Faster than 8x DVD burning... when?

[burticus]

Anyone have a guesstimate if we'll see 12x, 16x whatever DVD burners this year?

I'm completely happy with my 4x drive... while I could upgrade to save a few mins of burner time, I'd rather wait until my staples service plan is just about to expire to get the maximum return. I think I've got until at least July and probably before the end of the year.

I'd rather wait 6 months to get 5 min burn times rather than blow the wad too early and grab an 8x...

then again if 8x is it for now, I'll cash out and get that 8x TDK from staples for $150.

[Ian]

Best guess would be 12x by summer and 16x by end of the year. The thing that will probably hold it up is media.

[RJW]

Most mayor brands are first focussing on dual layer technology

Then depending on the succes and the support of taiwanese manufacturers we can expect a couple of different scenario's
Dual layer 2,4x and 12x as next drive
or Dual layer 4x and 16x as next drive.
But that will probally be at the end of the next year.


Latest info says the following:
Benq will release in early JUNE there dual layered burner burns dual layerd disc's at 2.4x and normal media at 8x.
YEP not arpil but June !
Hmm I wonder what's going on ?

[burticus]

Dual layer huh? And I thought dvd +r single layer was picky about the fingerprints...

[RJW]

DVD+R picky for fingerprints. Is motsly a asspect which some cheaper DVD players encounter(including some PS2 models)

Well Philips and Mitsubsihi made a statement 2 months ago about the +R media to be there the second quarter of this year. First april was menthioned as a release date for burners and media. But newer info C't and some others are talking about June as a new release date by Benq. And it looks that Benq has the premier of the first retail drive. Since Philips is more interested in there OEM deals and Philips got the premier for the 8x model. Philips and Benq make there drives together.

For -R Pioneer made the statement that they were working on it at the same time as Philips but they haven't said anything about when it will be released.
Keep in mind Pioneer has made it themselves much harder. First -R is a more dificult system to write as +R and second they want to add backwards support for older models. What models they mean with older models is unknown. Why some rumours indicate that Pioneer was thinking of trying to get the old A06/A05 to be supported the truth does show that it will be allmost impossible get it working which don't have the laser power of a normal 8x dvd burner !

So how do they got the thing to work. Well the best info open to public at this time is stated in this years first issue of german C't.

But let me say this the drive has 2 different layers from which one layer needs the very powerfull laser to burn the pits and lands in the other case it would just let them through. At least that is the theory.

[burticus]

I was just saying that I've found my burnt items to be finicky.... mostly playback in dvd-rom drives (pioneer, lite on etc... no ps2 here).

It's interesting to note that a well place thumbprint effectively killed an applications disc I use frequently (well, until I cleaned it). Yet on the same token, a razor blade swipe to destroy a disc (start on the top, at the hole, dig in and yank straight across... I use this method to destroy sensitve cd-r discs) not only didn't do the job but didn't even seem to faze my dvd-rom drive... I had to seriously gouge the crap out of a disc to make it unreadable. Thick stuff.

But that's a bit off topic anyway.