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Dell Throws In For The +R/+RW Standard

Posted by timothy on from the mike-thinks-positive dept.

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?"

5 of 393 comments (clear)

  1. Neither will win. by Snover · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

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    [insert witty comment here]
    1. Re:Neither will win. by Dead_Smiley · · Score: 3, Interesting
      Yep. In April the dual layer DVD recorders will be out. That should shake up the ol' bananna tree.

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  2. Bigger Issues by ShawnDoc · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

  3. dvd-r is as dead as possible by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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...

  4. It doesn't matter by FrankSchwab · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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

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    And the worms ate into his brain.