Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : C-Cube -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: BillyG who wrote (34194)	7/8/1998 4:20:00 PM
From: John Rieman	Respond to of 50808

DVD's sixth book, DVD-RW....................................... onlineinc.com DVD Forum Accepts Pioneer's DVD-RW as Sixth DVD "Book" The DVD Forum has quietly announced that DVD-RW will be developed by Working Group 6 as an official Forum-approved rewritable format "for authoring use." The announcement, dated March 18, 1998, appeared on the Forum's Web page simultaneously with a news story datelined April 28, from Nikkei BizTech in Tokyo. According to sources at Pioneer USA, the DVD-RW spec to be adopted by the DVD Forum is based on Pioneer's DVD-R/W spec, announced as an independent, alternative rewritable DVD format last October. The Forum intends to publish the specification as a sixth DVD "book," probably by the end of this year. The DVD-RW format, described as a rewritable extension to the previously Forum-approved DVD-Recordable (record-once) format (Book D), uses phase-change media and is capable of up to 1,000 rewrites. Like DVD-R, the DVD-RW format defines media that is more similar to pre-recorded DVD-Video and DVD-ROM discs than other proposed alternative rewritable DVD formats, such as DVD+RW (from Hewlett-Packard, Sony, and Philips) and the currently Forum-approved DVD-RAM (from Hitachi, Toshiba, and Panasonic). However, according to Andy Parsons, vice president of technical support and business development for Pioneer, "We've discovered that, due to the different implementations of DVD-ROM drive and DVD-Video player manufacturers, complete compatibility with existing hardware is not there." Parsons says that while the reflectivity and other parameters of DVD-RW media are sufficient to make it readable in many existing players and drives, the tracking is not sufficiently dependable on all of them to ensure complete compatibility. Making future read-only DVD devices read DVD-RW will be "a trivial modification with zero impact on costs," says Parsons. Actual DVD-RW products are expected to reach the market no later than second quarter 1999, and will use DVD-RW media capable of holding 4.7GB of information. The projected price for DVD-RW drives is between $3,000 and $5,000. The drives will be capable of recording DVD-R and rewriting DVD-RW; will allow direct rewrites sequentially or on a random, block-by-block basis; and will primarily be targeted at DVD authoring applications. (Pioneer New Media Technologies Inc., 2265 East 220th Street, Long Beach, CA 90810; 888/411-3837 or 310/952-2111; pioneerusa.com) -Dana J. Parker --------------------------------------------------------------------------------