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Dell Throws In For The +R/+RW Standard
srothroc writes "Dell has been selling DVD+R burners for a while, but now they're tossing them in on free deals with some decent everyday consumer systems. I wonder if this increased support from one of two companies to pull a profit on PCs is going to tip the scale towards the +R format... If not, what's going to happen to the Dell users who have all of these +R drives if it turns out that -R wins out in the long run?"
Just like there were two CD-R and CD-RW "standards" that were argued over, a third standard emerged to replace them both. I imagine this is probably what is going to happen here.
Funny how history repeats itself like that.
[insert witty comment here]
This is minor. The real question is which DVD-HD format will become the standard. It looks like we're going to have 2 incompatible formats introduced the US, with a 3rd format introduced in China.
I have yet to encounter someone who NEEDS one of these yet. A lot want one but no one has a need yet.
dvd+r is the winner my friends.
You already can do dvd+r at 8 speed. I still await
8speed dvd-r.
And around April expect dvd+rDL, that will be dual
layers at over 8gb, that also will be READABLE by
anything that can read dvd+r.
And further, its rumored that some of better dvd+r
8 speed drives will be able to burn dvd+rDL with a
firmware update (afterall, thats what Philips
research team did for their tests).
enjoy living in your dvd-r world...
If not, what's going to happen to the Dell users who have all of these +R drives if it turns out that -R wins out in the long run?
At this point in the industry, once Dell has gone full steam ahead with their adoption of a standard like +R over -R, then I think it's not too much of a stretch to start picking Dell's choice as the long term winner. The only question that remains is how long does the long run last anymore before something new comes along?
My next sig will be ready soon, but friends can beat the rush!
There really isn't much of a "format war" going on. Most DVD devices support both formats without any problem. The rewrite media is a little less compatible but that is to be expected. Besides any new DVD burner supports both formats anyways.
Whoever posted this should be flogged!
The past is just the present only older -me-
It really doesn't. There are enough shipped DVD-R and DVD+R drives out there in the world now that you'll be able to buy media for the foreseeable computing future for either. There are enough of each out there now that your current burned DVD's will be readable forever, or at least as long at 5 inch polycarbonate disks are in use. Even the VHS/Beta battle that started 30 years ago and was, for all intents and purposes, over 20 years ago (see http://www.urbanlegends.com/products/beta_vs_vhs.h tml ) doesn't keep me from buying new blank Beta videotapes. They aren't available at Walgreen's, but can be had at larger electronics stores still. The same will be true of DVD-R and DVD+R.
Can you imagine the computing landscape 30 years from now? VHS hasn't changed in that many years, but 30 years ago in the computing field is ancient, ancient history - punched cards, hard-sectored 8 inch 256KB floppies, removable disk packs, and memory capacities that didn't need to be abbreviated to be readable. The likelihood that you'll care about your DVD?Rs at that point is pretty darned low. /frank
And the worms ate into his brain.
Most of the drives I see these days support both +r/rw and -r/rw, so it is going to be pretty much a non-issue. Besides, you can generally read the other format on the other type of drive, and most people will be using them for internal use only.
Remember 56k modems. There was US Rebotic's X2, and Rockwells K56Flex. Which one was the winner? V90.
My local Staples (North Seattle) is selling packs of 10 DVD+R from multiple manufacturers for $14.99.
It's by far the cheapest, and most available blank DVD media format on their shelves.
I picked up a pack thinking I'd got a great deal then realized a few hours later it wouldn't work on my Mac G4, did some research, said "duh", and replaced it with DVD-R which does work on my Mac.
While I was there I noticed lots of cheap DVD+R burners on the shelves, and needless to say no Macs for sale, so this is yet another "standards" gone wild deal by the looks of it.
When will this madness end? It's getting as bad as batteries!
http://www.cdfreaks.com/article/113
Quite an interesting read.
This is just another non-issue because Dell doesn't give a rip about slashdot users, who are an extremely small percentage of the marketplace. Few people care. The largest single use of a CD/DVD is simply to load programs like your latest TurboTax or Adobe Photo Elements. Someone who really pushes the envelope may use it for backup, but that's a stretch. Who really watches DVDs on their PC? Maybe in a dorm room, but in the real world, unbless you can buy a laptop with a 50 inch screen, people actually have TV sets and a DVD player.
Will all this converge? Sure, in a few years! But since yer average Dell lasts only three years anyway, it doesn't matter. Fry's sold an Internet ready PC (linux) for $99.95 during the holidays. They are a commodity item. People will just by another one. And by then, we'll have new standards to worry about.
"Standards" is an oxymoron.
How about a moderation of -1 pedantic.
This is not BetaMax vs VHS, the media is basically the same, this is simply a format fight.
Writable DVD's are the current new media for data storage and the manufacturers cannot figure where we will be in a year's time? This does not bode well for the long term stability for DVD data storage and needs to be sorted sooner rather than later.
Can someone tell me why competition for formats is a bad thing?
The conventional wisdom seems to be that Beta vs. VHS was bad, but over time the amount of money lost by those who bought into Beta is miniscule, while the competition between the two brought the VHS format into peoples' homes much faster than it would have were there no competitor in the first place.
The same thing happened with DVD: when DivX was introduced, that lit a fire under the pants of the DVD manufacturers to lower prices and market the hell out of their product. I imagine we would not yet have $30 DVD players at WalMart were DivX not to have existed back in 1998.
I for one welcome our new overl...er, a format war. Only the early adopters of the loser formats will lose any money---and by definition, early adopters have money to throw around on uncertainty---while the wider public will benefit. Bring it on.
In this particular case, the war between CD-R(W) and CD+R(W) has brought the prices on both to throw-away levels much more quickly than for CD-R(W), which took over 6 years to get from wide introduction to ultra-cheap).
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... software vendor. At least 10 times a day, a customer calls in and the drive doesn't see the media they are using, we ask if they have a Dell machine, they do, and we ask if they're using DVD-R, and they are.
I don't care which one Dell uses, but at least put a big sticker somewhere so the consumers know what they are getting.
By the time either format is pushed out, dual format CDRW + DVD+/- R drives will probably be $20. By that time, nobody will complain that the free upgrade they got is now obsolete.
BTW, the thing making either format obsolete will probably be some 30GB optical format, not competition from the other version of DVD recording.