Increased DVD Rewritable speeds? When?

[club_ice]

I like the new increases in DVD-Recordable format, but I want increased Rewritable speed as well. I use Rewritable discs often, my current LG 4x/2.4x/12x burner is nice, and I want to upgrade it, but the rewrite speed is only up to 4x.

When do you think we will see some 8x DVD+RW or 8x DVD-RW drives come out with 16x DVD read speeds, and 12x+ DVD+/-R speeds????????

[Scour]

Hello!

Can take a while. The newest 16x-DVD-Rewriter are not faster than 4x in RW.

[Kennyshin]

There were once drives of 32x CD-R and 10x CD-RW.

For example, the LG GCC-4320B has the following writing speeds.

http://www.cdrlabs.com/reviews/index.php?reviewid=145

32x CD-R
10x CD-RW

And reads CD-ROM at 40x and reads DVD-ROM at 16x.

Most media manufacturers and drive manufacturers are switching to 16x DVD writables, but not 8x to 16x DVD+RW/-RW. Even though most CD-R or combo drives on the market today can write CD-R at 52x max and CD-RW at 32x max, one is likely to use the drives with 52x CD-R media and 4-12x CD-RW media as 24-32x CD-RW media are hard to find.

http://www.rima.com/Merchant2/merchant. ... y_Code=CM1

52x CD-R writing is about as fast as 6x DVD+R writing speed. 10x CD-RW writing is about as fast as 1x DVD-RW writing speed. We are luckier now than before to use 4x DVD+RW media.

Will the cost to develop and mass-produce 8x DVD+RWa and 8x DVD-RW media be justified by enough demand? I guess not since most people don't even buy more than 10 DVD+RW and DVD-RW disks. Look at this:

http://www.rima.com/Merchant2/merchant. ... y_Code=DVW

DVD+RW 2.4x and 4x media are not that expensive. If one rewrites the disks even just 10 times, it's worth to spend 2x the money. Even then, the DVD+RW media market is very small. Annually, 6 billion or so CD-R media are sold. Try to guess how many DVD+RW media are sold. It's just millions in a month which means less than one million for each of the most manufacturers, probably the only exception being Ritek. Now compare that with Blu-ray rewritable disks. Ritek can earn more profits from Blu-ray than DVD+RW because Blu-ray costs 20x more. Order 1,000 4x DVD+RW disks if you want to see DVD+RW 8x, if ever.

[Wesociety]

Kenshin, that was a very good explanation of the cost/development process.

However, as we have seen in the past with other things, higher speed DVDRW media may still be developed further just for the sake of a marketing gimick.

Even if a consumer is not going to EVER use Super High Ultra Lightning Speed 8X DVD+RW,
The feature still looks nice in big bold letters on the front of a retail box.
And theoretically, it would pursuade some consumers to buy an "8X DVD+RW" drive over another drive that only supports 4X DVD+RW.

[club_ice]

I understand the whole demand / supply / cost thing, am an Economics major myself. I have seen these 24x and 32x CDRW drives but its true, it is hard to find media that supports that speed, I see 10x and 12x tops. DVD-RW at 4x might be good enough I guess then, I just rewrite alot of discs for backup purposes of music, programs, patches, etc.

[digitaldoc]

Most stores by me only have 12x cdrw media, 40 to 48x cdr media, and more 4x than 8x dvd+r media, and dvd-r 4x media. Yes, progress is slow. And the stores will continue to stock this until it is sold out and they have to reorder.

[dolphinius_rex]

just in the last week many stores in my area have now picked up imation and verbatim 24x CD-RWs, and even Verbatim 32x CD-RWs

[Shredder]

Some local computer stores around me just started selling DVD+DL discs for $7 US each and I thought they are slow...

[dolphinius_rex]

Some local computer stores around me just started selling DVD+DL discs for $7 US each and I thought they are slow...

What kind? and where are you?

[Shredder]

What kind? and where are you?

Probably either Verbatim or Ritek. Virginia/Maryland. I think pricing should be same or similar through out North America since it seems like a calculated price. It was around $20 when it first came out, then $15 (25% off) and now $7 (approximately 66% off from original price or 50% off from $15). The local stores that carry them probably have limited number in stock.