Libraries seeking high-capacity storage at low cost may be considering one of the rewritable DVD drives now reaching the market, but they should proceed with great caution because the industry is divided into four camps with mostly incompatible products. In most cases, a disk using one format won't play on a drive supporting another. Worse, the less successful formats are likely to become obsolete within a year or two.
This is a high stakes undertaking with all of the major consumer electronics companies represented.
Hitachi, Panasonic, and Toshiba have already begun to ship drives supporting DVD-RAM. The drives can both record and play. Double-sided disks which can have up to 5.2 GB of data recorded on them cost $50; single-sided disks with 2.6 GB of capacity are $30. (In contrast, a re-writable CD-ROM disk holds only 650 MB.) The drives will record at 1350 KB per second, or 9x speed. (CD-ROM recorders operate at 2x or 4x.) The drives-which can also play CD-ROM and CD-R disks-cost from $750 to $1,000. The DVD-RAM disks utilize caddies, the same types of holders used in the early days of CD-ROM.
By the end of 1998, DVD+RW will be released by Hewlett-Packard, Mitsubishi, Philips, Ricoh, Sony, and Yamaha. They are expected to hold up to 3 GB per side, record up to 50 percent faster than DVD-RAM, and not require caddies. Prices will be comparable to DVD-RAM disks and drives. Given the marketing muscle of H-P, Philips, and Sony, this format is the most likely to become the standard.
Pioneer is working on DVDR/W, yet a third DUD format. It claims still greater capacity and the ability to play the DUD formats of its competitors. However, the price of the readers will be at least $3,500.
NEC is said to be on the verge of introducing MMUF (MultiMedia Video Format), a fourth format with up to 5.2 GB per side. It will hold up to two hours of video. No price has been mentioned. The companies are likely to battle for a year and to move toward a single standard only when the market has expressed a preference for one or the other formats. Until then, a purchaser risks obsolescence within a very short time.
