Why not to buy a DVD recorder ! (YET) (DVD Forum)

Member Name: macmilm

Product:	DVD Forum
Date:	23/08/02 (2398 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Compatibilty, Storage Capacity

Disadvantages: Too early to say

The DVD player is the best technological advance since the CD and sales/take up of the devices show this.

Obvious progressions brings us DVD recorders which many consumers have held off getting even a player for.

Well the format wars have been underway for some time now just like the good old days of Betamax and VHS.

The main contenders being DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+RW. Philips claim to be selling the most Recorders but more recently a recording Format known as DVD-BlueRay has been announced which is clearly heads above the rest.

What is Blue Ray:

Blue ray gets its name because instead of using the traditional Red Laser to write to and read from the discs it uses a blue one. As simple as that, well nearly it uses slightly different technology which enables it to cram an amazing 27GB of information onto one side of a standard 12cm disc. This means you can fit 2 - 3 hours of digital video on one side of a disc on its highest quality setting.
Compatibility is too apparently not a problem as the will incorporate dual lasers to still read regular DVD's.

When:

This units will alledgedly hit the high street next year. (Early 2003 Japan - Late 2003 UK (Why are we always last))
Progress is taking place fast as Sony & Matsushita have agreed a definate format for Blue-Ray with other manufacturers to follow.

Sum up:

Although it won't matter as much this time if you get a format that isnt as adopted as one of the others because they all will "Alledgedly" play back DVD's that you would rent from Blockbuster e.t.c, I still feel it would be good to fit a large amount of storage on a disc. Currently on VHS you can fit the best part of 10 hours in long play and to suddenyl jump down to just over an hour on some DVD recording formats will be quite a shock.


My opinion would be to wait. Especially as last time I ended up with the Betamax. Although better than VHS its n
ot good if you can't by the media for it.

UPDATE:
Since writing this I have found the following information...

"Blue Laser, that's the future. The big electronic giants have agreed that the next generation DVD players and writers will be using a blue laser instead of the current red one.

Also agreeing to the format were Japan's Hitachi, Pioneer and Sharp; South Korea's Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics; and France's Thomson Multimedia.

Licensing of the new DVD format will begin in the spring. "

So hold on. The current red laser models are officially old technology and already being replaced despite not even having taken off yet.

Summary: