Ulead & Panasonic DVD BOMBSHELL

[Jerry Jones]

Panasonic's new "DVDBurner" drive to sell for under $600!!!

http://www.digitalproducer.com/2001/...nasonicdvd.htm

[Dr Mordrid]

And that's an MSRP of under $600....

By the time the discounters and market forces hit they'll probably be $500 or less.

I love capitalism

Dr. Mordrid

[sirhardi]

I am inteerested in this, can't wait i to see if the produced DVD's are cross compatible on other players.....

[dancray]

Don't DVD computer devices have some sort of standard to follow; like CD's with joliet iso9660. The only problem maybe dvd home players...

[sirhardi]

I honestly don't klnow, i dont have one yet, oi do know that for example CD-RW are not playable on all players "cdrom drives",.so i did see some posts in the RT2000 forum that burned DVD's weren't playable on some......but again, this is all so brandnew, it may be better to wait for some feedback on all thisand a generation or two to pass.

[Jerry Jones]

According to the news release, the drive will burn DVD-Rs that are playable on "most" stand alone DVD players.

I really love the idea of having the DVD-RAM as an option because they are re-writable and you can reuse them over and over.

So this really seems like having the best of both worlds!

[KevinG]

Does anyone want to start the comparisons between the two, Panasonics (unknown model#?)and Pioneer's DVR-A03?

Now I'm really confused as to which one to get.


[This message has been edited by KevinG (edited 20 June 2001).]

[Jerry Jones]

Based on what I've read so far, the Panasonic is my choice.

The Panasonic will burn *both* DVD-R - playable in stand alone players and most DVD computer drives - in addition to the DVD-RAM format.

It will also read the various CD types.

And the price is *much* lower.

This is going to be interesting!!

[Dr Mordrid]

FYI:

Gary at VideoGuys posted this today;

"The new RAMBO drives from Panasonic (Combo DVD-R & DVD-RAM) are coming in
July. We'll be offering the bare bones drive kit for $499.95.

The full retail package with some basic software bundle will hit in September.

I'm meeting with the gang at panasonic on Wed the 27th at PC Expo in NYC. I
hope to have the RAMBO drive on our website by month end, and we will begin
taking pre-orders at that time.

Gary"

$499 already!!?? Sheeshhh....there should be a raging price war by fall.

Dr. Mordrid


[This message has been edited by Dr Mordrid (edited 20 June 2001).]

[Jerry Jones]

Yes, you can't help but wonder how this will affect the prices of the turnkey Apple and Compaq systems that use the Pioneer drive.

[mikiem]

Don't think it will matter much to the lower end MAC setups, since that part of the DVD authoring market is more or less made up of casual users -- those least inclined to install a drive in the first place. What Apple does have going for it, is from what I hear the blanks can be had direct for about $10 each!

One note I just read recently, is that the new drives' DVD specs call for hardware dissabling if one tried anything with CSS, though don't think that matters *too* much to anyone here. May even be the key that allowed cheaper drives to surface.

mike

[paulw]

I seemed to remember reading over the past month a report on the Hitachi DVD Camcoder that uses DVDRAM disks that they can't generally be played on current set top DVD players only on PC DVD drives and that they have a 1000 RW life expectancy thouigh 1000 RW is a hell of a lot. PLeaze correct me if I'm wrong about the compatability issue.

[Jerry Jones]

Here's a photo of the new Panasonic DVD-R / DVD-RAM combo drive:

http://www.panasonic.com/industrial_...specs/d311.htm

(It's ATAPI.)

[KevinG]

Ok. I just looked real fast at that link but I saw something that might change my view.

The write speed for DVD-R on the Panasonic looks like 1x speed vs. 2x speed with the Pioneer.

From the link, http://www.panasonic.com/industrial_...specs/d311.htm

Panasonic: 1385KB without verifying

From Pioneer's, http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/Pi...9111775070.pdf
Pioneers: 2X-CLV (2.76 MB/s), 1X-CLV (1.38 MB/s)

[Jerry Jones]

The slower speed, assuming those specs are correct, is not going to be enough to stop budget-minded people from buying the Panasonic drive.

Looks like this Panasonic drive has been in the works for some time.

Here's a link that suggests the very same drive will be sold under the LaCie name and will eventually be available to Mac users with USB and Firewire interfaces:

http://www.insanely-great.com/news/01/734.html