Everyone's Jumping on the DVD-R Bandwagon: Many Companies introduce DVD-R(W)/DVD+RW Products

The DVD+RW which promotes the DVD+RW format has scored a few points for their side at Comdex. First Dell, Hewlett-Packard Company, Mitsubishi Chemical/Verbatim, Philips Electronics, Rioch, Sony, Thomson and Yamaha have announced that they are increasing support of the DVD+RW format. Currently, there are three DVD media formats fighting to become standard. The first is DVD-R/DVD-RW. These disks can play in stand alone DVD players however there have been many compatibility issues with them not working in all players. The largest DVD-R disk available is 4.7 GB. Before consumer DVD-R burners hit the market, DVD-RAM burners were available. DVD-RAM disks can not play in set top boxes, however you can get disks with up to 9.8 GB of storage. Lastly, many companies are supporting DVD+RW, the newest format. DVD+RW is said to be compatible with the most number of stand alone players, which is very important to us. When you're trying to push a standard, it's very important to get support by multiple companies behind that standard. This announcement means that more companies are supporting the DVD+RW standard. The maximum capacity of a DVD+RW disk is 4.7 GB.

Each company is throwing support behind the products differently. Dell has announced that they will ship DVD+RW drives in their desktop computers later this year. Panasonic, HP and Rioch all are already planning to make or are shipping DVD+RW drives.

Imation, a popular maker of CD-R/CD-RW products and other media has announced they are producing DVD+RW products. In the companies press release they said they're DVD+RW discs can be recorded over "1,000 times and has an expected archive shelf life of 30 years." They did not release a price on the disks.

Verbatim also has announced that they are selling DVD+RW disks. The companies spin on the whole market is to sell them both in standard CD jewel cases and the taller cases which DVD movies are typically sold in. The disks will retail for $15.99 and will be available in Q1 2002.

Sony has thrown support behind both sides of the battle, announcing both DVD+RW and DVD-R/DVD-RW disks. Sony claims that both disks can play in most stand alone DVD players sold today. Obviously they aren't going to say which format is more compatible. Sony announced the DVD-R disk will retail for $9.99, the DVD-RW disks will retail for $19.99 and the DVD+RW disk will retail for $15.99. The DVD-R and DVD-RW disks will be available in November and the DVD+RW disks will be available in the spring. Sony also announced a DVD+RW/CD-R drive. The new DRU110A/C1 can record on both DVD+RW and CD-R disks. The drive comes with Sonic MyDVD, DVD authoring software, B's Clip and B's Recorder Gold, programs which help in burning DVDs and CDs and WinDVD a software DVD player. The drive can burn the 4.7GB DVD+RW disks, which many companies today announced they are now producing. The drive will be available in Novemeber for $599.

Lastly, Visitar, a lesser known company has announced a DVD-R recorder. The swiss company has announced both an External DVD-R recorder, model RS-121 and an internal recorder, model RS-111. The company said they will also start selling DVD-R disks, and eventually they will sell DVD-RW and DVD+RW disks. They did not announce a price or a release date.

It seems that there is no clear winner in the DVD-R/DVD-RW vs. DVD+RW battle, and the manufacturers are going to help us make the decision. All these latest developments mean are that the consumers are going to have to decide which format to support.