AfterDawn: News

Pioneer announced yesterday that it will cut dramatically its blank DVD disc prices. Price for blank DVD-R disc will drop from $10 to $6 a piece and for DVD-RW from $20 to $10.

Pioneer's move is a clear signal that it is taking a threat from Philips-led DVD+RW consortium which has pushed to make DVD+RW a recordable DVD standard instead of competing DVD-R/RW format.



Pioneer also announced earlier this month that its upcoming A04 DVD burner which will replace existing A03 model, will cost $150 less than what A03 did cost when it came available.

DVD-R/RW and DVD+R/RW discs are not compatible which each others' burners -- so, you can't burn Pioneer's discs in your HP DVD+RW drive and you can't burn Philips' DVD+RW discs in your Pioneer A03/A04 drive. Both formats can be read with virtually any DVD drive, so DVD+RW writers can read DVD-RW discs and vice versa.

And just to add more spices to the alphabet soup, DVD-RAM discs don't work with neither of the standards. But luckily DVD-RAM is virtually dead standard by now, but be aware if you find cheap recordable DVD drives in markets -- DVD-RAM drives are virtually worthless, unless you just need to have one for data backup purposes.

Written by: Petteri Pyyny @ 27 Mar 2002 3:17