DVD-RAM still not final. More EMedia..........................................................
DVD-RAM "Final" Announcement Reveals Fault Lines in Consortium
The widely reported final decision on a compromise standard for DVD-RAM appears, on closer examination, to be something other than a compromise and far from final. An Associated Press story dated April 2, 1997, reported that Toshiba had announced that a DVD-RAM agreement had been reached, and stories from Reuters, Nikkei English News, and InfoWorld seemed to confirm this. However, representatives of DVD Consortium companies on both sides of the debate contacted on April 10 indicated that although Toshiba may view the agreement as a fait accompli, the decision to release the information was not Toshiba's to make.
The standard is not final, said one DVD Consortium source who requested anonymity. Other sources confirmed that a vote was taken in early April 1997, with eight companies in favor of the DVD-RAM proposal, and two companies, Sony and Philips, abstaining. There is speculation that Sony and Philips may proceed to develop an alternative high-capacity rewritable format regardless of the eventual Consortium decision, but Toshiba's Ken Jones commented that Philips and Sony cannot make a competing format using the DVD name.
Toshiba's John Hoy, director of DVD marketing, was quoted in InfoWorld as projecting the availability of drives as early as the end of 1997, at OEM drive prices of $350 and media at $10. Other Consortium company sources called these prices unrealistically low. One source, requesting to remain unnamed, said, "We haven't even begun to discuss drive pricing, and Toshiba doesn't make media." John Hoy was unavailable for comment, but Toshiba spokesman Ken Jones confirmed that Toshiba's announced pricing and availability figures are accurate.
The Consortium companies, split neatly along pre-DVD compromise lines of Philips/Sony and the former SD Alliance companies, have been battling over a year for the high-density rewritable disc format. Format A proposes using land and groove techniques--which are currently used in Panasonic PD phase change technology--to store data in two alternating spirals with timing information stored between the lands and grooves. Format B proposes a wobbled pregroove similar to those in existing CD-R and CD-RW technology. According to industry sources participating in the DVD-RAM Technical Working Group (TWG), the land and groove technology is less reliable and more prone to damage from handling, and so requires the use of a caddy, unlike any other DVD medium proposed to date. Removing this media from the caddy in order to read it on a DVD-ROM drive or DVD player could render the media unfit for further recording. The wobbled pregroove media would require no caddy, but an optional caddy would ensure added reliability.
In addition, Format B (wobbled pregroove), which is an extension of recently released CD-RW technology, would be more suitable to I/O intensive applications, such as archiving, backups, and data sharing. Format B also offers the option of being recorded in CAV for rewritable applications, or CLV for write-once applications. Format A uses zoned CLV for reading and recording, which would be more suitable for streaming video applications.
Format C, proposed as a compromise to the two other formats by Hitachi, uses land and groove with a continuous wobbled signal for increased reliability. This is the format that was announced by Toshiba as final, although one DVD-RAM TWG member remarked that Format C is only a minor improvement on Format A and is still not the best solution. Neither of the two original proposals, or the compromise solution, would be readable on first or second-generation DVD players and drives.
A meeting of the DVD-RAM TWG was called for April 11, to obtain approval for the chosen format, but PC manufacturers were notably underrepresented and the vote was not taken. Terry Loseke, of Hewlett-Packard's Strategic Adventures R&D department, said, "HP and Sony have asked to present the DVD-RW specification--otherwise known as Format B--at a TWG meeting scheduled to be held in May or June 1997. This specification proposal incorporates feedback from PC manufacturers to optimize the rewritable DVD format for computer use." Loseke anticipates that announcement of the official final agreement could come by summer 1997, after a meeting of the DVD-RAM TWG in Burbank, California. --Dana J. Parker |
