DVD writeable standard soon?

[Fun Guy]

Want to add a DVD-writeable drive to my digital video editing box, but the arena seems to be stratified. Is the landscape coming any closer to agreeing on a standard?

 

[CQuinn]

The landscape is not likely to come to anything for at least a couple more months.
After that we will have a better idea of which "Standard" is gaining market/mind share.

DVD-RW currently has a slight lead:
Came out first, prices on recorders already starting to drop, supported by the DVD Forum, currently has both
R (recordable) and RW (Rewritable) media available.

But DVD+RW is in position to make a good showing.
Took more time to work out specification, better for data storage vs video storage, potentially as "compatible" with
commercial DVD players, supports additional features for saving data, more compatible with CD-R and CD-RW,
created/support by some of the big names from the DVD Forum.

 

[StandardCell]

This is just my humble opinion, of course, but the most compatible format is DVD-R right now. It has the most readability of any format in standard DVD players of any other writeable/rewriteable DVD format. They're hacking out new formats all the time, so who knows when it'll stabilize...

By the way, when I spec'd my friends video editing rig, I told him to store his old SVHS videos in MPEG-4 DivX format onto CDs. At 1500kb/s, you can store an hour of video per CD, and FlaskMPEG splits the files into one hour chunks during an encode. DVD would've been nice, but the price of DVD blanks and drives is still prohibitively expensive. The format fuss also doesn't help, but at CAD$20/pop, DVD-R blanks are NOT the way to go for now.

 

[Elledan]

A somewhat related question: what are the *technical* differences between all the different DVD-formats?

 

[Kartman]

The industry is becoming or has become more likfe the federal government, which can never make up its mind and over regulated to the point of suicide. No, I cannot see a standard anytime soon, but 'anytime soon' in your book and my book can be two grossly different things. With the release of new DVD-R/RW and DVD+R/RW devices, I think the general market will decide for itself which format it prefers.

This is not to say that the winner in the end will be the better, more compatible, format, because the patent holders could just give the technology away a la Internet Explorer.

 

[Om]

Doens't really matter, there are drives out now that burn all formats except RAM, and the new players promise to play all formats, so it's no biggy. Now to just have a reason to burn with DVD format, other than home movies taken with your handheld and system backups?

 

[mindiris]

I'll chime in. A burner that burns and reads every standard will make it a non-issue. The market will decide. There aren't that many, tough the lasers/read/write burn mechanisms might need to be more expensive to support the standards. DVD readers may have to be upgraded however.

 

[NorthenLove]

<< The industry is becoming or has become more likfe the federal government, which can never make up its mind and over regulated to the point of suicide. No, I cannot see a standard anytime soon, but 'anytime soon' in your book and my book can be two grossly different things. With the release of new DVD-R/RW and DVD+R/RW devices, I think the general market will decide for itself which format it prefers.

This is not to say that the winner in the end will be the better, more compatible, format, because the patent holders could just give the technology away a la Internet Explorer. >>




Actually DVD+RW delay I think has more to do the last part of your post. It's more of them trying to appease the movie and record company big wigs then anything else but I expect that both those industry's will get a bite out of every DVD+R/RW and DVD+R/RW drive sold along with some anti-piracy measures thrown in to make sure people don't start ripping DVD movies like they did with Music CD's and CDR's etc.... ( **cough**MP3**cough** ).

 

[JDJ]

From what I've read DVD+RW is 'supposed' to be backwards compatible with older DVD players. DVD-RW should be compatible with new or newer DVD players but the early data says that there may be some issues for older players...which ones that would be, I wouldnt even begin to know. I believe both formats can save up to 4+ GB per side, so storage shouldnt be an issue.

As others have stated previously it all depends on the consumer....and who has the better marketing departmen

 

[Kartman]

Well, I guess its really a decision of the poster to decide what he, Fun Guy, is planning on doing with the authored DVDs. Digital Video Editing does not say much unless plans/requirements are standard. I would think that as long as the media is caddy-less the poster will be fine for either competing technology. Trying to be backwards compatible to the early players is pretty moot when you can buy a progressive home entertainment player for $200-250, and a no-thrills player for about $100-150.

So, Fun Guy, what exactly are you trying to achieve?

 

[zephyrprime]

I don't think the industry is going to agree on a standard. It's going to be decided in the marketplace.