeah" and Joe User spaced out when I mentioned DeCSS. On top of that, creating a DVD of home videos is difficult for Joe unless he's running an Apple, but he heard those suck 'cause they can't run windows. (Note to Apple fans: I said for Joe User, not for real people. I own two apples, and I love 'em).
I'm serious. I've owned three different CD Burners going back to the days when they started to become remotely affordable (as DVD burners are now). When I first got them, truth be told, it was for the purpose of creating mix CDs (completely legal) and burning MP3s found from the various FTP sites (this was around the time when Napster was just barely registering on geek radar, much less the public's eye). My current unit hasn't ever written a single CD with music on it (at least not for the purpose of playing in a CD player... I've probably archived an mp3 at some point). I use it heavily for backing up data, particularly TV shows that I time shift and digital photos.
But this isn't what the average Joe user uses it for. I know, I talk to them every day. They want it for music, almost exclusively for music. In fact, a lot of Joe Users aren't aware that CD burners can be used for anything else (seriously).
From Joe User's perspective, copying a CD is easy. Converting and burning an MP3 is easy. It's all done with fun, easy wizards. Drag and drop songs until the wizard says the CD is "full". Press start.
doing the same with DVDs isn't easy. First, I have to contend with running DeCSS and ripping the video off of the DVD. Assuming the source is a single layer, single side DVD, all I have to do is write and go. Assuming it isn't, now I have to split the source file into two different DVDs or recompress into a tighter space. See, all the
DVD Burners do have many great uses, just as CD Burners do, even to Joe. But for him, the gateway use is copying movies, just as his gateway use on the CD burner was copying CDs. Would he discover cool uses for his DVD burner just as he did his CD Burner? Sure. But right now it's too difficult for him to use it for what he perceives to be it's primary purpose.
According to news out this week, Sony has been quietly building CD-RW burners with anti-copying technology built in. Sony is also leading the push on drm legislation which will take away your fair use rights to backup that CD/DVD for protection from scratches, aging, and many other purposes, which are legal under fair use law.
It's up to you to decide whether you will support a company that is trying as hard as possible to prevent you from transfering music from your CD to your Rio or your car, or for backup purposes, etc.
It's up to you to decide whether Sony is acting in your best interest, or their own selfish interests by setting up a tollbooth on the digital highway that is becoming harder and harder to avoid.
How many of you knew that Sony was building anti-copying technology into their CD-RW burners that they are currently selling? I certainly didn't know, but since I refuse to purchase any Sony products due to their stance on "digital rights management", I am somewhat protected. By avoiding the companies that are pushing hard on drm, I am mitigating some of the damage they are doing to my ability to backup my property.
btw, have you unchecked the drm box in wmp before burning that CD? If not, you burned drm anti-copying abilities into your CDs.
See NYFairUse for more info.
Its suprising to see that some people fail to see the larger picture which DVD-R brings. Walk into any Blockbuster/VideoEzy/Video library, rent a movie overnight, stick it into your PC and start ripping and recompressing, and burn the movie onto your DVD-R. Total cost for movie ownership - $5 for rental and $5 for blank DVD-R. This will get cheaper, since blank media prices will fall. Most video libraries also offer a rent 5 movies for $10 deal, so you can get 5 movies for $35, or $7 each at current prices. Of course, you have to factor in burner and PC ammortisation and electricity, but you get the general idea. When blank disks cost $2 each, you're looking at $4 for pirated movie disks. Great value in any book, when you take into consideration that most movies cost $20 or so. You miss out on the menus and extra features, but you can always burn them onto another disk. The best thing is that you dont get to see the FBI style warnings before every disk (telling you how wrong it is to do what you've just done).
The best part about this situation is that free software already exists which can rip a DVD and compress it to fit on a 4.38Gb (4.7G) disk at the push of a button. Just hit start, flip disks 2 hours later, and hit burn. If you have a second DVD-ROM, you dont even have to hit burn - insert the two disks (original and blank), and just hit Start.
Of course, the MPAA will catch onto this soon, but its too late to introduce new counter measures. The cat is out of the bag.
Revolution = Evolution
In comparison I have seen CD-RW drives for $80 and media for under $1 a disk. The price differential is simply not justified by a mere ten-fold increase in capacity. It is pretty obvious that the price of the drives will be slashed to reasonable levels before they catch on on a scale large enough to make the media affordable.
The big problem is that there is absolutely no backup media on the market that is as cost effective as an IDE hard disk drive! An IDE drive with a capacity of 120Gb can be bought for just over $1 per GB and requires only a $20 caddy to make it into a removable medium. If they would make them hot swappable there would be no reason to use anything else. They are faster than and have a higher capacity than tape drive systems costing tens of thousands. Best of all even if a drive fails entirely you have a chance at recovery - try that with a mag tape that has been chewed in a faulty drive.
I tried to explain this idea to the Iomega investors some time ago when they were convinced that everyone would be queuing up to buy Jaz and the clik! disk would be taking over the world. DVD-RW still suffers from the same sort of economics as the Jaz drive - media too expensive to use as a backup, drive system too expensive.
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