COMDEX: DVD/CD R/RW drive from Panasonic

[Dr Mordrid]

It's targeted at consumers, IDE and internally mounted.

And yes, the title was a typo. It's a PIONEER drive.


http://www.abcdv.com/pctech/pioneer_...at_comdex.html

Dr. Mordrid


[This message has been edited by Dr Mordrid (edited 17 November 2000).]

[farid]

Any idea what it will cost ?

Farid

[Dr Mordrid]

Still looking for a reference to that.

Dr. Mordrid

[Dr Mordrid]

Here's something on the price of the Pioneer drives. Source: NEWS.COM (CNET sub-site);

"target price for media at $10 a disc--compared with more than $30 for single-sided DVD-RAM--and drives priced below $1,000"

Sounds interesting....

Dr. Mordrid

[farid]

Yep, but way over most people's budget again. You'd have to reconvert into illegal DVD-copying to get your money back (hope I didn't give the young ones here bad thoughts, don't do this at home kids !).

Naaaaah, I guess I'll just wait till FMD comes along in 2-3 years ;-) By that time the RT2K will be dead cheap because no drivers for Whistler and 5GHz processors will go for $100. Still, it won't be good enough by then, watch my words....

Farid.

[wkulecz]

"under $1000" is where CD-R started to take off. I paid ~$500 for my first VHS VCR and got into CD-R when they dropped below $400.

If they really are $10 per blank media and it will play in virtually all standalone DVD players, I'd quickly pony up a grand to get one, otherwise I'll wait.

--wally.

[Elie]

Actually $1000 isn't bad at all, at least I'll have one more format to offer my clients which are..
VHS, SVHS, VCD, SVCD, and now DVD

Bring it on!

Elie

[This message has been edited by Elie (edited 21 November 2000).]

[Dr Mordrid]

I agree. And this is not just a DVD-R device, it's also DVD-R/W which means erasable and reusable.

Dr. Mordrid

[Eric VanHeest]

Whatever happened to "DVD+RW" anyhow?

[wkulecz]

DVD+RW seems to be vapor from Sony-Phillips-HP.

As to DVD-R/W, I don't know how many of y'all have tried to use CD-RW as a "600MB floppy" but I know of no better way to lose data. It appears to work on a *single* system. As soon as you write the disk on a couple of different systems kaput in short order losing all the data! I've about 7 CD-RW from various vendors in diffrent systems and DirectCD and CD-RW seems to be fine in the drive it was formated on, but catastrophically fails rather quickly when writing on any pair of different drives. I picked up a Verbatim "preformatted" CD-RW disk hoping maybe there is something can be done with special formatting hardware, if this disk loses data I'm giving up completely on CD-RW except for making VCD for those few DVD players that can read CD-RW but not CD-R.

Using CD-RW as bulk erase CD-R is IMHO not worth the trouble. So at 5.7 GB per disk any R/W DVD capability needs to be fundamentally improved over CD-RW.

--wally.

[Dr Mordrid]

Odd. I swap CD-RW's between all 8 systems here with no problems. I use an HP-8100i burner w/Memorex CD-RW disks and burn with both Adaptec 4 Deluxe and Nero 5. The readers range from Toshiba DVD readers to cheapo Chinese CD readers.

I've even sent them to friends & family with no reported failures.

Dr. Mordrid


[This message has been edited by Dr Mordrid (edited 22 November 2000).]

[wkulecz]

Doc, you didn't read what I wrote. Using CD-RW as a bulk erase CD-R has never given me problems either, but given the time it takes to erase a disk vs. $0.25 for a blank CD-R it makes no sense to me unless you have a stand alone DVD that happens to read CD-RW but not CD-R.

Its when you try to use the "packet write" (DirectCD etc.) feature as a "floppy replacement" writing in multiple systems that the data loss occurs. DirectCD on CD-R media has not given me any trouble in the same situation leaving the disk "open" while interchanging amoung various burners. So now I use CD-R as a "giant write once floppy" and throw it away and start over when it fills up. The problem is that only systems with CD-R drives can read these disks.

Whereas most 24X or newer CDROMs can have the UDF1.5 reader software installed and then read the DirectCD formated CD-RW disks. This will be fine if you only have one writer system, the problems occur with multiple writers on the same disk.

Like I said, when I get a chance I'll try a Verbatim "pre-formated" CD-RW and if it has problems after being written in multiple systems I'll forget about CD-RW.

My point for this thread is that "mature" CD-RW has promised something it can't seem to deliver, so I'd not count on this DVD-R/W as a justification or feature on which to buy these new drives. But if its worth it to you for DVD-R then go for it -- I certainly will if they read in "normal" standalone DVD players that can't be counted on to read CD-R or CD-RW.

I note that on my friend's new HP burner, the setup program appeared to have a disclaimer on the directCD installation saying "for read-write access on this computer".

--wally.

[Dr Mordrid]

Well..I did write that at 2:00 am

DirectCD is something that makes life difficult absent putting it on all your systems (which I have done). I rarely use it anyhow since it plays hell with using NERO. That will be an even larger factor with the new Nero 5.5 coming out, which may actually allow me to get Adaptec off this system entirely

Dr. Mordrid