The two groups striving to make their respective formats the standard for rewritable DVDs used this week's Consumer Electronics Show as an opportunity to demonstrate their progress.
"The price of drives is coming down after a big drop in 2001, so they're finally getting down to prices consumers are comfortable with," said Jon Peddie, CEO of Jon Peddie Research.
The Recordable DVD Council advances products approved by the DVD Forum, which consists of companies that manufacture discs and drives for the DVD-RAM, DVD-RW and DVD-R formats. The forum includes companies such as Hitachi, Pioneer and Panasonic.
Its rival, the DVD+RW Alliance, supports the DVD+RW format. Its member companies, which also manufacture discs and drives, include Hewlett-Packard, Dell Computer and Sony.
The group is also counting on DVD Multi to help sales. The new specification allows future drives to read all three DVD Forum formats: DVD-R, DVD-RW and DVD-RAM. Hitachi is expected to release a drive based on the specification early this year.
But John Spofford, chairman of the DVD+RW Alliance and an HP vice president, said there are downsides to Multi DVD.
"It doesn't preserve the investment that consumers have made in DVD drives that they bought before the spec came out," he noted.
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DVD-R/DVD-RW/DVD-RAM/DVD+RW... What do you mean, confusing? Read the full article here.
Source: C|NET
