DVD-RAM struggles to gain acceptance outside Japan

September 5, 2005

Big
in Japan, but not so hot everywhere else, is the DVD-RAM format. But not for
long, if the RAM Promotion Group (RAMPRG), formed to combat RAM
ignorance has anything to say about it. But right now, these RAM capable
drives are stamped with a DVD+RW logo- this is counter productive to the cause
we would think. The Register suggests this is one part of the DVD-RAM acceptance
problem as well. After all, what type disc is the average consumer going to
buy after glancing at the front of the drive? Also, does this consumer, with all
the formats out there, be really expected to "know" that a DVD Multi-recorder
means that they can use a DVD-RAM disc?

Better media availability will help. But the RAMPRG
is arguably hindering as much as helping. Invited to a demo of 16x DVD-RAM
drives and media ahead of their formal launch this past weekend, we were
surprised to see no drive explicitly marked as DVD-RAM.

"That's what the DVD Multi-recorder label means," we were told. Clear
as mud, we thought.

Ironically, all the drives on display were stamped with the
DVD+RW logo. So while RDVDC members are not only failing to make it
obvious that products support DVD-RAM they are also making it abundantly
clear that their products definitely support a rival format.

Ask yourself, if Joe Sixpack buys a new PC with a rewriteable DVD drive
and decides to go and buy some discs to use with it, what's he going to
get? DVD-RAM, because he knows that's a DVD Multi-recorder supported
format, or DVD+RW because that what's what's written on the front of the
tray?

One way around the problem would be to use the 'Super Multi'
terminology and drop the DVD+RW logo, but of course, as RAMPRG members
confessed, "we don't... er... actually have
one".

I have never purchased a drive that
supports the DVD-RAM spec. But, I'm very intrigued with the format, especially
now that a 16x flavor has come along! You can read the article in it's entirety
by visiting The Register here.

Source: The Register