History (1999): HP, Philips and Sony Launch DVD-RW Drives

If we believe the announcements of the 3 main protagonists in this market, the first DVD+RW drives should be marketed this autumn.

Hewlett-Packard evokes November for Europe, Philips says September and Sony hints vaguely at sometime in the fall of 1999.

For now, Yamaha and Ricoh, which are also part of the DVD+RW consortium, have yet to make a move.

Mitsubishi/Verbatim are waiting in the wings to make the media, which should cost around $30 a piece.

Their respective models, each at 3GB capacity, should run roughly $700.

Philips announced $699, which means slightly higher than competing DVD-RAM drives with 2.6GB per side.

HP (internal SCSI DVD Writer 3100i) should obtain the drives from Sony (the DRX I0I S/C model) and, according to a source inside Philips (DVD+RW 3.0GB unit), the Dutch company will also call upon the same manufacturer, waiting until the arrival of the 4.7GB model before commencing its own production.

As a result, the chances are good that all of the first DVD+RW units could roll out of the same factory, at least in the beginning.

Basic specs of the drive are as follows: 3GB on one side of the disk, read and write DVD+RW media from 1X to 1,25X (equivalent to 1.38 to 1.7MB/s), read capability for DVD-ROMs between 1X and 2.5X, 24X for CD-ROMs, CAV technology, read (only) DVD-ROM and video, CD audio, CD-ROM, CD-R and CD-RW.

Both have phase-change technology, and both are standardized with ECMA, with the CD+RW a little faster than current DVDRAMs, although Toshiba has just launched an enhanced DVD-RAM device, the SW-W1111 ($599), which comes close, with a R/W transfer rate of 1.35MBs/s.

CD+RWs need no protective cartridge. However, they have at least 3 weaknesses.

The greatest problem, in our view, is that the number of write cycles is limited to 1,000, compared to 100,000 for its rival, which does limit its computer applications.

The 3GB capacity is similarly limiting, less than the 4.7GB of DVD-ROM (which also explains why current DVD-RAMs, at 2.6GB, are not enjoying much success).

DVD+RW disks (like DVD-RAM media) are not readable by current DVD-ROM drives, which require a minor modification for this functionality.

In the same sense, it is surprising to see Philips not setting the example, and instead announcing its brand new 6x DVD-ROM unit, the PCA632DK, with no mention of the possibility of reading its own forthcoming DVD+RW media.

In other words, the success of the HP/Philips/Sony trio is far from guaranteed.

In the opposing camp, that of the DVD Forum, there is also considerable activity. To counter the adversary at the earliest possible moment, Matsushita/Panasonic have responded with the announcement of the development (only) of the world’s first 4.7GB single-sided and 9.4GB double-sided DVD-RAM drives, whose physical disk format was finalized as version 2.0 by the Working Group 5 of the DVD Forum.

Toshiba and Hitachi are also on the case, which should lead to products shipping somewhere around 1Q20.

Between these rival rewritable disk factions, Pioneer has had a tough time finding a niche for its DVD-R drive, which, although easily capable of storing 4.7GB on only one side of the disks, nonetheless costs a cool $5,400. Even if this price has fallen considerably (it was worth 3x as much 3 years ago), it’s still high. One important note: the $35 DVD-R media are readable in almost all DVD-ROM drives.

This article is an abstract of news published on issue 139 on August 1999 from the former paper version of Computer Data Storage Newsletter.