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DVD-RW Incompatibilities?
rekkanoryo writes "It seems that there is some trouble brewing in the DVD-RW camps. According to CNET, new, faster 4x DVD-RW media may not be compatible with older DVD-RW drives. The DVD+RW camp is confident this won't be a problem for them, but the -RW backers think it will sometime in the future when even faster media starts to appear. Also mentioned is a dual-layer DVD+R capable of holding up to 8.5 GB of data per disc and the problem with really old DVD+RW drives not being upgradable to support write-once DVD+R media."
Why isn't there a standard format that can be adhered to so that a DVD RW here is a DVD RW there?
If standards existed, a company that built an incompatible extension into their technology wouldn't be able to legitimately call their device a DVD RW.
I have been pwned because my
It seems like consumer DVD writing technology is coming out a bit too fast now. The format is fracturing more than it's uniting...
Whatever happened to the standard bodies who are supposed to prevent this?
Who gets to set the standards? There are several groups, each of which think that their system is the best. Why should all but one group be excluded? Why not just let the market decide what the 'standard' is?
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
This is the exact reason why I still haven't bought a dvd writer. +RW, +R, RAM, -RW, -R... a gazillion formats and now we have speed incompatibilities AND ofcourse a bunch of manufacturers who lied about their drives being firmware upgradeable. Why can't these clowns all sit down and actually define AND FOLLOW a standard ? Thanks to them, the whole dvd writer market is substantially less than it could have been. I've been waiting for more than two years now for things to clear up but still there's all these silly incompatibilities. How the heck do they expect to convince Joe Sixpack to buy one when MY head feels like exploding from all the confusion around this ?
Because if there are standards everyone follows we don't have a VHS vs. BETA fight again where half the people get screwed big time.
Because the market will decide to hold off on buying any DVD RW drives until one side has significant marketshare.
So it is actually up to the PC vendors to decide, and they will go with the cheaper, less useful system than the expensive feature filled one.
Because having four or five standards for effectively the same thing floating in the marketplace makes a mess. Consumers start to think the technology is just plain broken when they try to insert a type A disc into a type B reader and it doesn't work.
When we start having to say "D-V-D-dash-R-W" and "D-V-D-plus-R-W" and now start to get word that new larger-capacity discs of the same physical size are going to come out, the market starts to get really confused.
I'm shocked there still hasn't emerged a clear winner in the format-wars...
Anyone know what the "market share" of each format is?
When the economy is down the standards don't matter.
It's all about trying to rush to market with something that is different and hoping that it'll sell.
It's also interesting that if your a monopoly then standards also don't matter.
The difference is:
A DVD+ and DVD- disc will read in virtually any drive, period. Unlike a Beta tape, which will never read in a VHS VCR.
More importantly, at the time of the format wars, a VCR cost $400, which, translated to today's dollars, probably feels like buying an $800 item right now. Also, the VCR was expected to last a decade back then (as a matter of fact, I still have a 1984 Zenith VCR - working). DVD burner for your computer is expected to last 2, maybe 3 years prior to replacement and costs $150.
The absolute worst you can be screwed is:
- Lack of media being produced in your format (You lose $150 on the drive)
- Having media left over when your drive dies that will not work in burners now being sold (You lose... hmmm... in my case $50)
The worst you could be screwed during VHS vs. Beta format wars was:
- Entire tape collection obsoleted (if you bought pre-recorded tapes at the time, minimum $100, likely many thousands of dollars if you were an enthusiast)
- Tape collection cannot be recovered into other format (assuming all Beta/VHS VCRs dropped off the face of the planet) (priceless, if you managed to tape something that will never be broadcast again, or if you had a Beta/VHS handycam)
- Lack of media being produced in your format ($400 then, $800 now for a new drive)
- Having media left over when your drive dies that will not work in burners now being sold ($50, maybe...)
We're talking a lot of difference in losses here. $200 is manageable. Thousands of dollars, and a loss of priceless work isn't.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
Why isn't there a standard format that can be adhered to so that a DVD RW here is a DVD RW there?
You can't get five people to agree on where to go for lunch; what makes you think it's easy for them to agree on technical issues, particularly when their companies have developed technology, products, patents, or markets at stake?
Windows is de facto "standard" for PC software. Why don't you just run that instead of Linux? How come those Linux guys don't get together and just define one standard distro instead of having a zillion of them?
Technology is developed before it is standardized. You don't just create paper documents of wishful thinking and then wait for someone to implement it. You start with proposals based on what is possible and usually what exists. After that, it's politics, not engineering.
So answer the question. Why gets to decide what the standard is and why should one group get total control over the market?
Some reasons, historically abound;
1. They're a monopoly already
2. They're the ones allowing porn on the format
3. They're the ones with the patents
4. They're everybody, and everybody can join in
1) is the ITU way
2) is the VHS way
3) is the CD way (philips/sony)
4) is the ISO way
But you're missing the real point; obviously if everybody involved in making higer-capacity-than-CD optical media could just come up with a single, future-proof standard, there would be no confusion among consumers, and everybody would be competing on a level playing field. Standards aren't about excluding competitors - at least, not by definition. That only happens when smart asses throw in a lot of patents to rake in the money.
So that would be
5. People get fed up with factions, the peace pipe is smoked, and a single standard is decided upon to make sure the technology works and SELLS.
that would be
5) the way of the screw.
The way things are going with DVD, the Chinese stand a good chance to come up with a better, less encumbered, and more standardized format. And not because they're communists, but because they're cheap asses who don't want to spring for the MPEG4/ACC/CSS/Dolby/etc. patents.
SCO employee? Check out the bounty
Look around. See anybody in the "market" deciding? The market is too scared to buy any DVD writer, precisely because there's no standard.
Having competing manufacturers in the marketplace is a good thing. Having competing "standards" in the marketplace is a bad thing. This isn't about excluding any group. It's about excluding all the superfluous technologies.
since when? any walmart, compusa, office depot, staples, etc now cares drives that record in BOTH formats. That's right, you heard me, + and -. And those drives are usually the same price as the + only or the - only drives if not cheaper. Why? Because that's what the public is buying! We got fed up with the - only and the + only and refused to buy, so now that their are drives that do both they're actually selling well.
Case in point: I bought a drive that does +R and -R at 8x for $100 shipped recently. No, not with rebates or coupons or other crap, that's regular price.
Imagine what would have happened if they would have made machines that played Beta and VHS AND it was cheaper than the beta only or VHS only machines? I'd imagine we'd still have Beta around.
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
Except with a floppy disk, if it's the right size to fit the drive, you could use it. A SD 3.5" will work in a DD 3.5" will work in a HD 3.5" drive, you just have differing amounts of space on them. It's not as if you had to throw out all your SD 3.5" diskettes when you got your new HD 3.5" drive -- you just had low-capacity disks you could use.
DVD+R/RW is heading for the dump, where it belongs.
Nice semi-troll. The article you linked to, of course, implies no such thing. Instead, it seems that single-format only drives are heading for the dump, where they belong.
There are two kinds of people: 1) those who start arrays with one and 1) those who start them with zero.
Who gets to set the standards?
ISO. That's what they're for.
Send lawyers, guns, and money!
I know it's too much to expect anyone to read the article, but the problem here is not an absence of "standards." There is a standard DVD-R format, set by the DVD Forum. (Yes, there is also a competing DVD+RW format, but that has nothing to do with the problem at hand.) However, that standard format was not designed for higher speed technology. So the same standard-setting DVD Forum is putting their blessing on a higher speed 4x DVD-R which turns out not to be 100% backwards compatible with the old drives. They are forced to do this by the realities of the marketplace.
;-). This is the price we pay for progress.
Note, companies build incompatible extensions into their technologies all the time. WinXP broke some Win98 apps. OSX broke some older MacOS apps. SVHS broke compatibility with regular VHS. DivX broke DivX
There are two kinds of people: 1) those who start arrays with one and 1) those who start them with zero.
>Care to explain why my 2 year old DVD player and 2 year old DVD-Rom only reads DVD-RW and not the + version?
:-)
You have really, really, really bad luck or are way too cheap?
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
Because it's pretty irrelevent really. Just buy whatever media your drive supports. Personally I think DVD RW drives in general are pretty pointless. What I want is a disc that holds at least 80 GB. Consumer backup technology has lagged severely behind the leaps the hard drive sizes have taken. I've got 600 gigs in my fileserver with no real way to back it up. DVD-RW is pretty worthless to me at 4.7GB a disc. I'd be sitting all day swapping discs. The only option are very expensive LTO tape autoloaders.