Remember back a long, long time ago when the first video cassette recorders came into our lives? The magic of being able to record and replay our favorite TV shows was slightly marred by the confusion of having two different standards of machine and videotape to choose from: vhs and Betamax.
Now with DVD (Digital Video Disc) recorders about to make the old VCR extinct, the war of standards is back, with a vengeance. DVDs — pioneered by Philips and co-developed with Sony — used on both sides, allow you to store roughly 13 times more film or music than CDs and way more than tapes. But until recently there was a drawback: unlike video tapes, consumers could only play DVDs, not record on them.
Now, however, recordable DVD formats, which allow you to rewrite and edit too, are slugging it out in a very confusing market. There are three competing standards: DVD-ram, supported by Japan's Hitachi, Toshiba and Matsushita, which when first introduced could play back programs only on their own machines. Then there is DVD-RW, which was originally developed by Pioneer and supported by the industry alliance DVD Forum.
The discs for this machine are compatible with a limited
number of DVD players, according to Mary Craig, principal
analyst in optical-storage technology for Gartner Dataquest
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TOUCH OF A BUTTON Philips’ new DVD recorder, above, is one of the first machines to allow consumers to play and record DVDs |
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San Jose, California. Pioneer
says the discs will play in 70% of DVD machines.
A third format, called DVD+RW that is backed
by Philips, Hewlett-Packard, Yamaha and Ricoh
and others, can be played on CD players, DVD-ROM
drives on your PC and more than 85% of DVD
players. Dell Computer, Thomson Multimedia
and Philips are among 30 companies supporting
the DVD+RW standard.
Consumer electronics analyst Paul O'Donovan,
who works for Gartner Dataquest in London,
says DVD+RW looks likely to become the de
facto industry standard. Philips, whose DVD
recorders are compatible with CD, CD-Recordable,
CD-Rewritable and the Super-Video CD and Video
CD formats popular in Asia, will show three
different models priced from $1,000 to $1,399
at the CeBIT show in Hanover this week.
One, the DVDR985, has a built-in camcorder
connection so that home movies can be automatically
recorded onto a DVD+RW disc. Given all this
rivalry, it is surprising that last month
nine consumer-electronics makers, including
Sony, Philips, Hitachi and Pioneer, agreed
on a uniform standard for the next generation
of DVDs themselves, called Blue-Ray discs
after the blue-laser technology used to cram
content onto them. The new format will allow
for more than 13 hours of recorded TV, compared
with two hours on the current disc. The blue
ray discs will not be available for several
years. By then, maybe there will be a single
format for playing them. |
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