[KLUG Members] more on 8mm transfer

[Bryan-TheBS-Smith]

David Hamilton wrote:
> Just curious...Do you really need to write to DVD?
> You can burn mpegs to VCD with just about any cd-burner and
> most DVD players (never seen 1 that couldn't) will read them...

Scott Thurmond wrote:
> No, I don't have to burn them on DVD.  After looking at the cost I think
> VHS will be more cost effective - I have a huge stock pile of 8mm so the
> cost to put on DVD would be out of site.

Oh.  David, I just assumed you were talking to me since you responded to
my E-mail.  My appologies if you weren't.

So, in Scott's case, I'd agree with your recommendation.  VCD *IS* the
"way-to-go" -- especially versus VHS.

As far as recordable/rewritable DVD, there are only 4 options right now
that work in most DVD players:

   Format     Cost  Drives
   ---------  ----  ---------------------------------------
   DVD-R(A)   $  9  Original pioneer DVD-R(A) drives
   DVD-R(G)   $  4  Both 3rd-Gen DVD-RAM and Pioneer DVD-RW
   DVD-RW     $ 15  Pioneer DVD-RW
   DVD+RW     $ 15  Sony/Philips DVD+RW

The first two are "write once" recordable formats.  The original
DVD-R(Authoring) plays in just about any DVD player.  Unfortunately, the
Pioneer DVD-R(A) drives are >$1K!  The newer DVD-R(General) is supported
by both $350 3rd Generation DVD-RAM drives (Panasonic, Mashusita,
Toshiba, others) and the newer $450 Pioneer DVD-RW drives (as well as
forthcoming DVD-RW supporters).  Like the original DVD-R(A), DVD-R(G) is
a DVD consortium standard.

The latter two are "rewritable" formats.  As I mentioned before, DVD-RAM
is designed for archiving, so it is not usable in most players. 
Pioneer's DVD-RW is designed for consumer use, it is a DVD consortium
standard and is supported by their same drive that does DVD-R(G),
released in 2000.  By late 2001, HP is finally shipped the first
Sony/Philips DVD+RW drive in the $550 HPdvd100i, a standard that is not
sanctioned by the DVD consortium and was delayed by over 3 years as S/P
"worked out the bugs" (and had to recall previous attempts ;-). 
Supposedly S/P will release a DVD+R "write once" version with a disk
cost under $5, but that will happen in 2002Q2 at the earliest (and
Sony/Philips has a piss-poor track record on recordable/rewritable DVD
so far ;-).

I know DVD+RW is getting "real popular" with PC vendors because HP is
behind it, but I'm not so sure why S/P couldn't just support DVD-R in
the first place?  Supposedly it has the same specs, let alone Pioneer's
DVD-R player compatibility is _proven_.  I'm sure it doesn't have
_anything_ to do with S/P breaking from the DVD consortium in the first
place so _they_ could control the royalties on the format (*NOT*). 
Again, not so sure about DVD+RW compatibility with existing players yet
(their site has several drives listed, but it is quite a limited list),
although the specs say it should be similar.  Plus we have the whole
issue of _where_the_heck_ is the _cheaper_ "R[ecordable]" version??? 
2002Q2, right?

-- The $0.02 BS

-- 
Bryan "TheBS" Smith     mailto:b.j.smith@ieee.org    chat:thebs413
Engineer   AbsoluteValue Systems, Inc.   http://www.linux-wlan.org
President     SmithConcepts, Inc.     http://www.SmithConcepts.com
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