Beyond the Office
May 18th, 2004
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May 18th, 2004
Burning Questions: Good-Bye CD-RW, Hello DVD
Assoc. Ed. Melissa J. Perenson
Every computer system needs an optical drive: Without one, there'd be
no way to install Microsoft Windows (or any other software, for that
matter). But CD burners are so yesterday. DVD burners are hot--and may
be all you really need when you're buying a new PC, or upgrading an
old one.
All Indicators Point to DVD
Everyone, from computing neophytes to savvy enthusiasts, talks about
burning DVDs. According to a recent study by IDC, 11 million
households will likely buy a DVD burner for their PC in the next 18
months. That's nearly twice the number of households IDC estimated
would gravitate towards DVD in a similar study released just nine
months earlier.
What accounts for the unexpected surge in interest? Well, for one
thing, DVD remains a golden technology in the consumer electronics
world. Sales of prerecorded DVDs continue to blast through records.
And nearly 70 million DVD players are already in living rooms, dens,
and bedrooms across America, with sales this year running ahead of
what they were last year.
It follows, then, that consumers would eagerly turn to the next big
thing in DVD: namely, DVD recording. This became especially true once
aspiring do-it-yourselfers realized that they could make their own
movie discs--thereby preserving treasured memories currently stored in
various aging recording formats such as VHS, Betamax, VHS-C, and 8mm.
The idea of DVD burning is attractive to users, notes analyst Wolfgang
Schlichting, author of the IDC study. "The highest ranked reason to
purchase a DVD burner was to have the latest technology--a typical
thought of a PC user, who often wants to have the latest and greatest
technology on their PC," says Schlichting.
The same IDC study notes that getting a DVD burner is a conscious
decision for consumers: Barely 2 percent of respondents indicated that
they only planned to get one because they were buying a new PC, and
most PCs happen to come with a DVD burner. People know what they want,
and they know why they want a DVD burner. The leading reasons continue
to be focused around video-centric activities, including recording
televised content, transferring content from previously recorded
videotapes, and creating and preserving home movies.
Schlichting isn't surprised that users' intended usage of DVD burners
is driven by video. After all, he says, "DVDs are thought of as video
technology, more than a data technology."
On a Fast Track
Considering the red-hot nature of the DVD market, it's no wonder that
vendors are gearing up for big sales--and pushing the technology
further, faster than originally expected.
For example, a representative for Plextor, maker of the June 2004
top-rated drive, the PX-708A, says that by the end of 2003, its
business was split evenly between CD-RW and DVD burners. This year,
the company expects the split to tilt to 70-30 in favor of DVD.
Manufacturers are pushing 16X DVD+R drives to market this summer,
several months ahead of schedule--and at least six months ahead of 16X
media's anticipated mass-market availability.
"I think there's more incentive for component manufacturers [to bring
out 16X], because there's a large market of users out there, ready to
[buy] DVD drives," says Schlichting.
Plextor Vice President of Sales and Marketing Howard Wing credits the
surge in demand with a drop in prices: "DVD prices have come down
dramatically over the last year. There are more and more manufacturers
who are building components--which in turn drives prices down." In
July 2003, the average price of an internal drive on our "Top 10 DVD
Drives" chart was $266; this year, the average price is $152, just $60
more than a top-of-the-line CD burner:
http://pcwnl.pcworld.com/t/86532/15377831/239044/0/
And that's another reason why people are flocking to recordable DVD.
Wing notes that for a small incremental cost, you can purchase a DVD
burner instead of CD-RW drive--and still get fast CD burning.
Plextor's PX-708A drive, an 8X DVD burner, is one of several on our
chart to support 40X CD-R writes, and Plextor's just-shipped PX-712A,
a 12X DVD burner, is the first to market with 48X CD read and write
speeds. With speeds like that, who needs a dedicated CD-RW drive?
The Two-Drive Two-Step
PC vendors tell me all the time that buyers of pricey power systems
want, and expect, to have two optical drives (the second one is
typically a CD-RW drive). Indeed, the advantage of dual-optical drive
configurations is a long-held perception among PC users. After all,
when you have two drives, you can copy a disc directly from one drive
to the other, without first copying the disc to your hard drive.
Sure, that process seems convenient: You don't have to swap discs, and
you can leave your PC unattended while the disc copy is in progress.
However, as Plextor's Wing observes, there's no significant time
savings to be had by copying a disc from one drive to another, as
opposed to copying the disc to your hard drive and then burning that
copy to another disc in the same drive. And what savings there is will
depend largely on the combination of drives you're using.
Consider the example of my three-year-old home system, and my
experience when copying content on a CD from one drive to the other.
I'd added an 8X DVD burner alongside my ancient 12X CD-RW drive. The
read speed of that CD-RW drive was rated at 32X, less than the DVD
burner's 40X CD burn and read speeds. Between the slower disc read
speed, and the fact that most software programs perform a disc-to-disc
copy by first transferring the original disc to a cache on the hard
drive anyway, the CD disc-to-disc copy seemed sluggish.
Copying disc-to-disc wasn't tangibly faster than when I ripped the
content from my DVD burner to my hard drive (either by copying the
content, or by creating an image of the disc), and then burned it from
the hard drive to a DVD. And this gave me the added benefit of being
able to archive that disc's content on my hard drive. If I ever need
to make another duplicate, I won't have to copy the content again--a
particular advantage with discs that have a high likelihood of getting
scratched while in use, such as audio CDs.
CD-RW Still the Corporate Choice
Dedicated CD-RW burners will still have a place, according to Wing:
"In corporate America, they're buying rewritable CD burners, and I
don't see that changing, regardless of the price of DVD."
And the concept of dual optical drives remains a valuable one--if you
supplement your fast DVD burner with a DVD-ROM drive instead of a
CD-RW drive. This way, before sending a disc you've just burned to
Grandma, you can make sure it works on a drive other than the one you
burned it in.
Disc compatibility remains an issue with DVDs, especially considering
the twin complexities of different media formats (+R, +RW, -R, -RW)
and DVD authoring software. But while the era of the single optical
drive is here, it's still in its infancy. For example, not all of the
forthcoming 16X DVD burners have the same speedy specs for CD-RW; so
if fast CD writing capabilities are important to you, check on that
feature before buying a burner.
Read Melissa J. Perenson's regularly published "Burning Questions"
columns:
http://pcwnl.pcworld.com/t/86532/15377831/239045/0/
==
"Men tire themselves in pursuit of rest." -- Laurence Sterne
"Democracy is the theory that the common people know
what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard."
-- H.L. Mencken
