RAM vs +RW..............................................
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DVD GLADIATORS FIGHT IT OUT
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Las Vegas, Tuesday 18 November 1997 - The glittering splendour of the Colosseum Room in Caesar's Palace provided a fitting venue for the launch of DVD+RW (also known as PC/RW). The world's press crowded into the room to find the answer to one of life's biggest mysteries: Why?
Why has a group of powerful manufacturers led by Philips and Sony said Boo to the DVD Forum and the approved DVD-RAM format? Is this a re-run of the MMCD/SD format wars? Is this the end of the DVD Forum as we know it?
To the outsider it seems inexplicable that six of the most powerful manufacturers in the world should create a breakaway format - one which could tear the precarious alliance apart. On the face of it the differences are tiny. Both DVD-RAM and DVD+RW are based on the same technology, Phase Change, an elaborate chemistry of five layers which change from amorphous to crystalline to allow recording and re-recording on the same disc. The only apparent physical difference is the use of land-and-groove recording by the DVD Forum and land-only recording by the Philips/Sony camp. So what's the big deal? Is this enough to justify a war?
CD-RW Boom
The real reasons have little to do with technology. They are to do with money, big money. It is a replay of the MMCD/SD fiasco. Same players, same reasons: royalty payments. Simple human greed.
Make no mistake, this is a battle royal because the stakes are high. Very high. Philips, for example, is prospering once again, thanks to the totally unexpected boom in CD-RW. All the factories are working overtime to cope with demand. No way are they going to see that revenue stream disappear when DVD recordable formats displace CD-RW in a few years time. They want to ensure that all those millions of happy punters make a neat transition to DVD+RW, and be able to play those billions of discs in their shiny new drives. That is what the row is all about. That is why Philips, Sony, Hewlett-Packard, Mitsubishi, Yamaha and Ricoh were gathered together to give the time-honoured two-fingered salute to their good friends in the DVD Forum.
Jan Oosterveld of Philips highlighted the success of CD-RW. Last year sales totalled around 1m drives. This year it could be 3m. Next year it could be as much as 7m. In 1999 they expect to sell 15m drives. That's a lot of drives, and a whole load more of discs to put into those drives. If the discs can't be read easily on the next generation of DVD-recordable then there are going to be some very unhappy bunnies out there in the marketplace.
The six companies at the launch represent more than 75 per cent of the CD-Recordable and CD-ReWritable worldwide market. Clearly they want it to stay that way. Oosterveld couldn't have put it plainer when he said: "DVD-ReWriteable extends the CD format roadmap for many years to come and ensures that compatibility will be maintained for future generations of users to enjoy." He might have added "And keep all the little Oostervelds in the manner to which they have become accustomed."
Compatability
DVD may capture the headlines but CD-RW is where the real money is being made - and will be made for years to come. The newer CD-ROM drives can now read RW. The aim is to make the future DVD+RW discs compatible as well. That may not be so easy. How compatible is the new format? This is where it gets a bit tricky.
A DVD+RW disc looks just like a CD-ROM disc. The difference is that between every 32K block there is a 2K 'link block'. These link blocks are inserted between every data block to permit random read/write. (They are written to the disc by the software, they are not pre-formatted on the disc). This is where a problem arises. Put an existing ROM disk in the drive and it falls over because it can't recognise those link blocks. It's the same problem they faced and overcame in the transition to CD-RW. They know how to handle it. It's a firmware upgrade - existing drives cannot cope with it and there's no flash solution. So it will have to be built in to the next generation of drives.
But back in the UK, Nick Sundby, product manager, optical storage products at Hitachi Europe, told IM that DVD-RAM drives were completely backwards-compatible with all CD and DVD formats. He conceded that no current DVD-ROM drives could read DVD-RAM discs, but pointed out that this problem would be fixed with the next DVD-ROM drive from Hitachi. He described this incompatibility as a natural consequence of the time lag between agreements of the DVD-ROM and DVD-RAM standards. He said that because DVD+RW discs required a lead-out area (RAM discs don't), disc space was being wasted, which would lead to reduced disc capacity. He also made it clear that because DVD+RW did not have the support of the DVD Forum, it was not a DVD product.
Hewlett Packard points out that DVD-RAM uses constant linear velocity (CLV). This means that the motor has to keep speeding up and slowing down. It says that DVD+RW is superior because it uses constant angular velocity (CAV). That means the motor is running at a steady speed, just like a hard disk. The other advantage claimed for the RW format is there is no need for that pesky caddy/cartridge.
Hitachi's Sundby commented that there was no need for a caddy for single-sided DVD-RAM discs. He added that the Forum was currently discussing ways of eliminating the need for a caddy on double-sided discs (possible, he said, thanks to DVD-RAM's powerful error correction). Contact: Nick Sundby, +44 1628 585479.
IM Analysis
Frankly we are in no position to make a final judgment of the competing claims. It does, however, seem that both camps have strong arguments in their favour.
The bad news is that it will be Spring before we see prototypes of DVD+RW and Autumn 98 before deliveries start. In contrast DVD-RAM is available now. Sundby commented on the DVD+RW press release: "There's no technical specifications, no price and no delivery schedule. Apart from that it's very detailed."
Does this ring a bell? Divx, anyone? If anyone from the +RW camp starts telling you that Divx has screwed up the DVD market by creating Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt then you just tell them where to go.
The final irony: how did the rich and powerful Philips/Sony camp, with 75 per cent market share, allow themselves to be steamrollered by the guys who have only a tiny presence in the rewritable market? The answer is they were outvoted 6-to-2 in the appropriate sub-committee. That's the equivalent of Fiji having an equal vote with China at the United Nations. That's democracy for you. If you don't like the vote, you do your own thing!
The striving for backwards compatibility (and thus continuing royalty streams) was what lost Philips the battle the last time. Toshiba and friends won with their PD format. Maybe this time Philips and Sony will get lucky.
It is no mystery... that Philips, Sony, Hewlett-Packard, Ricoh, and Yamaha - along with media manufacturer Mitsubishi - would prefer a rewritable DVD format that builds on existing technology and smoothes the transition to a new one.
It is also no mystery that the architects of the DVD Forum's DVD-RAM format find this threatening. They are not contenders in the CD-R and CD-RW arena, so there is no reward for them in promoting compatibility with existing popular formats, but enormous incentive to abandon them in favor of their own technology patents. The contention over whose patents to use is one of the many things delaying delivery of DVD. And with every delay in DVD, the period in which existing technologies can thrive is extended as the installed base increases, making compatibility more important, and opening the window of opportunity for new formats not subject to DVD Forum approval to reach market.
That's not the sky falling - it's chickens coming home to roost.
Dana Parker, Emedia Professional, December 1997 |
