DVD Playable CD-R !

[Jerry Jones]

I'll believe it when I see it.

But this new Pinnacle product is said to allow one to burn up to 20 minutes of high quality MPEG-2 to a cheap CD-R disc *AND* it will play in most DVD players.

I hope it comes true. This seems to be part of the intellectual property Pinnacle recently bought from Minerva:

http://www.digitalproducer.com/2001/...le_express.htm

[Jerry Jones]

By the way, this ad *definitely* suggests Pinnacle have found a way to make "Mini-DVDs" playable on stand alone DVD players.

[KuroNeko]

Says where? What I could read (I admit, I read quickly ) was that their CDs read on DVDrom & CD drives of all kinds. No mention of standalones.

Forget about playing mini DVDs on all players: most players are programmed to play CDs at 2x, which isn't enough for MiniDVD. Their drives simply can't spin faster.

[paulw]

The implication is there.

"Whether Pinnacle Express discs are used for family videos or corporate video presentations, the quality and convenience of recording a disc and watching it on a DVD player is now within the reach of millions. No more fast-forwarding and rewinding -- Pinnacle Express software automatically creates chapter menus so that users can quickly go to the scenes they want to see, repeat and even freeze the action, all with their DVD player's remote control. ""

Seeing will be believing

[dchip]

I have to agree. There are a lot of these type packages now. The one I was particularly juiced about was Spruce Up but someone right here in this forum tried it and it made nice, very flexible and interactive video, but was limited to playing on the DVD-ROM. There's a little voice inside me that says this Pinnacle product and the ULead product will have the same limitations but I do hope I am wrong.

[Jkun]

Where does it say that a "DVD Player" is a standalone player?? Could just as well be a DVDrom with sw player.

90% of all standalone players have a 2x DVD/CD drive, they cannot read faster than that. So how are they supposed to read mini DVDs?

Forget about miniDVD. DVD-R is upon us, and at $10 per disc, who _wants_ miniDVD?

The Vivastar DVD-R (which is Not a Pioneer drive) will sell for less than $800, by Xmas prices will approac $500.

J-kun

[wkulecz]

Who makes this "vivastar" DVD-R writer if not Pioneer?

HP is making claims about introducing DVD-RW drives at ~$500 "later this year" but so far its all FUD and vaporware as far as I can tell.

--wally.

[Vidgal]

They do seem to imply stand alone DVD players. Haven't seen many computer DVD-ROMs with remotes -- but guess they may exist. Even if the discs made with this software do end up playing on "some" set top DVD players, I have a strange feeling they will play correctly only on one model -- available only in Sri Lanka and parts of Iceland.

[Jerry Jones]

Okay - I'm pretty ticked at Pinnacle.

In my opinion their advertising is quite misleading.

They're talking about using a "remote," which suggests stand alone DVD players.

Plus, they talk about "up to 20 minutes" of "DVD quality" video burned to CD-R or CD-RW media, which suggests they're not talking about Super-VideoCD. In truth, a CD-R or CD-RW disc can hold up to about 40 minutes of Super-VideoCD (480 x 480 NTSC resolution) MPEG-2.

So that "up to 20 minutes" suggests they're talking about "full frame" MPEG-2 at "DVD quality." It suggests "Mini-DVD."

They also brag about having "proprietary Philips DVdisc technology" to pull all of this off.

So I got curious and phoned Mr. William Loesch of Pinnacle.

His response:

>Our Express software
>will burn VCD or SVCD
>formatted video onto
>CD-R media, and DVD
>formatted video onto
>DVD-R or DVD+R/W media.
>I hope this answers your
>question.

Yeah, Mr. Loesch, it answers my question.

You're really talking S-VCD!

S-VCD can look pretty good, but it's not "DVD quality," in my mind.

Pinnacle is engaging in misleading advertising, in my opinion.

As far as I'm concerned, Ulead's GoDVD is the far better value.

http://www.digitalproducer.com/2001/...uleadgodvd.htm

[KuroNeko]

Wally, Vivastar is a Swiss company that designed their own DVD-R drive. They may be working together with Pioneer for design some parts, but the laserpickup for instance is their own design.

They let some OEM manufacturers make the drives for them. Drives are standard SCSI, NOT ATAPI with adapter as some people suggested.

Neko

[Dr Mordrid]

Nice guys.

At least Ulead was honest about their product.

Of course just saying they were coming out with a VCD/SVCD authoring system isn't enough for Pinnacle. They have to try and mislead folks to sell the same kind of product at 4x the cost.

Dr. Mordrid

[wkulecz]

The obvious question is if not EIDE, then why not Firewire? SCSI is at the present time far more trouble than its worth for most people -- although it'd be a short term plus for me since I'm out of IDE ports but still have some available SCSI IDs (CDROM, CD-RW, and scanners used).

--wally.