About a year ago there was a discussion on the old VN board about one of the reasons some fans have experienced problems playing the DS Special Edition DVD being that there's as yet no standard recording/encoding format for DVDs. Well, it looks like the industry is
finally getting its act together by trying to come up with that standard. The only problem is it still hasn't been decided if this new standard will be compatible with DVDs that are already on the market. But I suspect that the industry would be making a colossal mistake if it didn't make the future geneneration of DVD players/recorders able to continue to at least decode and playback the already existing recording/encoding formats.
DVD Recording Standard Stirs InterestNine top companies have signed on to create a new DVD recording standard, hoping to ease the current confusion in the market. Today, consumers must sign on--by dint of the brand of recorder they pick--to one of three standards: DVD-RAM (backed by Matsushita and Toshiba), DVD-RW (endorsed by Pioneer), or DVD+RW (pushed by Philips, Sony, and others). Competing standards and the still-steep prices of DVD recording hardware are serving to hold back what otherwise looks like a breakout market.
The as-yet unnamed new standard will be cross-platform, encompassing consumer set-top hardware and PC hardware. "The goal is to have one standard and not have anybody jump ship on it," says Andy Marken, communications coordinator for the Recordable DVD Council.
The nine companies are Hitachi, LG Electronics (maker of Zenith products), Matsushita, Philips, Pioneer, Samsung, Sharp, Sony, and Thomson. Toshiba is not currently involved but is expected to join soon.
According to one estimate, the standard could be published as soon as mid-2003. Whether the standard will be backward-compatible with existing DVD formats is not yet clear.
For more on the promise of this standard, click
here
