DVD standards a growing concern..................................
Concern grows over DVD standards
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Computer Reseller News via Individual Inc. : Irvine, Calif. -- While the promise of Digital
Videodisc is great, standard snafus could stop the technology dead in its tracks and
breathe new life into CD- ROM and CD-RW technology.
The reason:competing DVD standards and the assurance of universal compatibility with
CD-readable and CD-recordable drives.
"Writable drive standards are not set," said Robert van Eijk, director of strategic
marketing for Philips Optical Storage North America, San Jose, Calif.
Future readability also is a prime concern regarding DVD, said Ken Weilerstein, analyst
with Gartneranalytics Datapro, a market research firm based in Delran, N.J.
"It's hard to say if we will be able to read rewritable DVD disks in the future. That's
where DVD gets real shaky. Depending on how the DVD battles shape up, some media
will get tossed to the side," Weilerstein said.
"DVD-ROM drives can't read disks from DVD-RAM or DVD+R," van Eijk added. "But
you can record disks on a CD-RW drive to read in a DVD-ROM drive."
Third-generation DVD-ROM drives will probably be able to read DVD-RAM and
DVD+R disks, "but then you then need to ask if they can read 2.6- or 4.7-Gbyte disks.
It's still a long way off," van Eijk said.
Because of the confusion, Weilerstein said, "a lot of people could postpone buying
DVD."
In fact, "DVD readable drives will not take over from recordable CD drives until the year
2000 at the earliest," said Richard Young, vice president of Cypris, Calif.- based JVC
Professional Computer Products Division.
The biggest beneficiary to the DVD wars, Weilerstein added, may be CD-RW drives
(CRN, Jan. 12), especially given the latest trend to use CD-R and CD-RW for archival
storage.
"Recordable drives are already being sold for individual backup use," said Weilerstein.
"For archiving, you want a disk to be able to be read long into the future. Even though
CD-RW does not have the storage capacity of DVD, it can be read long into the future."
"To send large files, you need a CD, the only thing that can be read by nearly any PC,"
said van Eijk. "CDs are great for data exchange, not only from your PC to mine, but from
my PC now to my PC in the future."
When DVD-ROM does become common, van Eijk said, it will be popular " because it
can read CD-ROMs, not because it can read DVD disks."
Mike Hodde, vice president of the systems division of Power Associates International
Inc., a Houston-based VAR, took a short-term look at "the DVD vs. the CD" question.
"DVD is something I assume we will get involved with," he said. "But at this point, we
have no projects."
Hodde's firm currently helps customers record applications on CD-ROMs for ease in
rebuilding hard-disk drives. He would get a recordable DVD drive if the project
warranted it.
"I feel if you can use one for three to six months, then get it," he said. "If the standard
changes, it's no big deal, because the unit will have paid for itself."
Still, added van Eijk, "All the headlines are about DVD but the trucks going to the
[resellers] are filled with CDs."
Copyright (c) 1998 CMP Media Inc.
<<Computer Reseller News -- 01-19-98, p. PG12>>
[Copyright 1998, CMP Publications]
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