Checking Out Chips to Camcorders

Enterprise Networks & Servers, May 2004 by Hoover, George

Inside Looking Out

While you have been busy with our cameras and camcorders we ttended PMA, the camera/camcorder manufacturers; Intel Developers Forum (IDF), the big name in chips, their customers and developers; and NAB, the broadcast folks. They all have a different idea on how to separate you from your money and who is going to dominate your home and your life.

First, let us give you a snapshot of who's doing what to whom in DVD storage.

Remember those super fast 8x DVD burners of four months ago? They are now at fire sale prices. A few manufacturers (BenQ and Plextor) introduced 12x burners a couple of months ago. Even before those units hit the shelves 16x units from LiteOn, NEC, BTC and AOpen were being introduced. While 8x media is only now becoming widely available at very "reasonable" prices, the buyers of 12x and 16x burners are hunting around for a few good higher speed disks at any price.

The names you trust like Pioneer, HP, Sony are still selling every 8x dual burner they can make (oh yes, HP finally decided that R/RW only burners wasn't a cause worth losing sales over) and will slowly move to 16x dual burners when media is available. Producers like LG, Samsung, Sanyo and Panasonic are still flying under the radar when it comes to speed. As for 12x media, most of these burner manufacturers chose to push the 8x media outside the specifications (treading on thin ice unless the best media is used). Others recommend higher speed media that could be written at the slower speeds (a more sane approach).

What's the hold up? That dirty word - specifications - which allows you to write quality media on any burner and play it on any recorder or player. It's just easier to speed up a burner than produce quality media.

It takes time for the standards groups to agree. Then coating, dye and chemistry firms like Mitsubishi have to develop the potions that can be reliably written and read at those speeds, deliver a long data life as well as be universal in their playback. Will there be another speed bump in the road at 20 or 24x? We simply don't know!

What we do know is that every first and second tier media manufacturer is adding DVDR production lines as quickly as possible to satisfy your lust for storing/sharing great video, TV and movies. Nearly 350 million DVDR discs were produced last year. First tier firms like Ritek, Verbatim, CMC, Taio Yuden install production lines as quickly as possible while second tier organizations like Prodisc, Lead Data and others purchase older equipment or convert CD production lines to punch out DVDR. This year it is estimated that these firms will produce nearly 700 million write-once disks most in the 4x speed range.

That should be enough media (in varying degrees of quality) to keep your burner busy.

If you were to believe the Hollywood moguls, you're busy with that media taking money out of their pockets by making backup copies of your theater-quality movies. The courts have said that a backup is legal but the approach 321 Software took is illegal. So 321 abided by the ruling and is replacing their software on the shelves with "compliant" software. Of course they also set up an offshore Web site that lets you download the keys to the movie protection code.

That doesn't seem right - making you an integral part of their defense. The fact is your copies shouldn't even be on Hollywood's financial radar. Very large amounts of DVDR media goes to places like China and India for the duplication of DVD-Video movies. These "back-of-shop pirates" are having a field day copying movies onto DVDR disks. Analysts believe 150 million disks were used for this "application" in 2003. It could be three times larger this year if professional pirate replicators cannot meet demands.

Maybe if Hollywood spent more time discouraging these folks you wouldn't have to feel guilty about making a backup copy of the movies you buy?

Double Layer Is Here - Barely

Sony, HP and Philips have started shipping their double layer (8.5GB) burners and the great news is they also write to your single layer (4.7GB) disks. Pioneer will begin shipping their unit very shortly so you can expect the plus and dash issues to continue.

You'll be pleasantly surprised to learn that the double layer burners won't cost much more than the single layers units.

Also the media is available at about the same time as the burners hit the stores. The cost is about double that of quality single layer disks but that seems only reasonable since the media holds twice as much data. There will be shortages because only a couple of firms have the expertise in producing the media. They will be licensing the technology but the front-end investment is not insignificant. So most of the media manufacturers simply wait until there is a huge demand for the higher capacity media; think the first of next year.

Now back to hardware. If you've been looking for a DVD recorder for your TV and direct camcorder download you'll notice they are now capable of doing dual DVD /-R/RW and CD burning. Some are being called AllWrite which loosely means, "We give up trying to tell you what to use. Do what you want!"