DVD burners overtaking CD burners

[chiphead]

When do you think this will happen? Already prices are coming down to a point where a CD burner is about 1/4 the price of a DVD burner. Soon we will start seeing DVD burners in sub $1000 machines and then it will be a "must have" feature. I predict that in 6 months we will see a rift change where CDR drives are no longer developed and DVDR will be everywhere for around $100. Manufactures will be hard pressed to give up the lucrative profit margins afforded by the DVDRs considering CDRW drives are sold on slim margins. In order for this to happen, there will need to be a new cash-cow. Enter the blu ray DVDR with extra capacity up to 50GB. The other issue is that DVD RW standard has yet to pick a true winner, but with drives supporting both, this may become a none issue.

[Action Jackson]

I'm starting to sense this too.

DVD burners here are starting to sell for under $300 CDN. Sooner or later, they'll get pretty tempting.

[UALOneKPlus]

I don't think DVD writers will over take CD writers for the immediate future.

Reasons:

1) People burn CD's more often than DVD's - not just because of cost, but because other than video, there's not a great need to back up that much data.

2) Most vehicles can't play DVD audio just yet, so CD's are here to stay for a while;

3) CD writers can be had for $10 or less, while DVD writer formats wars are scaring most ppl, and cost quite a lot more;

4) CD Writers are just too versatile to disappear - for budget systems you can create CD's, VCD's, SVCD, DivX discs, etc...

I just can't see DVD writers overtaking CD writers just yet...

[Tolyngee]

Blu ray may not take too long to come down in price though too.

All up to how much you want to burn, and if it is just for personal use. If mass storage is desired, and only for your own use, well, that makes the format war practically a non-issue.

And disregarding "rebate wars" (not only do you have to wait for the rebate, but you have to trust it will be recevied and honored...):

A CD-RW drive is ~$45 new right now (44x-52x max), while DVD-R burners are $169/$195 new for 2x/4x burners. Considering DVD-R offers 6.4x the storage (700MB vs 4489MB), the DVD burner is cheaper.

CD-R media is $.13 each for bulk generic (and not even 52x, maybe only burnable at 4x, eh...), and more than $.13 each after shipping. 1x DVD-R is $.79 (was $.69!) each shipped. I never found bulk CD-R cheaper than $.155 each including shipping. So, .155 x 6.4 = ~$1.00 which costs more than that $.69/.79 DVD-R.

And the 1x DVD-R will burn and verify faster than the 4x CD-R.

I do mass storage, and haven't touched CD-R since buying my DVD burner. And I still have 1,000+ CD-R to eventually force myself to use...

AS far as the longevity/quality/etc arguments? I personally have never had a problem with a generic CD-R/DVD-R that PASSED VERIFY.

(and I've made a lot less DVD-r coasters than CD-R coasters...)

Oh, lastly, for a quick rant: The Yamaha CD-FW1 (or whatever they called that one that did disc "T@2") is about the worst POS hardware that I've ever bought for my computer systems!

[Action Jackson]

Oh, lastly, for a quick rant: The Yamaha CD-FW1 (or whatever they called that one that did disc "T@2") is about the worst POS hardware that I've ever bought for my computer systems!

Can I ask why you feel this way?

[UALOneKPlus]

Your argument technically is correct, but for most folks, is practically faulty.

How many times has the average person needed to back up 4.7 GB of data? I bet the answer right now is once a year.

I regularly back up 300 MB's of data, which a CD-R will suit very well. Why would I want to waste a 4.7GB $1+ DVD-R to back up 300 MB of data every 3-4 weeks?

It's like buying a SUV to drive two blocks to the grocery store every 7 days versus riding a bike to store every 3 days for your food. Even though the SUV may hold a ton of more groceries than the bike ever could, does it still make sense to buy the SUV versus riding the bike?

DVD's will not take over CD-RW anytime soon...

...A CD-RW drive is ~$45 new right now (44x-52x max), while DVD-R burners are $169/$195 new for 2x/4x burners. Considering DVD-R offers 6.4x the storage (700MB vs 4489MB), the DVD burner is cheaper.

CD-R media is $.13 each for bulk generic (and not even 52x, maybe only burnable at 4x, eh...), and more than $.13 each after shipping. 1x DVD-R is $.79 (was $.69!) each shipped. I never found bulk CD-R cheaper than $.155 each including shipping. So, .155 x 6.4 = ~$1.00 which costs more than that $.69/.79 DVD-R.

And the 1x DVD-R will burn and verify faster than the 4x CD-R.

I do mass storage, and haven't touched CD-R since buying my DVD burner. And I still have 1,000+ CD-R to eventually force myself to use...

AS far as the longevity/quality/etc arguments? I personally have never had a problem with a generic CD-R/DVD-R that PASSED VERIFY.
...

[Ian]

So called "experts" said that DVD-ROM drives would replace CD-ROM's years ago. Not surprisingly, DVD-ROM shipments haven't matched CD-ROM shipments until the last year or so.

I think DVD writers will be the same for DVD writers. The big strike against them right now is price. While they are much cheaper than what they were a year or two ago, adding one to a system still tacks on another $100-$150.

The second strike against them is speed. Do you really want a drive that can read CD's at only 32x or 40x at best and write them at 24x? Personally, I'd have a hard time trading in my dirt cheap 52x writer for a DVD writer. Especially when I'm still burning about 50x more CD's than DVDs'.

Lastly, you have the cost of media. With blank DVD media still running $1-$5 per disc, I don't see many consumers doing a lot of DVD authoring quite yet.

OK, this has turned into an essay, but like it or leave it, its my opinion.

[UALOneKPlus]

We agree, Ian

[BoGMan1a]

I agree, I included 3 drives in my system because of the limitations of my DVD burner. I got the Toshiba DVD-ROM ($25 on Ebay) because I love the one I had in my other system, and I put in the Litey 52x ($45 oem)because it is a great piece of hardware. That being said, how could I justify using a $350 Sony 500AX for chores that these two other drives do so much better at for less than a third of the price . I mean my DVD burner is just that, I will only use it as such. It is a great toy though. Just my take.

[Tolyngee]

Your argument technically is correct, but for most folks, is practically faulty.

How many times has the average person needed to back up 4.7 GB of data? I bet the answer right now is once a year.

I wasn't discussing "most folks", I was discussing "mass storage" needs.

I was stating mass storage needs aren't cost-effective using CDs anymore.

Always seems so silly to make a mention of the apple market today, and find a response of "dunno, orange crops have been hit hard lately."

For mass storage needs, DVD-R wins if you want to save money and time.

I don't remember disagreeing with Ian's (or anyone's) opinion in this thread...(?)

But, yup, disregarding rebate wars, DVD is clearly the winner over CD in regards to speed and cost-effectiveness for users that store mass amounts of data.

Blu Ray might be nice for storing AV with low (or even no?) compression. Paying all that money for a home entertainment system (with more gadgets on the way) with crystal-clear everything just so you can catch every artifact Mpeg2 leaves in the picture isn't what people want. At least it would lower the excuses for the low-quality DVDs on the market today.

To think a CS/EE teacher once told me "no one will ever need more than a 80MB hard drive." (Though didn't Gates himself used to state that no one would ever need more than 640KB of RAM?)

My point is the quicker you make something cost-effective, the faster it becomes mainstream, and the sooner more average people use it, now making it even more cost-effective as it is mass-produced.

And there's nothing average about today's kids (the next consumers) versus the previous generation.

[CDRecorder]

To think a CS/EE teacher once told me "no one will ever need more than a 80MB hard drive." (Though didn't Gates himself used to state that no one would ever need more than 640KB of RAM?)

Yes, I have heard this type of statement too. For example, the time about 10 years ago when "you'll never need 16 MB of RAM". BTW, I currently have 1 GB of RAM in my fastest PC.

But, back on topic, I won't buy a DVD burner until they get cheaper. I wouldn't want to burn CDs on none; they're far to slow for that. Also, I rarely need to copy more than 700 MB of anything at one time.

[Dartman]

I have used mine to back up way more then 300 meg and I have 5 hd of various sizes in here. I also have a tape backup 4mm dds 4/8 unit. The tape is SLOW and never gets much more then 4 gig per tape so I dont use it much anymore. The CDRW is faster but it takes 5 or 6 blanks to get a decent backup of most of 1 drive, but media is dirt cheap. The DVDRW is pretty fast, compresses OK and only takes 1 or 2 media to get most of 1 drive. Media is more spendy but not bad compared to buying tapes, or spending time sitting here feeding multi cheap disk to a unit.
So I use em all depending on how big the backup is going to be, how much time I want to take stuffing in multiple media, and how long I want to take when I need to restore from the backups.
The 2 burners are more safe as far as media holding up I think, and the restores go a lot quicker even feeding multiple disks.
If I could find a tape unit that could do 10 or 20 gig fast and didn't cost a arm and a leg for the drive and media I'd use them again.
As a side note as cheap as hard drives are getting you could pick up a big drive and a cage and use it for backups and almost be ahead of the game for most people also.