| Yamaha
6416 CD-RW - Part 9 |
Conclusion
Yes, now is the good
time to get one of them and start burning! Backup your important
files and prevent data-loss disasters from happening! Use your
imagination and you will see endless possibilities with a CD-R
drive. Once you have one, you can't live without it <tm>.
Anyway, let us take a
look at what the near future has in store for us beside CD-R drives:
- DVD-RAM.
This was the first rewritable format approved by the DVD Forum,
a consortium of companies that established the original DVD
specification. Last summer, the group approved the 1.0
specification for DVD-RAM, a phase-change design that can hold
2.6GB of data per side on single- or double-sided disks. The
single-sided disks will come in removable cartridges, but to
protect the sensitive recording layer, double-sided disks will
be permanently mounted in cartridges. At least one DVD-RAM drive
manufacturer--Matsushita, which makes Panasonic
products--promises that the drives will also be able to read
PD/CD phase-change disks.
- DVD+RW.
The largest faction to split off from the original specification
is led by Hewlett-Packard, Philips, and Sony which jointly
developed the DVD+rewritable format, or DVD+RW. Philips and Sony
are also members of the DVD Forum and have expressed support for
the DVD-RAM specification; they're backing the DVD+RW
specification because they believe that it will be better suited
for some applications. For instance, Philips has said that
future generations of its DVD+RW drive could conceivably write
CD-R disks, which means users could create content for the huge
installed base of CD-ROM drives.
DVD+RW's
single-layer phase-change disks have more capacity than DVD-RAM
disks--3.0GB per side--and use a higher-density recording process.
The DVD+RW format does not rely on cartridges to hold the disks.
- DVD-R/W.
Pioneer has put forth its own specification, which it calls DVD-R/W.
This is an evolutionary development based on existing CD-RW
technology. It will use random-access media that hold up to
3.95GB. One of this technology's key characteristics is that its
phase-change media have a higher reflectivity than DVD-RAM or
DVD+RW media, and as a result, can be read in existing DVD-ROM
drives and DVD players without modification. Because of this,
DVD-R/W drives are not intended to be end-user products but
instead are to be used by content developers to create disks
that will be read on standard drives.
- MMVF. The
final contender in this list is the Multimedia Video File format
from NEC, also known as MMVF. With a 5.2GB capacity on one side,
the disks hold more data than the first versions of the
competing designs. One important design goal was to be able to
fit a full two-hour movie on one side of the disk.
Just a personal opinion. A CD-R
drive will not get obsolete so soon and if you are still eyeing for
a DVD-RW drive, happy waiting! :)
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