Ricoh in Cebit
2001
Ricoh's Cebit 2001 booth was very interesting since
it introduced 6 new products to the European audience!
1) DVD+RW/CDR-W combo:
Ricoh
at Cebit 2001 show, had working DVD+RW prototype models. The drive was attached
to a PC and with the help of a digital camera and the proper software you could
write video/data in a DVD+RW disc. Actually first you do the Mpeg2 compression
on the fly (software solution by third party) and then with Sonic 
DVDiT
do the authoring (menus with videos or pictures) and of course burn the DVD+RW
media. Ricoh demonstrated the compatibility of the DVD+RW format at a portable
stand-alone Pioneer DVD player and in PC (with Ricoh's MP9120A combo drive).
The
system recognized the DVD+RW media as a normal DVD disc and with the help of
any DVD player you can playback the DVD+RW media. The DVD+RW drive has 2 lens
in order to be able to write/re-write both CD and DVD+RW media.
In
the left picture you can see clearly the 2 lens. The left (dark) is used for
the DVD+RW format and the white one (right) for the CD format.
The
actual writing speed of DVD+RW is 2.5x. That means a full 4.7GB DVD+RW disc
would need around an hour to be fully written. The DVD+RW media would be able
to re-write more than 1000 times. We didn't tell the exact number.
Also you should expect higher DVD+RW media capacity
up to 15GB to come in 2002. There are some thoughts supporting DVD-RW
writing (like Sony). The drive also supports 12x writing, 10x re-writing, 32x
reading and 8x DVD-ROM reading (and of course "JustLink" - Ricoh's
anti-coaster technology). The drive's code name (maybe MP9320A?) wasn't available
since the drives of the show were prototypes. Last you should expect the drive
around October/November 2001 hitting the market.
2) Ricoh MP7200DP
MP7200DP
is Ricoh's answer to the competition from Yamaha and Sanyo. The drive supports
20x writing (partial CAV), 10x re-writing and 40x reading. Both Yamaha 2200E
and Ricoh MP7200E have the exact same writing/re-writing specs but the Ricoh
drive has "only" 2MB of Buffer.
This drive also uses partial CAV writing which
is very well covered in the press release: "...Even if 20x writing is specified,
writing is performed at 16x speed at the area 5 to 10minutes from the inner
circumference of the disc):
>> 
Ricoh
said that the MP7200DP will come much faster in the market than the Yamaha,Sanyo
based recorders (end of April). We will have to wait and see if that would become
true. Last the drive's price wasn't announced.
3) Ricoh MP8080MPU
Ricoh
enters also the portable recorder arena with a very good looking recorder called
"MP8080MPU" CDR-W. The drive supports 8x writing, 4x re-writing and
24x reading and has silver-look appearance. The drive has 2 interface connections:
USB and PCMCIA card. With USB interface you can have only 4x writing and with
PCMCIA 8x writing.
We assume that the drive will not have "JustLink" technology
since nothing was mentioned in the product specifications. This drive is a direct
competitor of Plextor's portable solutions.
4) Ricoh 24x certified CDR media
The
demand for high-speed writing certified media is very high due to coming of
20x and 24x CDR-W drives. Ricoh has already the answer for the higher writing
speeds up to 24x with certified media in both 74 and 80min capacities.
5) Ricoh MP7163ADP
The drive supports 16x writing, 10 re-writing and only 32x writing
speed. No other information was posted in Ricoh's booth but we assume that the
drive will have 2 MB of buffer among with "JustLink" anti-coaster
technology. If you still wondering why this drive is also published ,since there
is a faster drive of Ricoh the answer is "price". The MP7163DP would
be much cheaper than the faster MP7200DP. The drive also will be used as OEM
for other manufacturers (like in case of ASUS)!
>>> 
6) Ricoh RW8080A
This is the latest internal slim CDR-W drive from Ricoh. The drive
has only 7mm height and supports 8x writing, 4x re-writing and 24x reading.
The drive is manufactured only for OEM use in notebooks (5V single power)! No
information was given if the drive supports "JustLink" or not.
