Creative Labs, already one of the leading marketers of DVD-ROM drives, is making strong headway in the market for the next generation of removable storage, DVD-RAM, as well. Market analysts report the company’s PC-DVD drives now account for 60 percent of all units sold to date, and the aggressive online store prices (as low as US$250) on its first-generation DVD-RAM (rewritable) drives – some of which include an Adaptec AVA2902I SCSI-2 Adapter Card and/or one or more pieces of blank media -- seems destined to further beef up those numbers. However, we elected to vote for Panasonic’s somewhat more expensive DVD-RAM drive as our Technical Excellence choice. Why? One word: Innovation. Panasonic owns no less than 620 patents in Japan for its DVD-RAM drive (in Canada, the United States and other countries, 120 patents have either been granted or are pending approval).
Interestingly, when we checked Creative Labs' web site for the specs on its DVD-RAM drive, it implied that it could only write DVD-RAM Type 1 discs. In fact, the company's engineers assure us that it, like the Panasonic unit, can also write Type 2 (removable disc) 2.6GB DVD-RAM and dual-phase PD discs. Both units read standard DVD-ROM discs at 2x speeds (2,770 KB/s) and record up to 5.2GB at 1x speeds (1385 KB/s). These Type 2 media-compatible DVD-ROM drives (first announced in Q3'98 but only recently available from Panasonic and remarketers such as Creative Labs, which sells the unit as part of its Encore PC-DVD 8x kit) are be able to read these Type 2 discs directly.
In May 2000, Panasonic announced a second-generation DVD-RAM unit capable of storing up to 9.4GB on a disc. Storage vendor LaCie, subsequently announced its intention to offer both Windows- and Macintosh-compatible DVD-RAM solutions based on this new technology. Interestingly, the new LaCie model connects via FireWire. These second-generation models are are backward-compatible with 5.2GB and 2.6GB discs. The new drives were unveiled June 27 at PC Expo in New York and are expected to ship in August.
DVD-RAM Supported Media
Media:
Those looking for economical storage will love the cost per megabyte of storage on these babies: about one cent. 5.2GB discs (in case you were wondering, that’s the equivalent of 3,811 floppy discs) run about $59; a 2.6GB disc is about $35. Get ready to say goodbye to CD-R!
Competing formats
As detailed in our introduction to the topic of DVD, there are no less than 15 different DVD "standards," with numerous variants of read-only, write-once and rewritable technologies. DVD-RAM's main competitor as a rewritable format is DVD+RW, a format backed by industry heavyweights Sony, Ricoh, Hewlett-Packard, Philips, Mitsubishi, Yamaha and, most recently, Dell. HP says it will begin shipping DVD+RW drives in its home PCs in the fall of 2001. It is worth noting, however, that there are currently no shipping DVD+RW products. Our Giga Storage feature has additional details.
Another competitor is Pioneer's DVD-R technology, currently available as a standalone add-on costing about US$750, or bundled in computers from Apple, Compaq and other manufacturers. DVD-R, unlike DVD+RW, specifically supports writing to CD-R and CD-RW media as well as Pioneer's own General Authoring DVD-R media. The drive is technically also capable of writing to rewritable media; however, this feature is currently awaiting approval by standards bodies and is not touted in marketing materials from Apple and most other vendors offering the drive.
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