Microsoft joins the DVD+RW Alliance

[Hulk]

"Microsoft is taking a more active role in developing one of the formats in the heated DVD rewritable debate.

The DVD+RW Alliance announced late Monday that Microsoft had joined its ranks, adding that the software giant will also have a seat on its policy-setting team with representatives from Dell Computer, Hewlett-Packard, Mitsubishi Chemical/Verbatim, Philips, Ricoh, Sony, Thomson and Yamaha. The DVD+RW Alliance is a group of companies that promotes and develops the DVD+RW format."


MS Joins DVD+R Alliance

-Mark

[thop]

http://forums.murc.ws/showthread.php?s=&threadid=40106

[Jerry Jones]

There are two reasons why this is so silly and people are so naive.

1. This is old news

2. Microsoft is late in supporting DRAG-AND-DROP file operations for DVD+RW; it isn't scheduled to happen until the so-called "Longhorn" version of Windows ships

3. Microsoft - for those of you who don't know any better - *already* supports DRAG-AND-DROP file operations for the existing DVD FORUM approved DVD-RAM format in all recent versions of Windows.

In addition, defect management is already supported by DVD-RAM.

Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net

[wkulecz]

Yeah but how many computers can read your DVD-RAM disk?

I've a DVD+RW filled with MP3 songs I drag around with me, and I've only found one computer with a DVDROM drive that can't read it -- an old PII-300 Compaq Notebook, but it can read DVD+R.

I think getting bent out of shape for drag and drop is silly, "authoring" with Nero is drag and drop enough for me. In my experience its lack of reliable write interchanability with CD-RW in different drives that has made "packet writing" pretty useless. Does Mt Ranier specifically address this issue? Does anyone even point it out as a potential problem? I know DirectCD appears to work as long as I let only a single burner write to a disk, updating it with a different burner rather quickly leads to corrupted disk and lost data.

I see their joining the DVD Alliance as a way to get MS media codecs into the next generation of standalone DVD recorders and their noses into the tent to take over personal video the way they took over the desktop! Not a good thing IMHO.

--wally.

[Jerry Jones]

>Yeah but how many computers can read your DVD-RAM disk?

I use DVD-RAM for storage and not sharing.

DVD-RAM is a re-writable format.

So is DVD+RW.

Neither is really a good choice for *sharing.*

Write-once formats such as DVD-R and DVD+R are more logical for sharing because of their lower cost.

Currently, if I want to share files such as MP3, I simply burn to CDs.

Far more computers can read CDs than can read DVDs of any flavor!

Only those computers with DVD-ROM drives can read DVDs of any kind and even those are "hit and miss" with DVD+RW!

So if DVD+RW is marginally 'better' than DVD-RAM for compatibility... SO WHAT?

The fact is DVD discs *currently* - of all flavors - still FAIL to provide the kind of universal functionality that was achieved by CD-R discs.

One of the reasons I believe all *current* DVD disc formats are failures is CAPACITY.

Their 4.7gb capacity just doesn't offer the consumer enough room for very much video/audio.

That's why the new BLUE LASER format(s) - with their huge disc capacities are going to be adopted more quickly than everybody thought.

My two cents.

Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net

[Hulk]

Nevertheless, this is good news for the "+" format. Microsoft is somewhat important in this industry and it looks to me from this that they are jumping off of the "-" ship.

Does -RW do drag and drop?

-Mark

[Elie]

Ahh Bah!

I'll wait for Blue Laser before I buy into yet another technology that may become obsolete in a year or two.

I currently have a Pioneer 104 and happy with it so far

Cheers,
Elie

[Flying dutchman]

In my view, DVD+R has the following advantages over DVD-R:

- No need to finalize the didks at once; you can keep adding video material to it and it will still play on a settop DVD player. I always resented that VCD's can't be made multi-session.

- No built-in copy protection scheme, Hollywood has nothing to say about the format.

- Because of that, disks are cheaper to produce (no license fees)

[Jerry Jones]

Incorrect.

One *must* finalize DVD+R discs just as one *must* finalize DVD-R discs.

All *write-once* disc formats MUST BE FINALIZED.

Failure to finalize a DVD+R disc often is the cause of people not being able to play them on other devices.

That's clearly explained on the DVDplusRW.org Web page here:

http://www.dvdplusrw.org/faq/faq_playback.html

"In most cases when a owner of a DVD+R/+RW video recorder experiences this problem, he or she had forgotten to "finalize" the DVD+R disc."

"This operation, which is not needed for DVD+RW discs, needs to be applied on a DVD+R disc once you've finished recording it in order to make it DVD compatible."

So, as you can see, finalization *is* required for write-once formats such as DVD+R and DVD-R.

Finalization is *not* required for re-writable formats DVD+RW or DVD-RAM.

Finalization is, however, required for the DVD-RW format.

I would point out the number of DVD-RAM stand alone recorders currently available OUTNUMBERS the number of DVD+RW stand alone recorders.

In fact, there is only ONE DVD+RW stand alone recorder currently available from Philips... the DVDR 985.

On the other hand, the number of stand alone DVD-RAM/DVD-R recorders is impressive:

1. Panasonic DMR-E30:

http://www.prodcat.panasonic.com/shop/NewDesign/ModelTemplate.asp?ModelId=16905&show_all=false&product_exists=True&active=1&ModelNo=DMR-E30K&CategoryId=2596

2. Panasonic DMR-HS2:

http://www.prodcat.panasonic.com/shop/NewDesign/ModelTemplate.asp?ModelId=16904&show_all=false&product_exists=True&active=1&ModelNo=DMR-HS2&CategoryId=2596

3. Toshiba RD-X2:

http://www.toshiba.com/tacp/dvd/current/RDX2.html

4. Samsung DVD-R3000:

http://www.samsungusa.com/cgi-bin/nabc/product/b2c_product_detail.jsp?eUser=&prod_id=DVD-R3000%2fXAA

DVD-RAM, in other words, has already "won" on the stand alone recorder front.

But by the time Microsoft gets DVD+RW "sold," it'll be time for BLUE LASER... and the game will start all over again.

:-)

Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net

[Kris1]

Hi,

http://www.dvdrw.com/pdf/THAM13.4_stan.pdf

If I don't misinterprete the data in this document, the header "logical compatibility" reads a line "... a closed sesion as well as a finalized ...... can be read out in legacy DVD players". I interprete this as "either one of two choices". Since this Philips document is probably Dutch in origin, I'm trying to trace it now in it's presumably original version just to be sure about my interpretation.

I know the Philips standalone does perform a finalisation, but I have no on-hands knowledge on that device.

I wouldn't be able to swear on it, but I think I remembered Nero does not show you a "finalisation" choice when using a DVD+R writer if the data that was to be written was processed by DVD-Decrypter + DVD2one. Don't shoot me if I'm wrong though, I only played with this once.

Take Care,
Kris

[Jerry Jones]

DVD+R must be finalized.

DVD+RW and DVD-RAM do not require finalization.

Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net

[Kris1]

You've made me curious, Jerry. Not meaning to question your statements nor your knowledge on the given subject, I'm going to take a Philips DVD+R engine back home tonight and do some testing myself : not so much out of doubt towards you, as rather to doublecheck the puzzling info (at least, to ME) that was put in the document I presented. I'll keep you guys posted, if anyone shows any interested that is.

One idea about this whole debate on -r/+r/ram : the statement was indeed old news itself, but I can't remember seeing the name of Dell appear in that list previously. I speculate that if both Dell and HP should choose to build DVD+R engines in their PC's, the number of the userbase could increase considerably over the span of the next year(s), no ?

Take Care,
Kris

[Kris1]

PS...

This is nearly commical.

Somehow, this +R question kept running in my mind. Why honestly, I don't exactly see how it could work without finalization in some form, a quick Altavista or Google search seems to provide VERY contradictionary results. Like this one :

"DVD+R - Offered as the write-once sub format for DVD+RW, Philips announced DVD+R in late 2001. Its attributes are said to be ease of use - no disc formatting or finalization is required in certain applications - and compatibility with a majority of the DVD Video players in the market. "

Oh help. I even saw one entry that said even the DVD+RW HAD to be finalized, otherwise it wouldn't be readable in other devices. That's why I decided to really test this myself, as it seems the only way to be sure.

[Jerry Jones]

It worked like this when I did my test...

If you finalize the disc DVD+R or DVD-R disc, it will be playable in other devices.

If you 'don't' finalize the DVD+R or DVD-R disc, then you'll only be able to continue playing it in the recorder that you're using to create it.

I seem to recall that was true of the Philips DVDR 985 and the Panasonic DMR-E20.

Dell and HP have chosen DVD "+".

But Sony, Apple, Gateway, and IBM have chosen DVD "-"

The Yankee Group reports the DVD "-" format has a 75% market share in the OEM computer market.

The only area where the "+" format has any lead is in the 'consumer-buys-drive-off-Best-Buy-shelf.'

Otherwise, the DVD Forum approved formats have already won.

Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net

[Hulk]

Yeah, that's most of the point, incremental backups, etc...

If - has "won," why are they still selling the drives? Why are they pushing it as the "new and better" format? Why are they still moving forware with the + promotion, you'd think they'd cut their losses. Truth is, and you know it, that the cheapest drives go in OEM's first, - had a head start there. Why do you think ATI gets in so many computers? Even when nVidia had much better products?

It's no big deal, some people resisted the change to Windows from DOS for many, many years . . .

Peace

-Mark