Regarding double layer technology, most of people overlooked key point that is compatibility with existing DVD players and drives. Since firmware needs to be upgraded, technically most of existing DVD players and drives CAN NOT READ the disc written by double layer technology. Imagine, you buy Sony?s double layer DVD drive, which is $50 higher price than normal drive, and double layer 2.4X+R disc, which is Yen1,500 in Japan (equivalent to$12.5 per disc!). You?ll record your family video image on the double layer disc and take to your DVD player in living room. Then very likely your DVD players CAN NOT play the disc!! Manufactures don?t mention about this problem but this is already common knowledge in the industry. For a while after launch of double layer technology, it?s useless at least for consumers.
mmmmmm...i hope you are wrong, but I must admit I have a sneaking gut feeling that you are correct. I was never really interested in adpoting this technology in it's infancy. It will be interesting to see how this situation pans out on the short term.
All DVS loaders DVD players will play Dual Layer discs no problem. But, there is no reason that a player that can read DVD R's, wont be able to read Dual layer ones. The lasers in all DVD players have the ability to change to read through one layer to the second, as well as reading hte first. This will be the same with a Dual layer, except that the data will be written and not pressed....
I am using my Nero 6 Ultra right now - the Nero 6 Suite that comes with the Burner doesn't have all the options that Ultra has, so I didn't bother with it.
I burned a little video file into the Mini-DVD format and it actually worked on my standalone DVD players! (Nero 6 Ultra has a cool Mini-DVD mode that lets you format a CD-R into a DVD-Style file system so you can burn segments of DVDs onto it and watch it on DVD players)Of course, it could only fit a 10 minute battle scene from Lord ofthe Rings Two Towers - but impressive technology nonetheless!
I can't wait for the DL Discs. I won't have to shrink any of my backups ever again! But they need to get cheaper for me to want to make any backups of my discs. At $12 a piece, I might as well just pay the 3 extra bucks and re-purchase my DVDs if they get messed up!
Sony's DRU-700A ($199), the first shipping dual layer-capable DVD recorder, performs mostly as advertised. It easily accomplished 7GB+ DVD-Video burns with the bundled Nero software on several Verbatim DVD+R DL discs provided for testing. Playback compatibility was mixed, however, with a 43% success rate on roughly 70 set-top players, portables, ROM drives, and burners.
Thanks for the article - I'm actually impressed he got 43% success rate. Hopefully in the next few months/year, better Media will come out and a DVD-R_DL Firmware Upgrade for the Drive will be available.
Luckily for me, all my Standalone DVD players in my house all read Multi-Format DVD+/-R/RW Discs. So I have high hopes for my success.
