DVD group gets Microsoft backing

[Julio Franco]

With this announcement in hand, now you can have a better guess what your next PC will come equipped with. In case you didn’t know, there are two major DVD rewritable formats that have been around for a while supported by different industry giants.

Not meaning to underrate Apple, NEC, Hitachi, etc. efforts, but with Microsoft now openly supporting DVD+RW, I see DVD-RAM having some trouble succeeding in the PC market unless MS decides to give both formats proper support in next OS generations.

The DVD+RW Alliance announced late Monday that Microsoft had joined its ranks, adding that the software giant will also have a seat on its policy-setting team with representatives from Dell Computer, Hewlett-Packard, Mitsubishi Chemical/Verbatim, Philips, Ricoh, Sony, Thomson and Yamaha. The DVD+RW Alliance is a group of companies that promotes and develops the DVD+RW format.

 

[Phantasm66]

This is excellent news.

An end to DVD-RAM would see a standard set in the DVD writing arena. With Microsoft behind the format, drives will become more common and prices will drop, both of drives and of media.

I WOULD LOVE a DVD writer, and the only two things holding me back are the lack of established standards, and the price. This move may do something towards sorting these issues.

And the weirdest thing that will happen is that with the Microsoft acceptance of DVD-RW, DVD-RAM prices will drop dramatically. Then customers, seeing the cheapness of DVD-RAM, embrace it as a format.

Either way, all of this RW + and - and RAM crap gets sorted out and I GET A CHEAP DVD WRITER. That's all I want really at this point, I don't care which company wins.

 

[StormBringer]

ditto Phant, though I would like the winning format to be compatible with my current DVD player