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Another Format War: DVD -R9 v. +R9
Anonymous Coward writes "Just when we thought the dust settled on the last format war between CD-R's we see a new one brewing with DVD recordable discs. DVD -R9/+R9 will apparently be the next technological slugfest where there are no rewards for second place. With all of these new recording format options made available to the public, how can any consumer intelligently know which one to buy into?"
you vote with your dollars, by refusing to by into either format until the company bigwigs kiss and make up their minds.
Empty PCI slot + Cheap 200GiB Hard Disk = No need for DVD media.
I just got the DVR-108 drive from pioneer. For a mere 130$ (including shipping), I got a 16x DVD-/+R/RW/CDR/RW drive that even supports dual layer DVD burning... (although I think it's just dual layer +R, not -R, but I could be mistaken.), and 20 free 4x DVD-Rs.
I'm sick, too of the +/- war, though. even though I have a dual format burner, I'm sticking to -R since they seem to be more compatible (I only know 1 person who can't read -Rs).
...spike
Ewwwwww, coconut...
And I'm too lazy to move em to CD-R. *sigh*
Buy a whole bunch of store gift cards for yourself. Hide them in a stack of floppies at more or less regular intervals. Then once you get down to a gift card, you can spend it. Then once you've copied all your floppies, burn them to a CD or DVD.
Fill us in then. Whose discs would you suggest?
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
"by refusing to by into either format until the company bigwigs kiss and make up their minds."
And when they do they'll form a consortium to charge obnoxious licensing fees for the technology while keeping little "features" like DRM in the standard definition. Kinda like the DVD Consortium to begin with.
No thanks, I'll stick with the capitalistic competition.
I know /.'ers are expected to comment without RTFA, but crikey, the title of the article includes "R9". That means dual layer, people! (Rounding up the number of gigabytes it will hold -- 4.7 for single layer, 8.5 for dual.) Of the 120-plus postings so far, only a handful address the point.
So far the only dual-layer DVD burners I've seen, and the only dual-layer media I've seen, has been of the +R variety. My Mad Dog Megastor (really a NEC ND-2510A) supports both +R/RW and -R/RW as well as dual-layer +R DL. Of -R DL, the fineprint on the box says "at the time of production, a (-) format Dual Layer standard has not been released".
Format war for +/- R9? I'd say + has won by default, there's no - competition yet.
(As for compatibility, my year-old DVD player plays everything I've thrown at it including 4x +R, 4x -R, 2.4x +RW, 2.4x -RW, and 2.4x +RDL. An older player (several years old) generally recognized the media (one problem with -RW I think) but sometimes had glitchy playback.)
-- Alastair
CD-Rs for backing up data and CD copies, and TiVo for recording off the TV..I thought about a DVD recorder as a VCR replacement, but the TiVo seems to do that quite adequately..
Currently US prices run about $12 to $15 per disc, although I've seen a new brand at $10. (Single or small quantities.)
As a reference point, this is about 1/3 what blank CD-R media cost at the same stage in its introduction.
It will always cost more than single layer DVD 5, just because the extra manufacturing steps, but it should be in the $1-$2 range in a couple of years.
As for where to buy, google for DVD dual layer media. Best Buy, MicroCenter and Office Depot stock the Verbatim "Solution Kits" (1 DVD+R DL bundled with a bunch of single-layer discs), which is OK if you're going to use the singles anyway, it works out to about $15 for the DL and $15 for the other 9 disks (one of them an RW). Currently you'll have to order on-line if you want just the DL media.
-- Alastair
"some places may still have -RAM, but that was never a serous contender"
RAM is serious but not in the consumer market. Talk to IT at a hospital or other stability obsessed business and if there is small scale digitial storage you'll find DVD-RAM.
Feeling so good natured I could drool
The article makes a mistake in presuming there is a speed / capacity choice to be made when buying the burner. In fact all currently available DL drives will write -R/+R at one speed and +R9 at a different, lower speed. For instance the NEC ND-3500 will write -R/+R at 16x, but will only write +R9 at 4x.
Same will go for this format. I also have Mac, PC and Linux so give me a tent for all!