Any thoughts on who will win the DVD R etc. format war

vampyre

I am half thinking of buying a dvd recorder, and yes I know wait prices will drop and all that but I am wondering has anyone seen anything interesting about which format is likely to be dominant. The DVD ram of panasonic seems well fiddley with cartridges and that. Does anyone know yet what format sony are adopting? At the mo, I am leaning towards pioneer.

_CreeD_

DVD RAM is effectlvely dead.

The war is between DVD-R and DVD+RW. -R has most of the existing market share, but that market is tiny at the moment so that doesn't really mean much. DVD+RW is being backed by more major component and content publishers (Eg. Sony, Philips, HP etc.), it claims greater drive compatibility and a few other things over DVD-R, more details are available at www.dvdplusrw.org

vampyre

Had a look at site. There is a claim that DVD ram ie panny is the market leader! The one I find least appealing. But as I wont be sharing the gear I suppose it wont make the world of difference which format I choose in the end.

_CreeD_

Only because DVD-Ram has been around nearly since the beginning of the DVD market (It's the only one of the home recordable formats that was written as part of the original DVD spec). But it's not a competitor really, it's data only, apparently has dire error correction and the larger disks can only be read in DVD-Ram drives anyway. It really is a 2 horse race, -R or +Rw. Imho +RW will win out, mainly because of the folks backing it and the first home DVD recorders use it, it doesn't matter if it really is better or not in the end. Pity, since the media's a lot more expensive than -R, but I guess that'll change in time too.

vampyre

Thats what i felt about the DVD Ram thing. Mind you what was last week a serious idea ie. I am getting a DVD Recorder has taken a dive since there has been a major car wreck here involving the cheque book's 5 week old car being written off. So I will have to wait(being a slipknot fan, and bleed)