DVD burners

[BrianP]

Any update on when the Panansonic DVD+RW burner is coming out? The Videoguys website now says "late August" after previously saying it would be July. But aside from that, I can't find a mention of it anywhere.

I'll be curious what price this unit sell for (besides at Videoguys), since you can now find the Pioneer DVD-A03 for $630, shipped. (Just look around some)

This leads me to wonder, what other units are on the horizon? The Panasonic's 1X write speed is still something of a concern to me, and I was hoping that this fall we'd have a bunch more burners coming out. But so far, there haven't even been any announcements. I was hoping to have a few choices by Christmas, but it is beginning to look like it will still just be either the Pioneer or the Panasonic.

[wkulecz]

I believe the Panasonic unit is DVD-R/DVDRAM.

DVD+RW is Sony-HP-Phillips, this is the one that everyone is "waiting for" since these three dominate the CR-RW market.

Pioneer's A-03 is DVD-RW.

For our purposes here, the DVD-R part is SUPPOSED to be compatible so the Panasonic is at a disadvantage with its 1X speed compared to the A-03 2X write.

I think market confusion has really hurt sales, local Best Buys had plenty in stock and at $800 I saw no intrest in them while I was there (other than me).

If you care about the RW part for computers, DVDRAM is the one with the track record and probably the way to go. Based on my poor experiences with drive write interchangability on CD-RW packet writing I'm very skeptical of DVD-RW and DVD+RW.

--wally.

[BrianP]

You are right, the Panasonic is DVDRAM. I just read an article about DVD-RW/+RW and it completely neglected to even mention DVDRAM. Why might that be, I wonder?

I am not terribly interested in the rewriting function other than as a method of testing before burning to a DVD-R.

It looks like the only benefit of the Panasonic unit will be that it could further lower the prices of the A03. Might we see $500 (or lower) for the A03 in the next couple months?

[Sciascia]

For me the price of the burner is not as much a concern as the media is. What are blanks going for these days?

[BrianP]

DVD media

DVD-R can be found for about US$10 each. I expect that to fall to about $5 in the not-too-distant future.

DVD-RW is around US$25 each. Considering the A03 comes with something like one DVD-R, it's probably a good investment to get a couple for initial testing.