Cebit 2002 - The Background Info

Without any doubt, CeBIT 2002 was one of the most major IT shows. Even if the number of the participating companies was less by 150 compared to the last year's show, still many new ideas and information about the future was available. In this article we give a general idea of what we saw in the show and we will also present what's new in the optical storage for this year. Cya next year!

DVD Format - Page 1

The most popular question this year was about the DVD format. Which format will be established? Is it the DVD-R or the DVD+R? What about the DVD-RW or the DVD+RW? What about DVD-RAM? For sure no one really knows the answer. We asked the same question numerous of times, we were asked the same question so many other times but the same answer always came up... "Time will show the final winner".

Without any doubt, the DVD+RW alliance promoted heavily the DVD+RW format what was mentioned in every conversation was that the members of the DVD+RW format are really capable enough to strongly promote their stand. Companies like Compaq, HP and Dell have the power to support a certain format for the PC but the final prices will be an issue for the possible customer.

The DVD+RW alliance was very satisfied when Microsoft decided to natively support it within WinXP and in the future operating systems. Microsoft plans to include DVD recording software inside future OS system, since the DVD market is expected to boom in the next few years.

As it current stands, the new DVD+R/RW drives will cost around 700 Euro, when the Pioneer DVR-A04 will cost "only" 600 Euros. The DVD+R media is expected to cost around 10-12 Euros and the DVD+RW media around 17 Euro.

On the other hand, DVD-R media can be now bough at even less than 4 Euros, and has "proven" the highest compatibility with DVD desktop systems. Pioneer announced further reduction of DVD-R/RW prices down to $6 and $10 respectively for their branded media and shortly re-manufacturers will follow.

The DVD+RW alliance claims that the DVD+R will offer the same or even higher compatibility as the DVD-R media (up to 100%). Could this be true? We will have to wait and see. As it currently stands, the DVD+RW media offer a compatibility of 40-50% (despite the fact that the DVD+RW alliance says around 70%) with desktop DVD players.

Of course the DVD+R/RW drives will be faster in both writing/re-writing speeds (2.4x) instead of 2x DVD-R and 1x DVD-RW of Pioneer DVR-A04. Again we believe that many tests will be needed to prove which format is more compatible with the DVD desktop players.