DVD-R Plays to the Mainstream

If the DVR-A03’s price tag is too steep, you might also consider Panasonic’s upcoming LF-D311 DVD-RAM/DVD-R drive, to be priced under $700. It burns at only 1X and doesn’t write CD-R or CD-RW, but it’ll get you into the game for around half the cash, and of course reads and writes DVD-RAM. For occasional transfer of digital video captures to DVD, the LF-D311 is probably fine. But the 2X DVR-A03 cuts a half hour off the write time of every full disc, which makes it a worthwhile investment for anyone who uses the drive everyday for professional purposes.

There are also competing standards to consider. Rewritable DVD-RAM technology from Panasonic, Hitachi and Toshiba offers the same capacity, but is considerably slower and offers almost no compatibility with existing movie players or DVD-ROM drives. Then there’s HP’s and Philips’ (Sony recently jumped on the bandwagon) 4.7GB DVD+RW, which is said to offer almost complete compatibility with present readers. I’ve been told that DVD+RW drives will ship later this year, but I’ve also heard much the same thing for almost three years without so much as a piece of beta hardware to show for the experience. If and when DVD+RW does show up, it could give DVD-RW a run for the money.

Though I wish it wrote DVD-RW, CD-R and CD-RW formats faster, I’m giving the DVR-A03 the highest praise I can bestow on any product by saying simply that I want one — badly. I suspect there will be a lot of folks who will feel the same way. And for many streamers, this multifunctional object of technolust happens to be a justifiable purchase on several grounds.