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Taiwanese Makers Will Squeeze DVD Recorder Prices
GeXX points out this PC World article predicting vastly lower prices on DVD recorders, in large part because cheap, high-volume Taiwanese manufacturers will have a greater percentage of the market, currently dominated by Japanese makers.
Err, I think they mean consumer DVD recorders that take the place of your VHS recorder (since they mention MPEG2 chips). These are still not $110 (65) a piece, so hold your horses.
Right, as for the pollution issue: well, yeah. Again, the little 'energy-saving' and other stickers add to the price, and let's not wonder why products are (hardly) never manufactured in our countries anymore, where there are environment-protection and workers' rights laws (well, I speak for my own here). But whatever the side effects of mass production are, blame the buyer, not the maker. He'll only manufacture stuff that sells.
These days, it's actually not uncommon to be looked at strangely if you pull a 3.5" disc out of your briefcase. In a few years, a 3.5" disc will be as much of an exotic, strange relict as 5.25" discs are today. Many people these days, have never even seen or used a ZIP drive or a magnetic tape.
As DVD records become cheaper (I rememeber when they were around $1500 not too long ago and people would ask why anyone would want a DVD burner) and, perhaps more importantly, DVD media reaches price levels currently associated with CD-R media more and more low-budget computers will come equipped with DVD-burners and not CD-RW drives.
That's, at least in my humble opinion, one of the main reason CD-RW never really took off. There was just no reason to use rewriteable CDs. With relatively high-capacitiy recordable DVDs becoming widely available, CD-Rs just became so cheap there was no reason to reuse a CD-R.
In a couple of years, CD-R will only be used to burn audio CDs. Most computers can already read DVDs so there's no reason for DVD-R/DVD+R not to be used even more widely.
And the next DVD standard is already in the pipelines. Early adopters, new developments, consumer demand and, probably, the industry's demand for IP protection will eventually push the prices down enough for the new standards to replace the current DVD standard. The only thing that I think could interfere with this cycle is distributed computing along with truely distributed storage.
That's a good point why is it that a DVD burner costs (in Australia) $150-$200 while a DVD recorder costs ~$1200? Like when you consider say a TV tuner card for $100 (which I believe is quite expensive, I haven't looked at them for a long time) you can record TV with your computer for $300 tops. Now does it really cost $900 for the dedicated ADC chip to encode the AV signal?
Outside hardware manufacturers are less likely to be controlled by hollywood so hopefully we can get cheap hardware that also ignores drm right? - broadcast flags, fast-forward flags etc. If the market can be flooded with these things then people will be less likely to take the MPAAs bullshit on broadcast flags. Technically they wouldnt be able to use the DVD logo but its not like the music industry cares about messing with formats (RIAA and MPAA are pretty much the same thing).
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When VCR's were as cheap as $100 and came with all the bells and whistles, I bought a Sony that cost $500. On the surface, that didn't make any sense to most anyone at the time. However, 10 years later I still have that VCR and it functions as well as the day I bought it. The only problem I've had with it is the occasional head demag and I've had to replace grease that had crystalized and wasn't allowing the tape-grab assembly from keeping tension on the tape as it inserted/ejected the tape.
So, I can get a DVD Recorder cheap but can I buy only one and enjoy its use till the media format nears obsolescence?
Mod me troll, if you must, I can't help it.
When the CD recorders first appeared cheaply (less than $200 US) about six years ago, I bought one from Mitsumi and it lasted eight months with light use. They wouldn't honor the warranty; they wouldn't pick up the telephone for the customer-support line or answer e-mails.
A second CDRW, a BTC, lasted eleven months before dying and I was able to get a warranty replacement that still works five years later. A third, a brand and model recommended as a best-buy by PC World magazine lasted six months. Again a worthless warranty due to the companie's refusal to answer e-mail or phone calls.
My current CD-RW, an Artec WRA, has lasted two years with no problems with moderate use.
So with time, devices like CD/DVD writers get better in quality even as the price drops.
I considered buying a 8x DVD writer for $99 at the local discount electronics store. But, reviewing my notes at the difficulties with the quality of early CD recorders made me postpone buying one. I'll wait several more years, or until I have a pressing need to put 4.7Gig on a single disk.
I've found that using the 'DVDdecoder' program I can copy movies from DVDs to my hard drive in VOB files that are 700 megabytes in size each. In this manner a movie can be backed up from DVD to CD-R using about six or seven CDs per film. It's inconvenient, yes, but it does work until the DVD recorders become more reliable.
Thank you,
A Hauppague PVR-250 and 350 cost something like $150 and $250, respectively, and both have on-board MPEG and some other goodies, although I think they only record 480x480 when the standard for NTSC DVD is 720x480.
I do agree some tuners on the cheap cards are somewhat nasty, and the chip capturing that tuned signal sometimes isn't so hot either. Unless you reneed Linux support, I suggest using Philip's SAA series chips over BookTree's (now Connexant) 8x8 series. Connexant does make a better video capture chip, 238xx series, I think, which happens to be somewhat compatible with the old Bt8x8 series.