is DVD+ being fazed out ?!?!

[DaveQB]

been reading up on all this DVD jargon and from what i understood DVD+ was an up and coming format and should see a bright future. am i wrong ??

the manager at the local Computer shop i deal with said its being fazed out

puts me off buying the Ricoh MP5125A as it is DVD+R/+RW

any news on tihs subject ? links ??

thanx for reading :)

[andyg]

Nobody knows what the future will bring when there is a lot of money involved (royalty fees). You don't have to choose, get Sony recorder
supporting both -R/+R formats.

As for me, I just got Pioneer A05 -R/-RW , the -R media is cheaper than for the +R format!

[Okar Gona]

Maybe your local shop has only DVD-R recorders in stock and no DVD+R recorders or even dual format DVD recorders. So by telling a B.S. story he hopes to sell his DVD-R recorders....

[DaveQB]

nah he'sactually got the Ricoh there, he recommends the Pioneer , not sure which format that uses, gotta check it out

see (http://www.arcco.com.au/parts/harddrive.htm#cdr)

[DaveQB]

ok i see the Sony there on the list, the most expensive one there of course :D
only one that uses both

i guess i better start saving :)

PS so no truth to that rumour ??

[Doom9]

PS so no truth to that rumour ??nah. if anything DVD+R/W is getting more popular.. potentially blank prices could be lower than DVD-R/W, it's most likely just a matter of time.

Though the Ricoh drive could indeed be phased out.. there's a new generation of DVD+R/W drives coming this year, supporting 4x writing speed and many of them also supporting DVD-R/W.

[DaveQB]

hmmm, to wait or not to wait.... :)


thanx guys

[CouJo]

NEC will also bring us such a super drive with DVD+-R/W support. The name is NEC ND-1300A. The drive should be available at the end of january.

Note: The first name of this drive was ND-1100A but due to firmware naming problems of some ND-1090A models (labled as ND-1100A), NEC has renamed this drive to ND-1300A.

The NEC drive seems to be a little cheaper (the best price was 299€).

[Gil T Pleasure]

Just look at the companies supporting DVD+RW: Dell (#1 PC seller), HP (#2) and Fujitsu just to name a few; then there's Sony and NEC, which support both format. These companies make up the top 5 leading PC makers worldwide.

[atreides93]

Actually I recall reading that the "whitebox" generic computers outsell all the name brand PC's like Dell and HP. so really just cause Dell and HP have DVD+RW support doesn't mean much.

There is plenty of DVD-R media available, and its only become cheaper as time goes on. So I'm very happy with my Pioneer A03. eventually if one of the formats dies, then I won't feel too bad cause I'll have gotten tons of use out of my A03 and my next drive will be faster and support whichever standard wins in the end.

[OUTPinged_]

Apple PCs have dvd-r writers included.

IMO dual format burners will win, because:

1. "-" kicks when you need to burn lots of cheap and compatible WORM blanks.

2. "+" kicks when you need to use RW media, they really have some advantages there.

As I bought 105 for myself i will cheer for "-" format of course. :-)

[jsl]

NEC will also bring us such a super drive with DVD+-R/W support. The name is NEC ND-1300A. The drive should be available at the end of january.


The NEC drive is delayed to spring 2003 (May) as well as the drives based on this like TDK 440 and Verbatim's dual format drive.

And, as doom9 said, the DVD+R/RW format is not fazed out but Ricoh will have a new 4x/4x DVD+R/RW drive out in late Q1 or Q2.

[DaveQB]

Originally posted by jsl
The NEC drive is delayed to spring 2003 (May) as well as the drives based on this like TDK 440 and Verbatim's dual format drive.

And, as doom9 said, the DVD+R/RW format is not fazed out but Ricoh will have a new 4x/4x DVD+R/RW drive out in late Q1 or Q2.

ok, thanx for that!

[Navellint]

Originally posted by DaveQB
hmmm, to wait or not to wait.... :) Don't wait, you can't go wrong either way if your goal is to store your stuff and read it back later (on the same drive). Hmm, the only wrong way top go would be using + when your standalone doesn't support it :eek:

outpinged: I think dual-readers will win and that's what eventually will be produced. People simply want to read media they once wrote.

FYI, I use +. CU

[DaveQB]

thanx for the reply

well me and a mate want to go into a mini-business venture by converting VHS and 8mm tapes to DVD for ppl, places like the local sporting club and parents with their kids on tape, you know what i mean ??

both standards (- +) have an 88% working rate with standalone DVD players i have read (???)

so we need the highest compatibilty rate

based on that i thought either would be the same

no ???

thanx !

[jacobjef]

From my experciences and what i've read, -R has a much higher compatibility rate. I had the Sony 500 multi burner, what a piece of crap. I had no problems returning the drive (at Best Buy), so they must have at least known of some problem. I even read around here that the drive was being recalled by Sony, although i haven't seen definative proof, yet.

[Okar Gona]

My Sony DRU-500 works perfectly. I had a lot of problems with the Philips DVDRW228 which I fortunatly could return.

In my stand alone DVD player only one brand of DVD-R discs works. So I made a good choice in switching from DVD+R only to a dual drive.

DaveQB
If you want to go into "business" by converting analog video to DVD, I would recommend a dual format drive. Make a DVD-R test disc and a DVD+R test disc and give it to your customer for a testdrive in their DVD player. Be sure to use always the same brands as there are also differences in readability of the different brands.

[Navellint]

Originally posted by Okar Gona
My Sony DRU-500 works perfectly. I had a lot of problems with the Philips DVDRW228 which I fortunatly could return. In my stand alone DVD player only one brand of DVD-R discs works. So I made a good choice in switching from DVD+R only to a dual drive.

Well, whaddayaknow? Everybody has his/her experiences: mine where the other way around. FYI I had to download nero 5.5.9.9 to use instead of the 5.5.8.1 that they shipped with the philips dvd+rw 228k, but that's it: no incompatibility found yet (Platinum/Nashua/Philips media).

DaveQB: I wanted to share these url that most already found i guess: drives (http://www.vcdhelp.com/dvdwriters) and players (http://www.vcdhelp.com/dvdplayers.php) . The compatibility should be somewhere between 85-88% for both +/- so you're right up to now i guess. GL&HF

DaveQB: i continued the post here (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=42698) .

[Doom9]

I check out this forum along with the firmware-flash forum quite often.. and judging from the posts here and there I'd say that the amount of people being unhappy with either A05/105 or DRU500 is about the same. And the ones who returned their drive seemed rather happy when getting the other model.
You should really base your buying decision on the technical specs.. if you only need DVD-R/W then by all means the A05 is the way to go. But if you go for -R/W because of price you should be fair to compare the blank prices of 2x DVD-RWs with DVD+RW since the latter can be written at 2.4x, and compare 2x capable DVD-Rs with DVD+Rs since the latter can be written at 2.4x once again. I've been testing a lot of DVD-Rs on my A04 and the only ones which were reliable at 2x speed were in the price region of major brand discs (Ritek G03 aren't great 2x discs, they work flawlessly for some but if you care that your discs can be read anywhere I'd always burn them at 1x). This consideration and my decision to go for major brand discs (I get really good prices on Verbatim discs) from here on now, 2.4x writing on any RW discs (and you can directly overwrite a +RW disc, no erasing/formating/anything) and the prospect of eventually cheaper prices since +R discs are less expensive to manufacture, and last but not least CD writing performance led me to buy the Sony drive and I have yet to regret it. I'd gladly have paid the extra bucks over the Pioneer just to get 24x/10x CD-R/W writing speed.

And as Okar Gona said, for a prospective business it's a good idea to be able to change the format if a customer can't read a certain disc. But unfortunately as with every new technology there's always a certain incompatibility rate at the beginning. Old players which can't read recordable DVDs will eventually disappear but not every family replaces their player every 2/3 years. In the worst case you still have to hand out VHS tapes as there are players out there which refuse any recordable or rewritable media.

[DaveQB]

Originally posted by Okar Gona

DaveQB
If you want to go into "business" by converting analog video to DVD, I would recommend a dual format drive. Make a DVD-R test disc and a DVD+R test disc and give it to your customer for a testdrive in their DVD player. Be sure to use always the same brands as there are also differences in readability of the different brands.


yeah thats exactly what i have been thinking, between two of us we should be able to get a good, versitile, quality DVD writer
well lets hope so anyway :rolleyes:

Navellint,
thanx for the links, i have been going over them, but not all exactly applicable to here in Oz, but most is, thanx

PS Okar Gona,
how did you get to keep your sig on your PC stats ??
i was told to remove mine by klona :confused:

[Richard Iredale]

Two months ago I burned 30 Fujifilm DVD-R disks of a video I made of a choir tour. The entire video was about 100 minutes and the whole VIDEO_TS folder was 4.34GB, just under the 4.37 limit. They were burned on a Pioneer -04 unit.

At this point 25 of the DVDs have been distributed to families of the choir members. Four have come back as being unreadable.

Out of curiosity, I took some disks down to the local Fry's (for those not in the SW USA, Fry's is a huge electronics store). Tried my disks on the dozen or so DVD players out on the floor. They all worked. I then went into the back rooms, where the exotic (expensive) stuff was set up. Tried disks on three different players; not one of them even recognized my disk!

I find it fascinating that the fancy DVD players ignore my burned disks, while the new inexpensive units (probably most from China) will happily play anything.

[DaveQB]

hmmm, thanx for that, i'll keep that in mind :)

[Jolard]

Richard:

Not surprising at all actually. The cheaper "chinese" dvd players are really just dvd rom drives packaged in a stand alone unit. They don't follow the DVD spec exactly. That is why usually, the cheap dvd players will play anything, while the expensive ones are more picky.

Everyone Else
As far as DVD+R/+RW vs DVD-R/-RW, this debate will go on for some time. This was the hardest decision for me, and I did a lot of research on forums like these before I bought. I ended up buying a + drive, for a couple of reasons.

- Minus drives seem to have a lot more of an issue with cheap media. You are constantly hearing about people having to burn cheap media at 1x, because anything faster creates coasters. I know this is not everyone every time, but it does seem to happen fairly often. Plus drives all have the same speed ratings, at least currently (2.4x) and they seem to have little problem with any type of media, at least in my experience and from trolling the boards.

- Price differences. At least recently, this has been less of an issue. I can nearly always get 2.4x + media for the same price as 2x - media. As has been stated, it is actually cheaper to produce + media, so the price will come down.

- RW capabilities. + drives have a few minor benefits, that slightly push them over the top with rewriting. I especially like the quick format (no waiting for formatting).

- Compatability. Depends on who you talk to. The proponents of both systems tend to harp on about how their format is the most compatible, and it is hard to clear out the static. From extensive research it appears they are both pretty close. And basically, unless your DVD player is pretty old, you will be fine. You can check yours on various online lists also before you buy just to make sure.

- Future. This is where it is hard to predict. I agonized over not wanting to buy an obsolete DVD burner. Then I thought about the fact that by the time one of the formats wins out, we will probably be at the point where CD burners are now. They will be 40x write speeds, and you will be able to pick one up for $50. I figure that by that time I will want to be buying a new one anyway, so what the hell, the whole argument doesn't really matter anyway.

- Microsoft. Microsoft has announced it is supporting + drives natively in its next version of windows. My bet is the Evil Empire will win out in the long run.

- Last words. Basically you can't go wrong with either format. A dual drive is kind of nice for people who want to hedge their bets, but remember, by the time one of the formats wins, your slow 4x sony drive will be obsolete anyway because you will be dreading burning that slowly and you can pick up a new drive so cheaply. So I am not sure if the dual format is worth the extra money right now. Pick one and feel good about it, you will have a lot of fun before it is obsolete.

One last thing, my money is still on + drives for one final reason. Joe Sixpack, who doesn't think too much, is going to get a + drive instead of a - drive because a + drive sounds like it must be better since it is "plus" not "minus". For that stupid reason alone I think + has the legs to win the format war.

[Navellint]

- Microsoft has announced it is supporting + drives natively in its next version of windows. My bet is the Evil Empire will win out in the long run. Just when I installed and configurated Red Hat and own a +writer... But seriously, I don't consider this a war, especially since sony introduces dual-format while it was supposed to advocate +.


- Basically you can't go wrong with either format. So I am not sure if the dual format is worth the extra money right now. Pick one and feel good about it, you will have a lot of fun before it is obsolete. I concur, now let's hope BluRay will be compatible with both ±. Got any information?